Subscription Streaming is Growing, But…
The Globe and Mail reports on the growth of subscription music streaming in the business section today.
Consumers are downloading less music and streaming more, but all-you-can-listen-to subscription streaming services aren’t yet the clear saviour of the music industry.
Services such as Spotify, Deezer and Rdio helped buoy the otherwise flailing global music industry to flat revenue growth in 2014. Subscription streaming is becoming a “key driver” of the $15-billion (U.S.) industry, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a chief global music lobby group, which released its annual Digital Music Report Tuesday.
This past year has been one of huge growth for streaming, as YouTube entered the subscription game, the high-fidelity Tidal service launched and was quickly purchased by rap mogul Jay Z, and global streaming leader Spotify gobbled up funding, most recently reaching an $8.4-billionvaluation, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Now comes the hard part: getting enough people to pay for these services to make them sustainable platforms and profitable businesses.
Read the rest of the article here.
Meanwhile, Canada is behind much of the planet when it comes to adopting streaming, The same Globe story reports that 83% of digital music in this country comes from paid downloads while only 8% came from streaming.
Why the lag? Because we were late to getting Spotify and we still don’t have Pandora. Give it time.
