Music Industry

What do the numbers tell us about our music consumption for 2024? Let’s take a look.

[This was my weekly column for GlobalNews.ca. – AC]

Luminate is the watcher of all music consumption in Canada and the U.S. and has just issued its year-end report for Canada after sorting through its 500 verified sources and analyzing more than 20 trillion (yes, trillion) data points.

On average, 99,000 new songs are uploaded to streaming music platforms every day (down from an average of 103,500 in 2023), which works out to approximately one million per month. The current universe of available digital songs (and all streamers share the same catalogue) is 202 million, an increase of 18 million (about 10 per cent) from last year. Of that number just 8.2 per cent were provided by major labels, meaning that 92 per cent came from indie musicians.

Think about that for a second. More than 200 million songs available to anyone with an internet connection for free — or at least something close to it. In the old days of mega record stores, you’d be lucky to find 100,000 titles in stock. For anyone complaining that a streaming subscription costs too much and isn’t good value, give your head a shake.

Diving deeper, though, we start to see some glaring issues. Nearly half of those 202 million songs (93.2 million) received 10 plays or fewer. Approximately 175.5 million (87 per cent of the total songs in the library) were played 1,000 times or fewer. This is interesting because Spotify, the biggest streamer, refuses to pay out any royalties for any song that gets fewer than a thousand plays. Granted, a thousand plays isn’t worth much — the worldwide average suggests that this would result in US$2.38 — but those crumbs add up when spread over 175.5 million. How much is Spotify saving by ignoring the artists at the bottom?

Keep reading.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 39542 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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