Brits spent 5 days streaming music in 2021 averaging 2,342 tracks according to figures released by the Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA). The new peak for UK streaming, which drove UK music industry revenues to an eight year high, are contained in the latest edition of the ERA Yearbook, the definitive UK statistical overview of the music, video and games markets.
As an antidote to many in the music business who portray music streaming as having been bad for both the music industry and musicians, Kim Bayley, CEO of ERA argues that ‘despite the enormous success of streaming services in returning the UK music industry to growth the “streaming revolution is unfinished business”.’
She goes on to say that “A music industry which was dead on its feet due to piracy and genuinely struggling with what to do about it has been rescued and returned to health,” there is still room for improvement, highlighting a number of key areas:
- The allocation of revenues from streaming;
- Flaws in the data supplied to streaming services by the music industry;
- More transparency;
- Properly doing the “homework” on new distribution methods such as “user-centric”.
The full text of Bayley’s statement can be found here.
How streaming transformed the music business
(data from the ERA Yearbook 2022)
- £3.5 Bn delivered to UK labels, music publishers, artist songwriters and producers over the past 10 years.
- Music industry has grown 38% since 2015
- Reduction in piracy from 95% to 10%
- Over 35 UK music streaming services
- Different payment options support a range of users (Free to access, Individual subscription, Family plan, Student discount)
- Supporting new talent such as Amazon Breakthrough, Spotify Radar, YouTube Foundry and Deezer Focus
- Empowering artists – YouTube Analytics for Artists, Spotify for Artists
- 3 times as many artists share in the top 90% of revenues as in the pre-streaming age
- 70% of streaming revenues go back to the music industry (record label, music publisher, artist, songwriter, producer)
The ERA Yearbook which contains 108pp of detailed statistics on the UK entertainment industry is freely available for download here.
