Music Industry revenues up thanks to live
Date Posted: 1st September 2010
The UK music industry was worth £3.9bn in 2009, an increase of 4.7% on 2008 that was largely driven by a surge in live music, according to new figures from PRS for Music.
The value of the British live music industry last year was £1.54bn, up an impressive 9.4% on 2008, while recorded music was flat at £1.36bn. Between these two streams, total business-to-consumer revenue was £2.89bn, an increase of 4.8% on 2008.
The report, by PRS for Music economists Will Page and Chris Carey, also breaks down total business-to-business revenues.
Page explains that revenue from B2B have grown over the last three years, thanks to a mixture of more money coming in from well established areas such as airplay income and new areas of revenue coming onto their radar - for example the 2007 report did not give a figure for advertising and sponsorship revenue, but this was worth £90m last year.
In other B2B revenue, PRS for Music collected £511m for songwriters last year, up 4.1%, while PPL and sister society VPL collected £69m between them. Total licensing revenues among BPI member record companies was £194m, an increase of 6.6% year-on-year, and “estimated publisher direct revenues” were £103m. In total, B2B revenues were £967m last year, an increase of 4.4%.
“The overall story is we are outperforming other sectors,” says Page. “We have reported 4.7% growth in the biggest economic downturn for a generation.”
The question, though, is can this continue? Carey says we are not out of the woods economically yet and also warns that the live bubble could burst. “Live was up 9% this year, but it increased 13% from 2007 to 2008. And there are warning signs coming from the live industry in the US, with empty arenas.”
But the pair point to a number of areas for optimism: for one, revenue in the UK continues to hold up a lot better than in many other countries, while Britain is one of three net exporters of music (alongside the US and Sweden). The report also flags up the importance of music as a spur for tourism.
“The principle motive for this work remains the same,” Page and Carey say in the introduction to the report. “The better we understand the true makeup of this complex industry, the better it will perform overall.”
You can download the report HERE
Text from www.musicweek.com
