Guest Post by Jonathan Lamy and Josh Friedlander from the RIAA's Music Notes Blog
As we have said often, music “punches up” and drives the online conversation far more than the relative economic size of the business. For some context, the paid subscription market has grown quickly both in the United States and globally. According to our data, revenues from paid subscriptions in the United States alone were up 26% to just shy of $800 million in 2014. The number of paid subscriptions also grew 25%, reaching 7.7 million for the year. And that’s just part of an even larger global trend. According to IFPI, about 41 million people subscribed to paid services worldwide in 2014, up from just 8 million in 2010. The growth is encouraging, but here’s the key part: it only captures a small part of the overall market of music listeners. Ninety seven million people watch or listen to music on YouTube and Vevo in the United States (source: MusicWatch, Inc.). Twenty seven million subscribe to SiriusXM. Forty million subscribe to Netflix. There’s a huge appetite for music and engaging entertainment, delivered by sleek and consumer-friendly platforms. The potential is there, so it’s incumbent on everyone to make sure there’s a fair playing field so services like these can continue to grow.Related articles
