The Impact of streaming on the recorded music industry

What is streaming and how does it benefit the music industry?

Streaming is listening to music via the internet through apps such as Spotify, Apple music and soundcloud.  When streaming music you are not downloading it in file format therefore there is an endless stream of data.

The concept of legally streaming music has overall saved the music industry of today.  For example…

Due to Apple music and Spotify reached 100 million paying subscribers last year which was a huge milestone for the industry as it means that artists and songwriters and finally starting to get fairly paid revenue for the streams of their music.  Artists such as Drake brought in 4.7 Billion streams last year, and spotify collected royalties from each and every one of these streams which was then handed to Universal Music Group.  Just from Drake’s streaming income Universal Music gained £1.1 Billion, so streaming is now seriously counteracting the worrying fall in sales of digital downloads and CD’s.  Warner music gained a similar income from huge artists such as Bruno Mars, who fuelled their highest revenues to date from only streaming services.  

What it could look like soon...

Due to the huge heightening of paid music streaming usage, the effects are as follows...

• Prediction
  It has been predicted after analysis of the current streaming figures that streaming revenue may well double today’s amount (reaching £104 Billion by 2030!)
• Potential end of piracy
  As more and more people now turn to the popular music streaming apps and websites, it is quite possible that less people will illegally download music as it is way less popular of a habit compared to paying monthly for an app like spotify.  
• There  has been an almost sudden jump in the popularity of streaming music and there are features you gain on streaming music apps that aren’t really available when illegally downloading music.  I did some research among some family and friends to prove my theory that these features are relevant to the gain of streaming popularity and other potential impacts.*
• A graph from ‘ifpi’ shows from last year that a whole 50% of last year’s musical income came just from digital revenues which is the money generated from people playing music on spotify and Apple Music.
  However this graph also demonstrated that less of the sales in the music industry are generated by physical format sales (only 34%).  This means that less people are buying music in the form of objects like CD’s, Vinyl and tapes which is a shame in the sense that artists really do put time and effort into the things like CD covers and booklets and the ‘look’ of their album however the manufacturing of this type of format costs a lot more than digital formats.  So another, less positive impact of streaming is that increasingly less people will buy artist’s CD’s, threatening CD providers across the country.
• On the contrary to this, Vinyl is now on the uprise.  There are a number of potential reasons for this but one of the most popular theories is described as ‘retromania.’ This is caused by some of the best, newer artists are basing their music and image on more classic ones artists, meaning that their fans feel more inclined to purchase a more ‘classic’ format of their music. music.  A few real life examples of this would be bands/artists like the 1975, Arctic Monkeys and Lana Del Rey...
  
  
• Another potential reason for this is the impact streaming has had.  Younger people have become more interested in the more classic forms of music because particular young generations right now are only ever really exposed to digital formats of music
  Indie on the rise...
  
  
• In a recent interview I found online, the head of an independant record label states "Although the internet has always been massively important for my business, allowing me to sell direct to fans, I've always viewed streaming as a promotional tool rather than a revenue generator,"
  
  
  There was two impacts I could reveal from this and one of those is that streaming sites give a significant advertisement platform for artists.  Labels can put their bands’ music on these streaming sites as adverts as well as just songs/albums meaning that their potential fan base is more likely to find them.
  
  
  The second impact I am also aware from my own paid subscription to Spotify is that on streaming sites, you don’t necessarily need to search a specific artist/song in order to listen to them.  Spotify have set up a system where it will automatically play tracks during your listening period that it feels are well associated with the songs/artists that you already listen to.  It also has features such as the ‘Discover Weekly’ playlists for subscribers.  The impact this has on the music industry is that indie artists are way more accessible to listeners today than 5 years ago.  You no longer need to hunt for those obsolete CDs in record stores, they are put right in front of you on your smartphone daily.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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