COVID-19 will stop Italian music growth in 2020 setting back the best results in five years for the industry in 2019 with growth of 8% which reached a total of €247 million. With the entire music supply chain stopped for more than a month because of the Coronavirus pandemic the effects on the Italian record industry are already being felt. There has already been a drop in the physical segment (CDs and vinyl) of over 60% and on related rights of over 70% due to the closure of commercial establishments and the absence of events. Even streaming has been affected due to the absence of new releases, which usually act as a driving force for listeners, and poor consumer mobility (according to IFPI data, in Italy 76% of those who listen to music do so in the car, and 43% on the journey from home to work).
The growth in 2019 was mainly driven by a 26.7% increase in streaming which increases the share of digital to 70% of all revenues. Ad supported free streaming video services also had a good year increasing from €18 million to €21 million but once again highlighted the Value Gap on platforms such as YouTube.
Physical products continue their sharp decline with CDs dropping 20.9% with only vinyl bucking the trend with a growth of 7.3%.
In 2019, the Italian government gave a ‘Culture Bonus’ of €500 to every 18 year old to spend on books, concert tickets, theatre tickets, cinema tickets, museum visits, and trips to national parks. This generated almost €20 million for the record industry and FIMI sees this a possible model to extend this bonus to a wider audience of consumers together with the expansion of tax credits for record productions, to revitalise the record industry after the COVID-19 crisis is over.
The results also show that home produced Italian music represented 87% of the best-selling albums in 2019 (one of the highest national repertoire percentages in the world). In common with many other industries in Italy and elsewhere the record industry is looking to government for tax breaks and subsidies to boost consumption after the crisis.
