UK Recorded Music Consumption Rises After Further Streaming Surge
UK Recorded Music Consumption Rises After Further Streaming Surge
Recorded music consumption rose in the UK in the first six months of 2015, according to a BPI report based on Official Charts Company data.
The growth was driven by a continued rise in streaming and a softening decline in physical formats.
The biggest selling album over the first six months of the year was In The Lonely Hour by Sam Smith (pictured), followed by Ed Sheeran's x and George Ezra's Wanted On Voyage.
Using the Album Equivalent Sales (AES) industry metric, overall consumption of recorded music was up 4% compared with the first six months of 2014 - a significant improvement on the same point last year, when Album Equivalent Sales were down by 5.8%.
The AES metric measures the volume of physical and digital album sales combined with converted single track download sales and songs streamed on services such as Spotify, Deezer and Google Play.
The popularity of streamed music has exploded in recent months. Some 14.8 billion tracks were played in 2014 – almost double the level recorded in 2013 – and in the first six months of 2015 the total has already reached 11.5 billion.
“The launch of Apple Music will give further impetus to the revolution of music streaming," said Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI and BRIT Awards. "Millions of households are experiencing the joy of instantly playing any song they want, all around their house and on any device, and exploring a universe of new music and classic albums. At the same time, many fans are rediscovering the slower pleasure of collecting and owning music on CD and vinyl.
"With Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, George Ezra and Paloma Faith appealing to ever growing fan-bases and great new albums from James Bay, Florence and the Machine, Muse, Mark Ronson, Meghan Trainor and Mumford & Sons, 2015 has got off to a strong start, and the second half of the year looks promising, with more big albums to come. The precise impact of Apple Music in 2015 is hard to predict, but UK labels have reinvented their businesses for a multi-channel world, are investing heavily in talent and are offering fans greater choice and value than ever before. With British music on a high around the world, we look to the future with real confidence."
The most-streamed track of the year to date, Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk, has been played 45 million times on audio streaming services in 2015, and almost 60 (59) tracks have been played over 10 million times so far this year.
Video streams on video streaming platforms such as YouTube are not yet included in the Official Charts data, but these are also showing dramatic growth. In 2014 there were 14.3 billion video streams in total – a figure already close to being matched in the first six months of this year. In 2015 there have been 12.5 billion video streams – 98.2% up on the 6.3 billion video streams served during the equivalent January to June period in 2014.
Meanwhile, the decline in the physical market has slowed. In the first half of 2014, sales of CDs, LPs and minority physical album formats fell by 10.4% (following a 10% drop in the first half of 2013), but in the first half of 2015 this rate of decline has slowed to just 4.4%.
A strong performance from compilations has been a clear contributor. Since January, sales to date have risen 5% year on year and have now increased consecutively over the past seven months. 12 compilation albums have sold over 100,000 copies in 2015 – compared to just nine at this point in 2014 – while Now 90, released at the end of March, has already outsold the entire annual total achieved by its 2014 equivalent, Now 87.
The appeal of vinyl LPs shows little sign of abating, with demand in 2015 rising 56.3%. At this current rate of growth the year-end tally for LPs could near the 2 million mark.
So far in 2015 British acts account for seven of the Top 10 albums of the year – Taylor Swift, Meghan Trainor and Hozier being the only overseas artists to break the British chart-stranglehold.
Source: Music Week
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