Music Business

RIAA Report Shows Streaming And Vinyl On The Rise In US While Recording Industry Dips

RiaalogoThe RIAA has released its official figures for 2014 assessing the music industry's value at $6.97 billion, a 0.47% decline from 2013 valuation of $7 billion. 

Despite the slight dip of the industry as a whole, growth was charted in specific areas. Digital music grew by $140 million to $4.5 billion, up 3.2% from $4.37 billion the prior year. Download sales decreased by 9.5% to $2.64 billion, but streaming revenue charted a 29% increase totaling $1.87 billion for 2014. Overall digital revenue rose 3.2% from $4.37 billion in 2013 coming in at $4.5 billion for 2014. 

Physical music sales declined 5.9% capping out at $2.13 billion, CD albums falling 12.3% to $1.85 billion. A slight upside to the continued decline of album sales was the increase of price per unit with the average CD list price rising from $12.33 to $12.87 in 2014. 

Money_bagsGoing back to digital music, unsurprisingly, streaming revenue increased significantly in 2014. The 7.7 million paid subscribers upped their value to almost $800 million, a 25% increase from 2013's $639 million. Additionally, the RIAA report concluded that ad-supported streaming upped it's contribution to industry by 34%, accounting for $295 million in revenue. 

Vinyl sales saw the most growth across 2014, accounting for $320.8 million in revenue, up 50% from 2014. 

The revenue distribution continues to ebb and flow as streaming makes itself at home in the new music industry and physical music sales become less and less mainstream. A 50% increase in vinyl sales isn't going to put a dent in revitalizing the music industry, but continuing to work toward creating an maintaining a sustainable business model around digital music is a step in the right direction. 

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