The fallout from coronavirus pandemic is affecting nearly every industry, including the music business. But not all sectors will feel the same sting. This week, we've compiled a list of stories examining in more detail how music income is likely to respond as the situation unfolds.
Why Subscriptions Could Insulate the Music Market in 2020
Last week, on-demand audio streams held up well: total streams fell 0.5% as audio sank 3.2% and video gained 3.7%, according to MRC Data/Nielsen Music. Music listening will “rebound rapidly” when the crisis subsides, says Russ Crupnick, principle at MusicWatch. And despite the week-to-week decline, American consumers’ streams of tracks and videos were still 14.2% higher than the same week in 2019.
GLOBAL SPOTIFY CHART STREAMS ROSE 3% LAST WEEK
Peak streaming now happens one to two hours later than our normal morning time. And the difference between weekends and weekdays is more or less gone – every day looks like Sunday now.
How Radio Can Survive the Looming Coronavirus Recession: 'People Turn to Radio in Times Like This'
83% of adults in the U.S. say they listen to radio the same or more than before the coronavirus outbreak. Most people surveyed trust radio as a good source of information for the pandemic. In the last week, about 30% of people surveyed listened to more radio since the outbreak.
Coronavirus Listener Data: Video Still Rules, While Audio Streams Start to Trickle Back
Audio streams fell 3.2% to 14.545 billion. That may not sound like positive news, but it shows the decline in audio streaming is slowing after the prior week's sharp 9% decline. Of course, year to date audio streams are still doing fine -- they are up 16.9% to 173.58 billion versus 148.45 billion in the corresponding period of 2019. Overall on-demand streams are up 19.7% to 267.75 billion from 223.73 billion tallied during the year-earlier same time frame.
Record Companies Aren’t Safe From the Coronavirus Economic Fallout
It's a common misconception that record companies make all of their money from that which gives them their name — records — being sold or streamed. The reality is more complicated: Labels do obtain the majority of their income from these sources, but also pull in revenues from areas such as live-ticketing (due to so-called 360 artist deals), merchandise, and two distinct types of licensing: public performance and “sync,” i.e., the use of music in movies, TV shows, advertising, and video games.
