Streaming worth over £100m to music industry

The value of streaming rose to over £100m in 2013, accounting for over ten percent of the value of UK recorded music sales.

Jim Ottewill
  • By Jim Ottewill
  • 2 Jan 2014
  • min read
The value of streaming rose to over £100m in 2013, accounting for over ten percent of the value of UK recorded music sales.

According to research from the BPI and Official Charts Company, streaming is worth £103m to the music industry, up from £77m in 2012.

UK music fans are thought to have streamed 7.4bn songs from online audio and subscription services such as Spotify and Deezer over the past 12 months.

The figure is double that of 2012 with Arctic Monkeys being the most streamed artists.

Geoff Taylor, BPI chief executive, said: ‘The success of digital music in 2013 surpassed all previous records - we celebrated the one billionth track download, counted 4m selling digital singles and streamed more than 7bn songs. As digital music moves into the streaming era, the prospects for future growth in the UK music market look strong.’

Further figures showed that 32.6m albums were downloaded. The amount represented a 6.8 percent increase on 2012 and over 100 percent growth on the level five years ago.

The value of streaming revealed in the report is expected to be lower than the reality as the number excludes revenues from advertising that funds free streams and revenue from audio-visual streaming services such as YouTube.

Additional findings from the study showed that vinyl also continues to enjoy its revival. The research showed that just over 780,000 LP albums were sold in 2013, up by 101 percent on 2012's figure.