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Streaming helps ensure US recorded music market decline only slight

By | Published on Wednesday 19 March 2014

RIAA

As the IFPI released its big batch of global digital stats yesterday, the Recording Industry Association Of America also revealed its sales data for 2013, and whereas Europe generally saw growth while Japan experienced significant decline last year, America was, “meh, pretty much as 2012”.

Streaming music revenue – including subscription services and all-important ad-revenue from free-to-access platforms like Vevo, YouTube and Pandora – was up 39% last year generated $1.4 billion in revenue. It means that in the US this revenue stream is now accounting for over a fifth of recorded music income overall.

This growth helped ensure that 2013 revenues overall were pretty much on par with 2012 (down 0.3%) at just under $7 billion, despite CD income continuing to fall, by 12.3% this time, and – as much noted previously – the download market has also peaked Stateside, with iTunes-style monies down 1% in 2013 to $2.8 billion.

Said the RIAA’s VP of Strategic Data Analysis Joshua Friedlander yesterday: “All of this shows the music industry today has grown into a diverse digital business teeming with a wide variety of innovative services catering to all types of music fans”. And hurrah to that.



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