What will happen to the UK Singles Chart when subscription music overtake legal music downloads?

 

Which could happen within 5 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.ifpi.org/content/library/DMR201...and_figures.pdf

 

The global number of paying subscribers for music services has grown by 65 per cent,

from an estimated 8.2 million in 2010 to over 13.4 million in 2011

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainm...initiative.html

 

Ek, pictured above on the right, boldly predicted that revenue from streaming services such as Spotify will in two years return as much revenue to the industry as iTunes does today.

 

Even the digital chief of Warner Music stated that subscription music will overtake legal music downloads in the near future.

 

What will happen to the UK Singles Chart when subscription music overtake legal music downloads?

 

1 downloads = 1 point

100 stream = 1 point

 

#1 = most points?

 

 

 

 

p.s. How do they do it in Sweden where Itunes is 16% and Spotify is 84%?

 

 

Subscription has caught on exceptionally well in some markets, particularly in

Scandinavia.In Sweden, for example, subscription accounted for 84 per cent of

digital revenues in the first ten months of 2011, boosted by its national champion

Spotify. Other markets saw sharp growth in subscription revenues, such as France

with growth of more than 90 per cent in the first 11 months of 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Itunes announce a subscription service similar to Spotify, it will signal the "next" phase of music consumption.

 

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/research/30years.gif

Edited February 15, 201213 yr by Dust2

Subscription is coming......

 

Spotify added over 2 million paid subscribers in the last 12 months (more than 160,000 paid subscribers per month).

 

 

January, 2010:------------ 250,000 paid subscribers

March 17, 2010:----------- 320,000

July 20, 2010: ---------------- 500,000

December 8, 2010: ------ 750,000

March 8, 2011:--------------- 1,000,000

July 14, 2011: -----------------1,600,000

Sept 21, 2011: ---------------- 2,000,000

Nov 23, 2011: ------------------2,500,000

Jan 26, 2012: -------------------3,000,000 paid subscribers

 

 

With more smartphone on the market (about 40% of all phones right now) will only fuel music subscription growth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2010 Actual: 8.2 million paid subscribers according to IFPI

2011 Actual: 13.4 million paid subscribers (65% increase) according to IFPI

 

Let's assume that subscription will grow at the rate of 50%, 40%, 30%, 20% in the next 4 years

 

2012: 20.1 mil paid subscribers (at 50% growth)

2013: 28.14 mil paid subscribers (at 40% growth)

2014: 36.58 mil paid subscribers (at 30% growth)

2015: 43.90 mil paid subscribers (at 20% growth)

 

Edited February 15, 201213 yr by Dust2

I don't like it :(

how would artists make money of them?

Edited February 15, 201213 yr by Jack500

how would artists make money of them?

 

Average Itunes downloader pay about $50 a year

 

Average paying Spotify subscribers pay about $110 a year. Spotify pays 70% of its revenue to the music label/artists/publishers.

 

 

 

 

 

Look at this stat:

 

5 million paying Spotify subscribers x $110 a year = $550 million in revenue. And Spotify is only a part of music subscription (with maybe a 20-25% market share).

Spotify is about 12 months away from 5 million paying subscribers.

Edited February 15, 201213 yr by Dust2

2010 Actual: 8.2 million paid subscribers according to IFPI

2011 Actual: 13.4 million paid subscribers (65% increase) according to IFPI

 

Let's assume that subscription will grow at the rate of 50%, 40%, 30%, 20% in the next 4 years

 

2012: 20.1 mil paid subscribers (at 50% growth)

2013: 28.14 mil paid subscribers (at 40% growth)

2014: 36.58 mil paid subscribers (at 30% growth)

2015: 43.90 mil paid subscribers (at 20% growth)

 

 

 

Assume that each paying subscribers pay about $100 a year.

 

44 million x $100 = $4.4 billion USD. Of this 70% will be paid to the music label/artists/publishers.

 

 

And another "streaming" note:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/vev...DB0Q_video.html

 

Vevo's Caraeff Says $1 Billion in Ad Sales Attainable

 

 

2010 VEVO ad revenue: $50 mil actual

2011 VEVO ad revenue: $150 mil actual

2012 VEVO ad revenue (projection from VEV): $300 mil

 

VEVO pays about 65% of its revenue with the record label/artists/publishers.

 

 

 

 

 

Music Videos used to be a LOSS for the music industry. It was an expense and used as promotional material. The music industry practically gave MV away to MTV. Now, the music industry can make some serious money off of MV.

 

Edited February 15, 201213 yr by Dust2

In Sweden the main singles chart is based highly off of Spotify. However it does lead to some odd chart runs. Eric Saade's Hearts In The Air dropped out the chart completely from being at #2.

If this does happen, it'd totally f*ck up my YTD calculations - my spreadsheet can only handle figures for actual sales, not subscription ones!

Hmm maybe we should treasure this part of chart history whilst it lasts. Weird to think in 10 years we might get misty eyed about downloading.

How on earth do you judge how to weight subscription sales v download sales, anyway? IMO the latter should be worth far far more!

How on earth do you judge how to weight subscription sales v download sales, anyway? IMO the latter should be worth far far more!

 

Spotify pays about $0.005 per stream.

Itunes pays about $0.90 per download ($1.29)

 

So about 180 streams = 1 download.

 

 

I can't see indie or rock being able to compete in a chart where pop-obsessives stream the latest Rihanna/Gaga/Madonna track ad nausium. Not that they are able to compete now.

Edited February 16, 201213 yr by tonyttt31

The charts wouldn't look good if subscription plays counted. :no: One Direction, Justin Bieber and Cher Lloyd would have much more chart longevity which isn't a good thing - as well as desperate loons screaming for people to overplay songs and get them high in the chart. Would DJ Fresh be #1 this Sunday if the chart was based on spotify, vevo etc. - I don't think so unfortunately

Edited February 16, 201213 yr by Thermometer

Including streaming in the charts will mean that children can have a greater impact on the charts, since now they're restricted by the fact that they don't have much money. But with subscription, they can essentially listen to their favourite songs an infinite amount of times. When you look at the VEVO charts for the UK, Cher Lloyd and One Direction tend to be very high up. It hurts artists like Adele and Coldplay who don't make music videos their main focus. And it'll help artists like David Guetta, Akon, etc. who fill their music videos with hundreds of naked women.

 

Currently, Flo Rida has the most-streamed song in the world on Spotify, and David Guetta and Pitbull have the most listened to albums in the world on Spotify.

 

And Stupid Hoe by Nicki Minaj broke some sort of record on VEVO didn't it (most views in 24 hours?), so songs like that would benefit from streaming included too.

Edited February 16, 201213 yr by Eric_Blob

The thing that would annoy me most about this is that you could just so easily control the chart. You can fool Spotify (or whatever you would be using) into thinking you've had one full play by just skipping right to the end. There would be deluded stans doing this 100s of times a day just to get a song to the top. Also, as Martyn said, it leads to some odd runs like Eric Saade's (2-OUT) run of Hearts In The Air in Sweden. But if you look at the top 100 songs on Spotify, it is admittedly similar to the official charts.

 

Would DJ Fresh be #1 this Sunday if the chart was based on spotify, vevo etc. - I don't think so fortunately

Fixed :D

I can see in some ways how it would be quite good for sales, but it would support more 'fad' records atm than genuinely popular ones that have lasting appeal, so hopefully, they never will count

I guess theoretically it would just be another step to the singles chart becoming more and more like a "tracks" chart. I would think album tracks would perform much better on streaming services as people would be more likely to listen to and/or preview the entire albums, therefore I would not be surprised if hugely popular albums like 21 would be able to have several tracks in the chart for multiple weeks, rather than just a jolt of cherry-picking on the first week and selling small amounts under-the-table afterwards like what tends to happen now.

 

It would probably also lead to fewer new acts being able to find their footing in the singles chart, as seems to be a side affect of every change to the singles chart in the internet age. Which is slightly ironic when it's supposed to be easier than ever to find new music these days but I digress...

 

I agree it seems to be the obvious next step of musical consumption though - I've been convinced of that ever since Spotify gained popularity in 2009. But with downloads seemingly going from strength to strength I'm not sure if the OCC are in any hurry to make any changes. Mind you the CD format was all but dead within about 5 years of its peak in the late 90s so who knows how fast digital downloads could die off.

The thing that would annoy me most about this is that you could just so easily control the chart. You can fool Spotify (or whatever you would be using) into thinking you've had one full play by just skipping right to the end. There would be deluded stans doing this 100s of times a day just to get a song to the top.

 

Pedant mode on :

 

Isn't 'deluded stans' is a tautology? :)

I guess theoretically it would just be another step to the singles chart becoming more and more like a "tracks" chart. I would think album tracks would perform much better on streaming services as people would be more likely to listen to and/or preview the entire albums, therefore I would not be surprised if hugely popular albums like 21 would be able to have several tracks in the chart for multiple weeks, rather than just a jolt of cherry-picking on the first week and selling small amounts under-the-table afterwards like what tends to happen now.

 

It would probably also lead to fewer new acts being able to find their footing in the singles chart, as seems to be a side affect of every change to the singles chart in the internet age. Which is slightly ironic when it's supposed to be easier than ever to find new music these days but I digress...

 

I agree it seems to be the obvious next step of musical consumption though - I've been convinced of that ever since Spotify gained popularity in 2009. But with downloads seemingly going from strength to strength I'm not sure if the OCC are in any hurry to make any changes. Mind you the CD format was all but dead within about 5 years of its peak in the late 90s so who knows how fast digital downloads could die off.

 

In Sweden where Spotify has the most control over the official charts, their very own Adele type star, Veronica Maggio, had her entire album chart in the singles chart for months, even a one minute long interlude track...not sure that I'd like such a thing to happen in our charts :lol:

 

Surely downloading won't die off though? Downloads replaced CD singles but you still at least get to 'keep' the track, albeit digitally not physically. Streaming is the equivalent of listening to music on Youtube. It will undoubtedly keep growing in popularity but there will always be a HUGE market for people wanting to have a copy of the music that they like.