As we head into 2024, CMU recently sat down with the bosses of many of the music industry’s trade organisations to talk about their work, the key challenges faced by their members, and what to expect in the year ahead. Today, Jo Twist, CEO of BPI, the trade organisation for the UK’s recorded music industry.
Explore the full series of interviews
What were some of the big projects and initiatives for BPI last year?
Firstly, the organisation celebrated its 50th anniversary and, as much as that is about reflecting on the important role the BPI has played in our music community, it was also about looking to the future and where we see our role going forward. If that wasn’t special enough, we also had some big wins this year of which we’re enormously proud.
The BPI’s successful bid to open a new specialist creative school in Bradford, West Yorkshire is probably at the top of that list. The BPI and our members believe passionately in creating pathways to the industry for a broad range of talent from across the UK, which is why we have long held a desire to open a specialist school outside of London and the South East of England.
This new college, inspired by the successful models of the BRIT School in Croydon and East London Arts And Music (ELAM) in East London, will provide opportunities for 500 sixteen to nineteen year olds to access a world-class specialist creative education for free. Like the BRIT School and ELAM, this college will have a strong focus on providing opportunities for those from diverse and under-represented backgrounds across West Yorkshire and the wider north of England.
We could not have been successful in our bid without the input of many valued partners, including our members, the BRIT School and the Day One Trust – but also the overwhelming support from the political leadership and wider community in Bradford and West Yorkshire.
We are also thankful to the government for recognising the real impact that this school can have on young people’s lives and approving our bid. While this will be a substantial project - that I suspect may prove a little daunting at times - we know that there is a rich reward for the UK’s music and wider creative industries. We hope this initiative will create more common ground for all parts of industry to come together in partnership and in a spirit of collaboration – something I think we need more of.
Another highlight was the announcement by the Department For Business And Trade to increase funding by a further £3.2 million over the next two years for the Music Export Growth Scheme, or MEGS. This successful exporting scheme, which has already distributed £4.5 million to more than 300 British SMEs and artists, consistently delivers an excellent return of nearly £14 for every £1 received from the government and has been transformational in supporting artists from all backgrounds and genres to realise their international potential and grow their export revenues.
Since its launch in 2014, MEGS has backed such diverse talent as beabadoobee, Bicep, Dave, Rina Sawayama, Wolf Alice, Young Fathers and 2023 Mercury Prize winners Ezra Collective to name just a few. We’re grateful to the government for the continued support of MEGS and we look forward to working together to ensure British artists can compete on the global stage.
You also have a campaigning role - what were the key priorities in terms of that activity?
2023 has seen new opportunities and concerns arising from the rapid development of artificial intelligence. The opportunities it can provide in support of human artistry are there for all to see, because technology has always been used by humans in human led creativity. But we will continue to ensure the right policy decisions are taken now to protect that human led creativity.
The whole music industry and our wider creative industry partners can be proud of the effective lobbying that took place to reverse the decision by the government to introduce the broadest form of a text and data mining exception. The BPI was pleased to have played an active role in this and it was wonderful to see everyone coming together to speak with one voice. It shows that we are a powerful force to be reckoned with when we stand together.
Similarly, it’s been encouraging to see so many parts of the music sector and the Intellectual Property Office work in productive partnership to bring forward a landmark code on metadata and another on transparency in music streaming, the latter of which should be announced formally in the coming weeks by government.
You do a lot of work around data and run the BRIT Award of course. What were the big developments on that side?
Further highlighting the vast changes that streaming has brought to our industry, it was brilliant to see the introduction of our new BRIT Billion award, which recognises and celebrates artists who have achieved more than one billion career streams in the UK. We have announced over 30 artists so far, both homegrown and international, with Ed Sheeran receiving a special gold edition of the award for surpassing ten billion streams. With a great many more artists to be announced -including some that might not be considered household names as such - this new award underlines how the threshold for meaningful success in streaming is now gauged in the hundreds of millions and higher.
What were the biggest challenges for your members 2023?
No surprises that at the top of this list has to be the threat posed by generative AI. We have been particularly concerned by the potential for the wrong policy decisions - such as the previous text and data mining exception - to be taken. The music industry has always embraced new technologies, and our members are exploring all opportunities for how AI can benefit artists – but, fundamentally, there is no industry without IP rights, and the UK’s gold standard is what has helped to make the UK’s creative industries so world-leading. We need to collectively ensure that the commitment of our policymakers to innovation in our successful creative industries does not waver.
We are pleased that the government has identified the creative industries as one of its five priority growth sectors and this year we have been stressing that it can grow our innovative sectors whilst also realising its ambition of becoming an ‘AI superpower’ – but only if it makes the right policy decisions. That’s a battle we are still fighting and will continue into 2024.
Another growing challenge for British music is the increasingly competitive nature of the global music economy and, as a key part of this, rising national markets and domestic repertoire that are thriving thanks largely to streaming. It makes it harder for our artists and for UK recorded music to maintain its position of exports-led success internationally.
Whilst MEGS is an important scheme to help address this, our industry will need to see greater support from the UK government if we are to maintain our coveted status of the third largest music market in the world and biggest exporter after the US. The considerable work done by our members to identify, nurture, invest in and promote artists around the world must be supported and incentivised if the UK is to realise the goal of annual music exports of £1 billion by 2030. You only have to look at the success of South Korea to see what can be achieved when a government invests strategically in its creative industries, with the many benefits being cultural as well as economic.
What developments and initiatives should we be keeping an eye on in 2024?
2024 is set to see a General Election with the polls predicting a new government, which will bring substantial change and shape many of the collective challenges that our industry faces while also providing new opportunities.
The BPI is working hard to ensure that UK recorded music and the priorities of our members are reflected across Parliament. We know there is often a lot of support for the music industry but not always an in-depth understanding of the challenges that we face and the way the different parts of the music ecosystem work. We must continue to raise the profile of our world-leading industry and help to shape the future policy direction if our success is to continue. It is also set to be another challenging year economically and as the trade association for the recorded music industry, we will want to ensure that our members are supported as much as possible.
AI, as everyone recognises, will likely continue to take up a lot of industry bandwidth, but this effort and energy will be worth it if we are able to ensure that we realise its exciting potential it in support of human artistry. There are so many other opportunities that can be achieved by music and tech coming together, even more than they already have, and our members will want to partner with other exciting businesses to take creativity to its next level and enhance the experience for artists and fans. The BPI’s own Insight And Innovation team is working hard to achieve just that – seeking to act as the industry’s ‘A&R’ to bring record companies and labels and tech start-ups together.
Although it’s not set to open until 2026/2027, we expect to see good progress on our new college in Bradford in 2024 and as we head towards the celebration of City Of Culture in 2025, we look forward to further developing our roots in the community and building more relationships with key partners in the region.
Another key challenge is of course sustainability, something that is hugely important and which we all care about. The BPI has been working to help coordinate a lot of good work being done, including around collecting data and sharing best practice. We are also looking to see how the BRIT Awards can play their part in shaping a more sustainable industry.
Let’s talk more about the BRIT Awards, what are the key developments there?
A growing challenge has been the increased scrutiny over the awards categories – particularly Artist Of The Year, which replaced the Male Artist and Female Artist categories in 2022.
Whilst in its first year there was good representation of women, with Adele winning, for 2023 no women were nominated. In part this no doubt reflected wider structural issues in our industries along with that year’s particular release cycle, but we shared in the wider disappointment that was felt.
Since then we have devoted a great deal of time and effort to reviewing the awards processes, as we do at the end of each year, to consider how we can improve representation and inclusivity. For 2024 we have expanded the nominations for AOTY to ten - in both the UK and International categories - which we believe can result in a more encouraging outcome, but we will review this again after this year’s event and consider whether further measures are required to ensure The BRITs remain up to date and representative.
We are grateful for the input of the various EDI groups that we have consulted, including our Equity & Justice Advisory Group. We also took the opportunity to review the genre-based awards and have for 2024, with the advice of EJAG, introduced a standalone R&B category with broader eligibility so that more artists can be considered for nomination by the 1300-strong Voting Academy – which, as in recent years, is balanced between men and women, with increasing non-binary representation and around a quarter of members who are black, Asian or who are from other minority ethnic backgrounds.
