Streaming revenues exceeded $20bn for the first time ever in 2024, says Global Music Report

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Streaming revenues exceeded $20bn for the first time ever in 2024, says Global Music Report  The music recording industry is seeing growth that ‘many other sectors would be incredibly envious of’, but what’s driving it?  READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/03/24/streaming-revenues-exceeded-20bn-for-the-first-time-ever-in-2024-says-global-music-report  Subscribe to our channel. Euronews is available on Dailymotion in 12 languages

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00:00Taylor Swift is at the top of it, Benson Boone is at the top of it, Sabrina Carpenter doing very well.

00:04We could end up, if we're not careful, in a world where human-created music has no value.

00:16Welcome to The Big Question, the series from Euronews where we dive deep into the world of business.

00:22Today I'm joined by Victoria Oakley, the CEO of IFPI, the global industry body for record labels.

00:28Thank you very much for joining me today.

00:29So just to get us started, can you just explain for those in the audience who might not know,

00:33how does the music industry work and what is the role of a record label?

00:36It's a bit of a higgledy-piggledy structure, I won't pretend otherwise.

00:40So touring and live and concerts are huge, right?

00:43Then streaming, where you perhaps do an awful lot of your listening.

00:48There is publishing, there is songwriting, there is music for film, there's music for adverts,

00:55there is merchandising, there's all, you know, this whole ecosystem of different ways in which artists

01:00both reach their fans and make money and can thrive as artists.

01:05The record labels that we represent as the trade body for the recording industry

01:09are the companies and the groups of record labels that take on artists,

01:13they find them, they sign them, they represent them, they act as rights holders for them

01:18and they help them to ensure that their music reaches audiences.

01:25You at IFBI have published your global music report.

01:29Can you tell me some of the key takeaways, what are you seeing in this report?

01:32It's really interesting because you would think that we would know exactly what was going to be in it

01:36because we're watching the music industry as it evolves every year.

01:38But humans are interesting people, right?

01:40And we listen to different things at different times and we make choices

01:43and something catches fire and something doesn't.

01:45And what we're seeing in 2024 is continued growth in the music industry, which is great news.

01:51We're seeing that there are some very fast-growing regions where revenue from recorded music is up

01:57and that's in Africa, in the Middle East and in Latin America, all growing really, really healthily.

02:03And we are seeing some slowing of the overall growth rate,

02:06but frankly still in ways that many, many other sectors would be incredibly envious of, I have to say.

02:12What's particularly interesting, I think, is in Europe, which had not necessarily been hugely successful,

02:17hadn't had very powerful growth rates for the last handful of years,

02:20but has really come back and is somewhat bucking the broader trend

02:24and showing a growth rate between 8% and 9%.

02:27Why do you think that is?

02:28We've seen a number of things in Europe.

02:31One is around their own artists.

02:34So what's really interesting about most European countries is they consume their own music,

02:40often in their own language, more than almost anything else.

02:43So yes, major global artists do very well in European countries, of course they do.

02:46They are all expressing a clear preference in sales terms for their own artists in their own language.

02:53Looking at the music market in Europe specifically, what are the key revenue drivers here?

02:56We've seen an increase in streaming, so in the number of subscribers taking up streaming,

03:03which means more people listening to more music more often.

03:05And it is the main way in which people are listening to music,

03:07which isn't true everywhere in the world.

03:10We've certainly got some markets, for example, Japan, where physical purchases still play a huge role.

03:15CDs?

03:16Yeah, CDs in a big way.

03:17We should talk about vinyl though, because that's interesting.

03:19I don't know if I would say vinyl is back and that's the future

03:22and we're all going to stop using platforms and start listening with record players instead.

03:27But people are buying a lot of vinyl.

03:29So you've got parts of the world where they always have, certainly in Asia.

03:33So in South Korea, it's absolutely crazy.

03:36And actually in other parts of the world, where they're listening to K-pop in particular from South Korea,

03:41they often buy it first on vinyl.

03:43What you also have is a lot of what we would call superfans buying vinyl as a collector's item.

03:49And they will buy multiple different versions.

03:51And it's really important to fans who want to have that kind of really strong personal connectivity with their artist.

03:58And would you say there's any particular genres that are driving the industry at the moment?

04:02You can look at the top 10 anywhere in the world and you can see that the top 10 are essentially

04:07some of these very well-known names.

04:09Taylor Swift is at the top of it.

04:11Benson Boone is at the top of it.

04:12Sabrina Carpenter doing very well.

04:14Teddy Swim's doing very well.

04:15What's interesting though is it does vary country by country.

04:18In fact, in Italy, the top 10 are the most popular artists.

04:23What's interesting though is it does vary country by country.

04:26In fact, in Italy, the top 10 albums sold across the year in 2020 were all by Italian artists and sung in Italian.

04:34So there is no single answer to what's doing well.

04:37Because what's driving growth in Italy is completely different to what's driving it in China.

04:43And isn't that the great joy of the music business?

04:45That there's something for everyone and that something you love I hate but we can both have access to it.

04:51Do you think that Europe poses a particular challenge for artists,

04:54being such a diverse linguistic landscape, for artists to expand beyond their domestic territory?

05:00About 15 to 20 plus years ago, you had to sing in English to really make it to the top, right?

05:06And so music from America, Britain, Canada did incredibly well in most places.

05:12That is just not the case anymore anywhere in the world.

05:16Although I shared the Italy statistic with you, a statistic close to that is true of nearly every European country.

05:22Although a lot of people still listen to music in English, there's great joy in listening to music in your own language.

05:27It's a celebration of your culture and you probably feel very deeply connected to it

05:33when it's an artist from your town, your country, your village singing in your language.

05:37The challenge then is around export.

05:39I mean, who'd have thought 10 years ago that every teenager all over the world would be listening to K-pop?

05:44They have managed to absolutely export their music, often in their own language.

05:48It's become a real phenomenon.

05:50And so if South Korea can do it, there's no reason that nobody else can't.

05:53A big conversation that's happening in every industry in the world is AI and the role of AI going forward.

05:59So what is the stance from record labels on AI usage in music and what are the concerns?

06:04So you said AI, and I'm going to say it depends if you're talking about AI or generative AI.

06:09Okay.

06:10And the distinction is really important.

06:12When it comes to generative AI, I think it's trickier.

06:15There's a really fundamental principle, which is that if there is a gen AI model or a large language model

06:21that needs to be trained on vast quantities of high quality material in order to create an output,

06:26and it needs to do that with authorisation.

06:29So quite frankly, basic copyright rules, which we have all around the world, need to be applied in a gen AI world.

06:36And the risk here is that if we don't get that right, we could end up, if we're not careful,

06:41in a world where human-created music has no value.

06:45Because if you can just make this slightly rubbish music for free, or as good as, and churn it out,

06:52then why would people, either from a business perspective as investors, or indeed as artists, get into the music market?

07:00Yes.

07:01I don't want to live in a world where 20 years from now, you can't go and see a live concert of a human artist

07:07because it's not possible for them to make money as musicians and artists.

07:10I think the other risk, possibly, if you move to a world where gen AI becomes the main producer of music,

07:18is it narrows, right?

07:20And so what happens to all those interesting genres that, you know, maybe a smaller number of people listen to?

07:25What happens to folk music? What happens to bagpipe music?

07:28I mean, maybe there's not a huge audience for these things,

07:31but I think the great joy of this democratisation of music that we've seen recently

07:35is that there is something for everyone, that you can access these types of music, that there is a home for it.

07:40And I really don't want to live in a world where that's narrowed,

07:43and the genres that are perhaps less successful get abandoned.

07:47Well, on that note, that's all we've got time for, but thank you so much for your insights today,

07:51and thank you for joining me on The Big Question.

07:53Thanks for having me.

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