Music fans in the UK streamed the equivalent of more than a thousand tracks each in 2017, as streaming accounted for more than half of all the music consumed in the UK. This is according to official figures released by music industry trade body the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), but the true scale is likely to be much higher.
The figures rely on data from the Official Charts Company, which only takes streaming via audio services such as Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music into account. If you throw video streaming sites such as YouTube and Vevo into account, the numbers could more than double.
Streaming now accounts for 50.4% of music consumption
The official figures show that consumers in the UK streamed a huge total of 68.1 billion songs over the past 12 months. This represents the equivalent of 1,036 tracks, or around three days of continuous music, for every person in the country. Not everyone streams music, of course, so some people are listening to far more than that over the course of a year.
The BPI said that streaming now accounts for just over half (50.4%) of all music consumption in the UK. In 2016, it accounted for 36.4%, or just over a third of music consumption. The format has rocketed over recent years and we are now streaming more tracks in a single week than we did in the first six months of 2012, when music streaming was still in its relative infancy.
Spotify has established itself as the leading music streaming service, but the format has encountered issues regarding the rights of songwriters and publishers. It emerged this week that Wixen Music Publishing, a company representing the rights of musicians such as Janis Joplin, The Black Keys and Tom Petty was seeking damages of at least $1.6 billion (£1.2 billion) regarding rights and licences for thousands of songs.
Spotify has not yet released a statement, but the BBC said that it reached a reported $30 million settlement with the National Music Publishers Association in 2016 over similar claims.
Vinyl sales increase again
As each new medium of music consumption arrives, of course, it tends to elbow its predecessors out of the way. There’s always a transition period, but vinyl records and cassettes gave way to CDs, which in turn were supplanted by music downloads. Now downloads are going the way of the musical dodo as streaming becomes the dominant means of consumption.
Interestingly, however, vinyl has made a comeback recently. Audiophiles argue that it gives a better, richer sound than digital audio formats and, while it isn’t the default choice for music lovers any more, the vinyl record is increasingly seen as more of a desirable luxury item.
According to the BPI, 4.1 million vinyl albums were sold across 2017. This is still a small slice of the pie, representing 3% of the overall music, but the upward trend continues.
CD sales, meanwhile, continue to plummet. At the format’s 2004 peak, we bought 162.4 million music CDs. Last year, only around a quarter of that number (41.6 million) were sold. Digital downloads also continued to slump, with the equivalent of just 13.8 million albums sold through sites such as iTunes and Amazon last year. This represented a fall of almost a quarter (23%) compared to 2016.
Overall music consumption rose by 8.7%, representing the sharpest rise since 1998, when Talk on Corners by Irish pop-rock band The Corrs was the UK’s biggest-selling album. The biggest albums of 2017 (using a combination of sales and streaming data) were by Ed Sheeran, Rag'n'Bone Man, Sam Smith, Little Mix and Pink.
Video streaming also surges
According to the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), music sales contributed £1.2 billion to the UK economy last year, but film, video and gaming also enjoyed a bumper year, with streaming continuing to make inroads in all areas.
DVD and Blu-Ray sales both continued to fall, while revenues from film and video streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon grew by more than a fifth (22.2%). Streaming now accounts for a whopping 70% of the video market.
ERA said that the entertainment market as a whole reached an all-time high last year, bringing in £7.24 billion. ERA CEO Kim Bayley said that this “historic result" had been driven by new technology and innovation.
"New digital services are bringing ever increasing numbers of the UK population back to entertainment with 24/7 access to the music, video and games they want," she told the BBC.
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