The industry group\u2019s report, issued on Wednesday (March 12), noted that streaming revenue crossed the \u00a31-billion<\/strong> barrier for the first time last year, rising 5.7% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to \u00a31.02 billion<\/strong> ($1.30 billion<\/strong>), and marked 10 consecutive years of growth.<\/p>\n In that decade, which marked the arrival of music streaming services and the end of the slump in music revenues caused by widespread piracy, music revenues in the UK rose by 80%<\/strong>, the BPI said.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, once adjusted for inflation, annual revenue is still hundreds of millions of pounds lower than it was in 2006, the first year public performance and sync were included in the calculations,\u201d the report noted.<\/p>\n Despite the solid numbers, the BPI<\/strong> stressed that growth rates are slowing, and said the industry\u2019s future growth is at risk from growing international competition, as well as a UK government proposal to loosen copyright laws to spur the growth of AI companies.<\/p>\n The BPI numbers cover recorded music revenue only, excluding publishing revenue. They combine recorded music royalties from streaming, digital downloads, physical music, sync and public performance (broadcasting etc.).<\/p>\n On the streaming side, BPI noted that revenue growth is slowing: 2024\u2019s 5.7% YoY increase is notably less than the 8.4% YoY growth seen in 2023. Nonetheless, as streaming revenues grew faster than overall recorded music revenue, streaming now accounts for an all-time high of 68.1%<\/strong> of recorded music revenue, compared to 67.5% in 2023.<\/p>\n Within streaming, paid subscriptions accounted for the lion\u2019s share of revenue \u2013 \u00a3875.5 million<\/strong> ($1.12 billion<\/strong>). That\u2019s up 5.9% YoY<\/strong><\/span>, and amounts to more than 86%<\/strong> of streaming revenues.<\/p>\n While ad-supported streaming accounted for only the remaining 14%, it saw faster growth than subscription revenue in 2024, rising 8.9% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to \u00a377.9 million<\/strong> ($99.49 million<\/strong>).<\/p>\n The BPI said four tracks generated more than 200 million<\/strong> audio and video streams in the UK last year: Noah Kahan<\/strong>\u2019s Stick Season<\/em> (233.1 million<\/strong> streams), Benson Boone<\/strong>‘s Beautiful Things<\/em> (219.3 million<\/strong>), Sabrina Carpenter<\/strong>\u2019s Espresso<\/em> (202.8 million<\/strong>), and Teddy Swims<\/strong>\u2019 Lose Control<\/em> (201.6 million<\/strong>). More than a dozen other tracks hit at least 100 million<\/strong> streams, among them Stargazing<\/em> by Myles Smith<\/strong>, winner of the BRIT Awards<\/strong>\u2019 Rising Star accolade for 2025.<\/p>\n Sync and public performance revenue also saw strong growth in 2024, with public performance up 5.6% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to \u00a3161.7 million<\/strong> ($206.5 million<\/strong>) and sync up 11.3% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to \u00a343.9 million<\/strong> ($50.1 million<\/strong>).<\/p>\n Other sources of recorded music revenue saw less dynamic growth, if at all. Digital downloads fell 6.6% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to \u00a324.3 million<\/strong> ($31.0 million<\/strong>), continuing a years-long decline, albeit at a slower pace than the double-digit declines seen in previous years.<\/p>\n Vinyl sales rose 2.9% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to \u00a3145.7 million<\/strong> ($186.1 million<\/strong>). Like in other markets, vinyl has made a major comeback in recent years, with revenues growing by 650%<\/strong><\/span> in the UK since 2014.<\/p>\n The BPI says the vinyl market is changing. Back in 2014, half of the top 10 vinyl records were catalog titles, but by 2024, eight of the top 10 were current releases. The top vinyl seller in the UK last year was Taylor Swift<\/strong>\u2019s The Tortured Poets Department<\/em>, and others in the top 10 included Chappell Roan<\/strong>\u2019s The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess<\/em> and Charli XCX<\/strong>\u2019s Brat<\/em>.<\/p>\n CD sales dropped 0.5% YoY<\/strong><\/span> to \u00a396.7 million<\/strong>, but the BPI says, perhaps surprisingly, that it sees sales of this media stabilizing.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the start of the decade, CD revenue was hit by a series of year-on-year double-digit percentage declines, but over the last three years has stabilized to become a \u00a390 million-plus annual market,\u201d the report said, concluding that the long-term trends \u201csuggest a relatively healthy future for the format.\u201d<\/p>\n And as with vinyl, CD sales were led by current releases such as Coldplay<\/strong>\u2019s Moon Music<\/em>, Taylor Swift\u2019s The Tortured Poets Department<\/em>, and Sabrina Carpenter\u2019s Short N\u2019 Sweet<\/em>.<\/p>\n Despite an overall healthy revenue picture, the BPI\u2019s report highlighted what it sees as risks for the UK recorded music industry going forward.<\/p>\n Key among those is the declining share of UK-born music among consumers both globally and in Britain, or what the BPI calls \u201cunprecedented competition\u201d from abroad.<\/p>\n \u201cUK artists were behind just nine of the 40 top tracks of 2024 across streaming and sales, with the highest being Stargazing<\/em> by Myles Smith at number 12,\u201d the BPI said in a recent blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cFive years ago, in 2019, 19 of the year\u2019s 40 biggest singles were by UK artists.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAfter a decade of growth, it is all too easy to take for granted the success of UK recorded music and the vital role record businesses play in this…\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Jo Twist OBE, BPI\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In data released last fall<\/a>, the BPI showed that UK artists accounted for around 10%<\/strong> of music streams globally, down from 17%<\/strong> as recently as 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter a decade of growth, it is all too easy to take for granted the success of UK recorded music and the vital role record businesses play in this, underpinned by copyright, by investing billions to nurture and promote diverse talent from across the UK,\u201d BPI CEO Dr. Jo Twist OBE<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut in the face of intensifying global competition, it\u2019s essential they\u2019re empowered by a supportive policy environment to keep British artists on the world\u2019s top step. Crucially, this requires the exciting potential of AI to be realized by the government safeguarding the UK\u2019s gold-standard copyright framework and not siding with global big tech at the expense of human artistry and our world-leading creative industries.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt a time when they are facing escalating competition from overseas music markets, we need to ensure our labels are valued and are in a position to be able to fully support their artists\u2019 careers.\u201d<\/p>\n YolanDa Brown OBE DL, BPI<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Like many artists and record companies, the BPI is alarmed by a recent UK government proposal to create an \u201copt-out\u201d system for the training of AI models. Under that system, AI developers would by default be allowed to use copyrighted content, including music, to train their AI models, unless copyright holders expressly objected.<\/p>\n Numerous artists collaborated recently on a \u201csilent album\u201d meant to protest the proposed change<\/a>, while the heads of the three global music majors \u2013 Sony Music<\/strong>, Universal Music Group<\/strong>, and Warner Music Group<\/strong> \u2013 joined a Daily Mail<\/em> campaign opposing the proposal<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the colossal effort it took initially to turn around years of decline, it is a real cause for celebration that the UK recorded music market has now been on the rise again for an entire decade,\u201d BPI Chair and artist YolanDa Brown OBE DL<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n \u201cAt a time when they are facing escalating competition from overseas music markets, we need to ensure our labels are valued and are in a position to be able to fully support their artists\u2019 careers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The recorded music industry group is warning of risks to the UK industry from increased competition and proposed AI rules<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":226131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[475,133004,133813,133812],"class_list":["post-226094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bpi","tag-dr-jo-twist","tag-uk-recorded-music-revenues","tag-yolanda-brown"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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