News October 27, 2015

Touring dollars decide Top 40 Music Earners list

Income from touring was the largest revenue source for the Top 40 money earners of 2014.

The list, compiled by Billboard magazine and published last Friday, was topped by One Direction (pictured) with US$46 million. Most of their earnings came from the $40.7 million made from their Where We Are stadium tour which was the biggest draw of the year grossing $290 million. The five month trek drew 3.4 million fans over 60 dates, and earned each of the five about $8 million.

Unlike many of the names on the Top 40 list, One Direction – with an average age of 22 – also continue to sell a considerable amount of records. They made $4.1 million from sales of 1.3 million albums. They also made $681,1000 from 716.1 million streams while publishing brought in 517,000.

Second on the list, Katy Perry, made $30.1 million. Again, the bulk of this ($24.9 million) was from hitting the boards. Her Prismatic Tour visited 46 cities and was the biggest by a solo female in 2014 reaching 1.3 million fans. Her show at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena ranked at #11 on Pollstar's 2014 Top Year End International Boxoffice list.

The sales of her Prism album made her $2.8 million. Publishing income accounted for $1.2 million and streaming $813,000.

Of the $27.9 million that Justin Timberlake, at third, generated, $23.8 million came from touring. Record sales were $2.8 million, publishing at $899, 500 and streaming at $394,900.

For heritage acts as Billy Joel and The Eagles, whose days of breaking hits are in the past, going on the road is almost essential.

Joel, at #4th place, made $27.2 million. His income from record sales ($791,400), publishing ($964,000) and streaming ($188,900) were almost pitiful compared to the $23,8 million made from touring.

Similarly, for The Eagles, on the #5 spot, $24 million of their $26.2 million earnings over 12 months, came from going onstage and immaculately recreating their back catalogue. Their hits albums made them $1.1 million, with $907,000 from publishing royalties and $158,200 from streaming.

In total, the Top 40 music earners made a total of $584 million. Touring made up 80.4%, sales 30.3%, publishing 4.2% and streaming 2.1%.

Of genres, rock acts made up 35%, pop 32.5%, country 22.5%, hip hop 7.5% and Latin 2.5%.

Broken down in ages, 20% of the list were in their 20s, and 25% in their 30s. The 40+ something group was 20%. While the 50s made up only 7%, those in the 60s represented a huge 25% of the money makers. The 70s artists only made up 2.5%

Of the rest of the Top 20:

6: Luke Bryan ($25m)

7: Paul McCartney ($23.5m)

8. George Strait (22.5m)

9. Jay Z ($22m)

10: Jason Aldean ($20.2m)

11. Bruno Mars ($19.9m)

12, Beyonce (19.6m)

13, Cher ($16m)

14. Miley Cyrus ($14m)

15: Taylor Swift ($13.6m)

16. Dave Matthew Bands ($13.3m)