RIAA’s Posts 2019 Mid-Year Report: Revenues up 18%, Streaming Soars

Revenues are up 18% to $5.4 billion and streaming accounts for 80% of that revenue, according to the Recording Industry Association of America’s mid-year report released today. Paid streaming services added more than 1 million new subscriptions a month, pushing the U.S. total past 60 million. The trends continue the double-digit growth the industry has seen since 2016. At wholesale value, revenues rose 16% to $3.5 billion.

Streaming revenues have soared from $1.7 billion in the first half of 2016 to $4.3 billion in the same period this year. The biggest driver in that increase has been the rapid growth in paid subscriptions. Paid subscriptions have risen from 9.1 million in the first half of 2016, to 20.5 million the following year, to 46.9 million last year and 61.1 million in the first half of 2019.

Of the remaining 20% of music industry revenues, 9% each went to physical product and digital downloads, and 2% to synch.

Music contributes $143 billion to the United States’ GDP every year, the report states. supporting more than 157,000 music-related businesses and nearly 2 million jobs.

“The headline out of RIAA’s latest data on the music ecosystem is clear (and to anyone who’s ever had to separate teenagers and their earbuds, no great surprise) — the streaming economy continues to accelerate, strengthen, and mature,” said RIAA president and CEO Mitch Glazier (pictured above). “Everywhere you look, our industry’s embrace of new technologies, approaches, and platforms is paying off for artists, fans, and everyone who loves great music.

“Music continues to be a key driver of Internet culture, and engagement around music and artists powers much of the popularity of many social media and technology platforms,” he continued. “On social media, musicians are among the most-followed users worldwide. Labels have worked for years to build powerful new tools, infrastructure, and teams to help artists navigate the global streaming ecosystem and protect and promote their work. Whether it’s fighting to shut down industrial piracy and stream-ripping operations or standing up to Big Tech platforms that have avoided accountability to exploit artists and grossly underpay for music.

“And more than anything, it’s a reminder of what we can accomplish when the whole music community — and our music service partners — work together. Collaboration and cooperation work. We’ve proven that by establishing the right to be paid for streaming in the early days of the internet, to the technical and data collaboration that made modern music services possible, to even more recent problem solving like the Music Modernization Act that finally won justice for artists who recorded before 1972.

“Let’s keep it going,” he concludes.

Read the full report here.

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