Music Industry - Largest Growing Business Of All Time

U.S. listeners are spending more money on music than ever before: over $20 billion a year. Total music revenues — including from on-demand streams, CD sales, radio play, live events, advertising — have risen to about $43 billion a year. 2. Of that, artists only take home $5 billion, or about 12 percent.

A disturbing new music industry statistic claims that artists only got 12 percent of the $43 billion the industry generated in 2017, according to a new Citigroup report published this week. Billions of people are using music download sites. According to the report, the industry's $43 billion year was its most profitable since 2006. 
Music consumption shot up in 2018 — but no thanks to album or song sales, according to BuzzAngle's year-end report released today. In 2018, Best Buy decided to stop selling CDs, with the change partly brought on by record labels' increasing reluctance to even issue them.

The Big Three record labels are: 

1. Sony BMG. 
2. Universal Music Group. 
3. Warner Music Group.

But musicians still aren't getting a fair shake. Here's the math: Spotify pays about $0.006 to $0.0084 per stream to the holder of music rights. And the "holder" can be split among the record label, producers, artists, and songwriters. In short, streaming is a volume game.

But the company estimates that the average song generates between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream in royalties. This may seem like a pittance, but Spotify's data shows that the numbers add up, at least for big artists.

Who Owns Music Industry?

There's Len Blavatnik, the CEO of Access Industries, a company that owns Warner Music and sounds like the evil corporation in a science fiction movie—he's worth almost $20 billion. The most powerful people in the music industry aren't even in the music industry at all, they're above it.

Artists have the power now. It's true that digital downloads and CD sales are likely to continue declining until they're no longer a meaningful drive of overall industry income. Instead, streaming services like Spotify or YouTube's new Music Key are likely to become the primary way that people listen to music.

Perhaps the biggest illusion in content-centric industries is the belief that the content itself is the main product. For the end-consumer, music is not a product or a service. End-consumers rarely pay for music. They put down money for copies of music, such as CDs, sheet music or music downloads.

The 10 biggest record deals of all time, ranked 

1. Lil Wayne — $150 million (2012) 
2. Jay Z — $150 million (2008) ... 
3. Bruce Springsteen — $150 million (2005) ... 
4. Adele — $130 million (2016) ... 
5. Robbie Williams — $125 million (2002) ... 
6. Madonna — $120 million (2012) ... 
7. Whitney Houston — $100 million (2001) ... 
8. Prince — $100 million (1992) ...

Soundlcoud has introduced three tier options : Partner, Pro, Premier. Premier allows the ads to its free and paid options, which will make it possible for up loaders to make money from the tracks they share. ... So, the artist can earn money through ads. Soundcloud doesn't pay them.