Streaming & vinyl help US, UK music biz growth in 2016

The explosive growth of audio streaming and the continued vinyl resurgence saw growth by the recorded music business in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2016.

The US market grew 4.9% with song streaming on subscription services more than doubling, according to analytical firm BuzzAngle Music. In good news for record companies, more people are paying to subscribe to services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal, rather than choosing free tiers by ad-backed platforms.

Subscription services grew 124.3% from 2015, with US consumers streaming 191.36 billion times. Audio streams through subscriptions grew an astounding 82.6% from 137.29 billion in 2015 to 250.73 billion in 2016.

They now represent 76% of all streams in the US, up from 62%. Last year, Americans were streaming more in one day than a 12 month period of downloading. Hip-hop was the most popular streamed genre, accounting for 18.2%.

Streaming on freemiums was up 14.3% to 59.36 billion from 51.96 billion. In a first, streams on subscription platforms overtook digital video streaming on the likes of YouTube and Vevo. These attracted 181.31 billion music streams in 2015, up 7.5% on 168.59 billion in 2015.

Vinyl sales jumped 25.9% to 7.19 million, although they still remain at around 4% of overall album sales. Of vinyl sales, rock was the favoured style.

Top 10 vinyl albums of 2016 in the US:

1) Twenty One Pilots – Blurryface (49,004 album sales)

2) Amy Winehouse – Back To Black (41,087)

3) Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool (39,861)

4) The Beatles – Abbey Road (39,615)

5) Adele – 25 (39,512)

6) David Bowie – Blackstar (39,334)

7) Prince and the Revolution – Purple Rain (35,244)

8) Bob Marley and the Wailers – Legend (32,899)

9) Twenty One Pilots – Vessel (31,006)

10) Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue (30,495)

Source: BuzzAngle Music

Of all formats, Drake’s Views was the top selling album when combining sales and streaming figures. However, Adele’s 25 was the biggest seller based on direct sales. Total album sales dropped by 15.6% to 173.4 million, with album downloads down 19.4% to 101.1 million and physical albums declining by 11.7% to 89.4 million. The biggest drop was single-track loads, down 24.8% to 734.2 million.

The UK recorded music business grew by 1.5% to a retail value of £1 billion (AU$1.7 billion), its second consecutive rise. Trade body the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) estimated a total of 123 million album equivalent sales (AES).

The biggest sellers of the year (sales and streams) were Adele’s 25 with 753,000 copies, followed by Coldplay’s A Head Full of Dreams with 512,000 sales.

Streaming has fast become the second largest format in the UK, now accounting for 36.4% of music consumption. It grew by 68% to 45 billion through the year (or 27 million households listening to 1500 songs). The BPI maintains that this figure would be doubled if the charts included YouTube in its calculations.

In December, over a billion tracks were streamed in one week. The year’s biggest streamed single was Drake’s One Dance with 141 million streams, while Justin Bieber’s Purpose was the most-streamed album.

Most streamed artists of 2016 in the UK:

1) Drake

2) Justin Bieber

3) Rihanna

4) Kanye West

5) Coldplay

6) The Weeknd

7) Twenty One Pilots

8) Sia

9) Ed Sheeran

10) Eminem

Source: Official Charts Company

Downloads are fast being abandoned by UK consumers. Album downloads posted a disastrous 29.6% decline to 18.1 million (that figure was 32.6 million four years ago). Track Equivalent Albums dropped 26.2% to 9.8 million. Physical sales (CD, vinyl) still remains the dominant format with 41% of sales. According to the BPI, CD sales in 2016 were 47.3 million, a slump of 11.7%.

Top 10 albums of 2016 (combined sales and streams):

1) Adele – 25

2) Coldplay – A Head Full Of Dreams

3) Michael Ball & Alfie Boe – Together

4) Justin Bieber – Purpose

5) Elvis Presley – The Wonder Of You

6) David Bowie – Blackstar

7) Little Mix – Glory Days

8) Drake – Views

9) Jess Glynne – I Cry When I Laugh

10) David Bowie – Best of Bowie

Source: Official Charts Company

Top 10 singles of 2016:

1) Drake ft. WizKid and Kyla – One Dance

2) Lukas Graham – 7 Years

3) Sia Cheap – Thrills

4) Mike Posner – I Took A Pill In Ibiza

5) Calvin Harris ft. Rihanna – This Is What You Came For

6) Zara Larsson – Lush Life

7) Chainsmokers ft Halsey Closer

8) Justin Bieber Love Yourself

9) Rihanna ft Drake Work

10) Justin Timberlake Can’t Stop The Feeling

Source: Official Charts Company

The death of David Bowie helped ignite vinyl sales in the UK, hitting a 25 year high in 2016. Bowie’s Blackstar was the biggest seller last year (with five of his releases in the vinyl Top 30), almost double that of Adele’s vinyl format 25 in 2015. The last time vinyl sales were this high was in 1991, when Simply Red’s Stars was the year’s biggest selling record.

Vinyl has been growing for the past nine years but total sales last year saw a 53% jump from 2015 to 3.2 million. It marked the first year where vinyl sales exceeded downloads. Vinyl now makes up 2.6% of music consumption in the UK.

Top 10 vinyl albums of 2016:

1) David Bowie – Blackstar

2) Amy Winehouse – Back To Black

3) Various Artists – Guardians of the Galaxy Mix 1

4) Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool

5) Fleetwood Mac – Rumours

6) The Stone Roses – Stone Roses

7) Bob Marley – Legend

8) The Beatles – Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

9) Prince – Purple Rain

10) Nirvana – Nevermind

Source: Official Charts Company

Music was the fastest growing sector in UK entertainment according to ERA (Entertainment Retailers Association). It placed music’s growth at 4.6% to hit £1.11 billion (AU$1.86 billion) in 2016, beating out both the gaming (2.9%) and video (2.2%) industries.

The increased adoption of streaming and digital services helped the music, video and games sectors to hit an all-time sales record of £6.3 billion (AU$10.6 billion) in 2016. This marks a 3% increase on 2015. Digital services accounted for 57% of music revenues.

ERA data reported a 65.1% rise in music streaming with sales of £418.5 million (AU$704.6 million). However, its physical sales across the board were down 7.3% to £475.4 million (AU$800.4 million). CD sales dropped by 13%, a sharp drop from 2015’s 3.7% drop.