RIAA
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On Thursday (March 9), the RIAA released its annual year-end report on recorded music revenues in the U.S., with an encouraging top line: In 2022, total revenue was up 6% to $15.9 billion, with paid subscription and wholesale revenues each surpassing $10 billion for the first time. That marks the seventh straight year of growth for an industry that at this point is far removed from the doldrums of the early part of the century.
In fact, the industry could credibly be a little underwhelmed by the rate of growth, as the 6% figure is the lowest percent increase across those seven years — and the only time other than pandemic-affected 2020 (+9.2%) that growth has fallen below double digits during that period. In actual figures, it’s the smallest increase ($900 million) year over year since 2016, when the business grew 11.4% and added $700 million.
There are plenty of other interesting takeaways to discern from digging through the RIAA’s report. Here are four (plus one bonus item!) that stand out.
Paid Subscriptions — Anything to Worry About?
Both the average number of paid subscribers (those subscribing to full-catalog services like Apple Music or Spotify’s paid tier) and the revenue from full-catalog paid subscriptions grew at much slower rates, both in percentage terms and in actual numbers, than in recent years. The former metric showed an increase of 8 million subscribers (9.5%; 84 million in 2021 to 92 million in 2022), while the latter metric reflected an increase of $600 million (7.2%; $8.56 billion to $9.17 billion). As with the overall growth rate for the industry, that’s the first time in several years that those figures grew by less than double-digit percentages. So, is it anything to worry about, when looking at how much growth there is left in the paid streaming business?
Not necessarily. For one thing, between 2018 and 2022, paid subscribers (up 96.2%) and revenue from full-catalog subscriptions (up 93.6%) have grown fairly in line with each other, and the revenue per subscriber has averaged $98.92 over that period of time (pandemic-affected 2020 was an outlier year, at $92.35). In 2022, the average revenue per subscriber was $99.77, which was down from $101.94 in 2021 but not out of line with the overall average.
That number should be expected to grow, given price increases by Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer in the past year and the increasing pressure on Spotify to boost its price higher than $9.99/month, where it has stayed since entering the U.S. in 2011. This will be something to keep an eye on as the year progresses, as strategies shift from gaining subscribers to getting more out of those who do subscribe, given that a ceiling on the number of subscribers could be coming into view (for context, the U.S. government counted 124 million households in the latest census).
Another reason for optimism: The above numbers don’t include limited-tier subscription revenue — things like Amazon Prime and fitness apps like Peloton — which crossed the $1 billion mark for the first time in 2022. Since 2020, when the pandemic led to a home fitness app craze and resulted in additional areas of limited music subscription beyond the traditional paid streaming realm, limited-tier subscription revenue has grown 47.7%. As more licensing opportunities arise, that sector should continue to contribute meaningful revenue moving forward.
Ad-Supported Streaming Takes a Hit
Ad-supported on-demand streaming revenue reached $1.8 billion in 2022, accounting for 11% of the overall revenues for the business last year. But growth was just 5.5% over 2021 — a big reality check after the category grew 46.7% in 2021 over pandemic-affected 2020 and 16.4% at the mid-year mark of 2022. Even in 2020, when the world essentially came to a standstill for several months, year-end ad-supported streaming revenues grew 16.8%, up $170 million — higher than the $95 million gain seen in 2022.
The advertising slump last year was certainly a blow to U.S. industries, with layoffs across the music and tech landscapes in particular. Many companies cited “economic headwinds” due to a combination of factors, including the war in Ukraine, rising interest rates, inflation and the threat of recession as companies scaled back spending that had ballooned coming out of the pandemic and readjusted forecasts for an uncertain future. All of that certainly played a part. But since 2018, ad-supported on-demand streaming revenue grew 137%, becoming an increasingly large part of the overall pie. In comparison, 5.5% is likely a disappointing number to many in the industry.
Vinyl, Vinyl, Vinyl
Another year, another big headline involving vinyl’s 16-year winning streak: For the first time since 1987, the number of vinyl LPs sold in the United States (41 million) surpassed the number of CDs sold in the calendar year (33 million). Vinyl sales reached $1.2 billion in 2022, up 17.2%, while CD sales plummeted once again, decreasing 17.6% to $482 million. Despite the eye-popping vinyl revenue numbers, however, actual unit sales only rose 3%, meaning that the price of vinyl is getting more expensive. In 2021, the average vinyl record cost $26.12; in 2022, that number rose to $29.65. There’s plenty to unpack there, including increased production costs and inflation.
Another notable development in the vinyl craze that has sharpened in recent years is the shifting market share among vinyl retailers. As far back as 2015, when the industry started to emerge from its nadir, the market was dominated by indie records stores (45.42%), internet/mail order sellers like Amazon (32.88%) and chain stores like Best Buy (15%), according to Luminate. By 2018, indie stores and Amazon sales had essentially settled into a market share tie — each at 41% — while the Best Buys of the world had shrunk to just north of 10%.
But beginning in 2019, a fourth player began to emerge: Mass merchant stores like Walmart and Target, which dramatically expanded their inventories. As a result, their market share went from less than 1% in 2015 — accounting for some 7,000 sales — to 10.19% in 2019 and 14.75% in 2021, with sales of 6.1 million units. While the market share economics have shifted during that time, sales have continued to increase for each sector across the board. In short, part of what has been driving the boom has been sheer visibility in some of the biggest stores in the country, which has correlated to more sales, and thus more visibility, and around and around we’ve gone. (For those curious, in 2022 indie stores accounted for 48.1% of the market, having reclaimed their dominant position as the country emerged from the pandemic.)
The Synch Explosion
In the past few years, more and more songs have caught huge waves due to synchs in popular TV shows and films. Think Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” following its Stranger Things placement, The Cramps’ “Goo Goo Muck” following its Wednesday placement and Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down The Line” from Euphoria, to name a few. That seems to have stemmed from the explosion of content, as the streaming wars in TV/film world heated up during that time — with Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, Apple TV+ and the rest all throwing money around to reel in subscribers. The RIAA numbers back that up: In 2022, synch revenue grew 24.8%, from $306.5 million to $382.5 million, marking a gigantic jump. In fact, from 2020 to 2022, synch revenue jumped 44.2%, outpacing the industry at large (which was up 30.3% in that span).
Will that upward trend continue? It’s unclear. The TV/film streamers have publicly cut back their content spends in the past six months as the battle for market share and subscribers veered into profligacy and waste, while corporations looked to reel in costs amid the broader economic landscape. But it’s possible those gains are here to stay, even if they regress a bit. One music group executive recently told Billboard that in addition to the big four streamers (Spotify, Apple, Amazon and YouTube), Netflix was quickly becoming a fifth major source of revenue thanks to a combination of direct synch payments and the long tail of streams that result from a high-profile placement. That’s something to keep an eye on moving forward.
Bonus Takeaway — Ringtones!
Finally, a small bonus addition from a personal favorite aspect of the RIAA report. The mid-to-late-2000s were, of course, a time of great uncertainty and anxiety in the recorded music business, as piracy and digital music chipped away at a once-dominant physical sales format. At their height in 2007, ringtones and ringbacks were able to plug the gap to the tune of $1.1 billion, according to the RIAA. (That would be around $1.6 billion today.) So, how much money did ringtones and ringbacks generate in 2022?
$11 million!
Please, RIAA, continue printing this as a line in every report, no matter how small the figure gets. While it’s currently the smallest line item by revenue in the entire report, I cherish it more than all the others.
Global music piracy crept up in 2022, marking the second straight year it has increased after a period of steady decline, according to a report from MUSO, a U.K. technology company. MUSO, which tracks consumption across websites around the world to “to understand the true picture of digital piracy,” logged more than 15 billion visits to music piracy sites in 2022.
Piracy has been a thorn in the music industry’s side for more than two decades. In recent years, however, the widespread adoption of streaming has led to a steep drop in the types of peer-to-peer and file-sharing behavior that once threatened to bring the music business to its knees.
In a world driven by streaming, rather than downloads or CD sales, the industry is increasingly focused on a different set of issues. Key among them is streaming fraud, which is not driven by fan’s desire to have more music at their fingertips. Instead, this activity often involves bad actors siphoning money away from the music business — by running bot networks that play 31-second white-noise recordings nonstop on Spotify, for example.
Growth in streaming revenues shows signs of slowing, meaning that every dollar that leaks out of the music ecosystem is becoming more important to labels. And MUSO’s report shows that piracy, even if it has faded from headlines, isn’t negligible.
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For example, Justin Bieber‘s songs, albums, or “music bundles” — which could include an entire discography — were illegally downloaded over 1 million times across the peer-to-peer/torrent network in 2022, for example, with more than 40% of those downloads coming from the U.S. MUSO detected more than 950,000 illegal downloads of David Bowie‘s music, more than 780,000 across Bruce Springsteen’s catalog, and more than 750,000 involving Bob Dylan releases.
The U.S. accounts for 7% of all piracy traffic picked up by MUSO, third only behind Iran (15.05%) and India (10.29%). Despite the prevalence of streaming among U.S. listeners, their appetite for piracy far outpaces their peers in other major music markets like the U.K. (1.86% of piracy traffic) and Germany (1.92%). And more than half of all the piracy in the U.S. takes place via stream-ripping, which relies on programs to get around YouTube’s copyright protection and convert audio into MP3s.
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In 2019, the RIAA said it was monitoring more than 200 stream-ripping sites. Labels have taken legal measures to go after some of these: In December 2021, a U.S. judge ordered a pair of Russian sites to pay more than $80 million — $50,000 for each of the 1,618 copyrighted works infringed — in damages. The judge wrote that 1,618 was “likely on the low end of Defendant’s indeterminable number of violations.” Tofig Kurbanov, the owner of the sites, subsequently appealed the ruling.
RIAA chief legal officer Ken Doroshow said at the time that “this litigation sets out vital first principles that should chart a path for further enforcement against foreign stream-rippers and other forms of online piracy that undermine the legitimate market for music.” The ruling, he said, “is a major step forward to protect artists, songwriters, record labels, and consumers from one of the most pernicious forms of online piracy.”
Despite the judgement, MUSO’s data indicates that stream-ripping remains the most prevalent form of piracy in the U.S., accounting for more than half of piracy demand in the country (51.3%). This is well above the global average, which MUSO found to be 33.4%.
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Overall, music piracy has fallen by more than half since 2017, according to MUSO. But the company predicts another small rise in 2023.
“For the Film and TV sectors, MUSO’s data indicate that piracy demand will continue to increase across 2023, as inflationary and economic pressures result in subscriber losses for the various legal streaming services,” the company’s report notes. “This will drive users to illegally stream or download the content they want to watch via piracy sites. MUSO does anticipate seeing a similar uptick in music piracy across 2023,” but one that will be “less marked than [in] other industries.”
There are twin $10 billion milestones served up in the RIAA’s 2022 year-end report on U.S. recorded music revenues: paid subscription streaming revenue reached $10.2 billion over the course of the year; and industry revenues at wholesale reached $10.3 billion, the first time either of those markers have been crossed, the trade body reports.
Those are two headline numbers of the annual report, wherein U.S. recorded music revenues grew 6.1% at retail, from $15.0 billion in 2021 to $15.9 billion in 2022. That marks the seventh straight year of growth for the business, though the percentage of that bump is the lowest since 2015 (+0.9%), the first year that retail revenues began to rise from the industry’s 2014 nadir. (The growth that year was so small, around $65 million, that it was essentially flat for all intents and purposes.) In fact, 2022 is the only year during that time period when growth has not exceeded double digits other than 2020, when a first COVID-impacted year of uncertainty still saw a 9.2% rise in revenue.
Streaming, unsurprisingly, made up the bulk of the industry’s revenues — 84%, up a tick from 83% in 2021, adding up to $13.3 billion in 2022, up 7% from $12.4 billion the year before. Within that, the aforementioned paid streaming chunk was the largest, accounting for 77% of that total for 8% year-over-year growth, and in and of itself making up just shy of 2/3s of the industry’s overall revenues; of the overall paid streaming number, so-called “limited-tier” subscription streaming — including the likes of Amazon Prime, Pandora Plus, Peloton and other fitness or restricted streaming options — grew 18% to surpass $1 billion, coming in at $1.1 billion overall. And ad-supported streaming — like YouTube, Spotify’s free tier or revenues from TikTok — moved up 6% to $1.8 billion, making up 11% of all revenues for the year.
The average number of paid subscriptions in the U.S., meanwhile, reached 92 million, up 9.6% from the 84 million that existed in 2021. (The RIAA notes that this does not include limited-tier subscriptions, and counts “multi-user plans” as one subscription. The overall paid streaming figure of $10.2 billion includes limited-tier.) That growth, while significant given that it is higher than overall revenue growth, is down in both actual numbers and percentage growth for 2021, as was the revenue growth gleaned from paid subs, suggesting that while there’s still room to go higher and records continue to get broken, there may be a slowdown in subscriptions in the future.
Outside of those streaming figures, digital and customized radio revenue — paid out by services such as SiriusXM — inched up 2% YoY, even as SoundExchange payouts declined 3% to $959 million; those other ad-supported platforms such as SiriusXM and other internet radio services grew 28% in revenue during the year, contributing $261 million to the overall pie. That ends a few straight years of growth from SoundExchange distributions, though the overall figure of $1.2 billion from digital and customized radio in general has remained relatively flat for the past several years.
Also within the digital realm, downloads continued their stumble down the proverbial cliff, dropping 20% across the board — both for tracks and for digital albums — to total $495 million in revenue ($242 million for tracks, $214 million for albums). The RIAA notes that in 2012, digital downloads made up 43% of the overall industry’s revenue; in 2022, that number was just 3%. Factoring other formats, total digital revenue was $13.8 billion, up 6.0% from 2021, or 87% of the total business.
For the first time since 1987, vinyl LP units outsold the number of CDs, 41.3 million to 33.4 million (vinyl overtook CDs in revenue in 2020), as its year-over-year growth streak stretches to 16 years — old enough to drive. Total physical revenue was up 4% in 2022 to $1.7 billion, of which $1.2 billion came from vinyl — up 17% YoY, making up 71% of physical revenues. CD revenue, meanwhile, continued to decline despite the one-time pandemic boost of a few years ago, down 18% to $483 million in 2022. Synch revenue also grew, up 24.8% to $382.5 million.
“2022 was an impressive year of sustained ‘growth-over-growth’ more than a decade after streaming’s explosion onto the music scene,” RIAA chairman/CEO Mitch Glazier said in a statement accompanying the report. “Continuing that long run, subscription streaming revenues now make up two-thirds of the market with a robust record high $13.3 billion. This long and ongoing arc of success has only been possible thanks to the determined and creative work of record companies fighting to build a healthy streaming economy where artists and rightsholders get paid wherever and whenever their work is used.”
Halsey just earned her second Diamond Certified solo record with “Without Me,” but it’s not just a big moment for the pop star. It’s also a big milestone for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the organization known for awarding artists with Gold, Platinum and Diamond statuses based on song sales and streams, as “Without Me” marks the 100th song to ever reach the coveted Diamond benchmark.
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The RIAA presented Halsey with their Diamond Certification during a special ceremony Wednesday (Feb. 1), after which the “Eastside” singer shared photos on Instagram and thanked her fans, record label and more. “Yesterday was just a littleeee out-of-body,” they wrote. “Without Me is my second diamond record, Closer was my first, but my very first one solo!”
It probably goes without saying, but achieving Diamond Certification is no easy feat — that’s why only 100 songs have received the award since its introduction in the late ’90s, after all. A Diamond Certification signifies that a track has gone 10x Platinum, meaning it’s garnered 10 million certified units or more.
“There were a few other really special stats I learned as well including that I have 75x platinum certifications across my catalog,” Halsey continued in their Instagram post. “This whole thing is so surreal. Huge thank you to @riaa_awards for coming out to present this incredible award… [and] all of the fans n friends for making this type of thing possible.”
“Here’s to more years and more tears and more songs,” she concluded.
In honor of 100 Diamond Certified songs, the RIAA released a video recapping every song to ever reach 10x Platinum status, starting with Elton John’s “Something About the Way You Look Tonight / Candle In The Wind 1997,” for which the inaugural Diamond award was created. See which songs from Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Cardi B, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd and more have gone Diamond by watching it on the RIAA’s website.
Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It was true then and it’s true today — on great issues like politics and governance and, closer to home, for America’s music community.
We know the costs of division and mistrust. During the Napster era, we lost nearly half the revenue from recorded music. Working together over the last 10 years, we’ve built a robust and thriving streaming economy well on its way to recovering what was lost. But we still have a long way to go.
From powerful platforms that undervalue music to short-sighted attacks on creators’ rights around the world to abuses of new technologies that attack the very idea of human authorship — it’s more important than ever that we unite to face new challenges in 2023 and beyond.
And we know how to do it.
In recent years, the music industry has joined together over and over again to accomplish great things and move music forward.
In 2018, we enacted “once-in-a-generation” Music Modernization Act legislation here in the U.S. to update streaming rights for songwriters and ensure legacy artists are finally paid. We are now working together to protect artists’ free expression through bills like California’s Decriminalizing Artistic Expression Act and the federal RAP Act.
In 2021, we saw a landmark Copyright Directive in the European Union to strengthen music markets and fair pay for artists on all platforms.
Earlier this year, all three major record labels decided to voluntarily disregard unrecouped balances owed by certain legacy performers ensuring these great artists could immediately share in streaming royalties.
And of course, we supported one another through a devastating pandemic, working to sustain small venues and develop public policies and relief programs to reach working artists and songwriters.
Those were all major steps, but new challenges keep coming — including some designed to stoke division and turn our community against itself. Fortunately, we know from our many recent achievements that the music community — and music itself — does best when we stick together in the face of common challenges. Especially at a time when American music is already thriving — across formats, styles, and all around the world with competition, creativity and choice all stronger than ever.
Artists continued to find new ways to reach more fans than ever with do-it-yourself recording and distribution, while independent labels have become the fastest-growing sector of the market. In a shrinking online world where language and geography are no longer barriers, an artist’s potential audience has become almost limitless.
In this dynamic new music business, success is more broadly shared than ever, with growing opportunities and revenues for indie artists and the very top acts taking a smaller share of revenues today than during the CD era. Globally, out of a $10 per month streaming subscription, artists receive roughly $1.35 while labels net $0.55 once the cost of spending to drive artists’ success is accounted for. Meanwhile, the share of revenues going to publishers and songwriters has nearly doubled in the streaming era.
It’s a powerful testament to what all of us who make up the music community have built together.
It is success borne first from the blood, sweat and tears of America’s creators — artists, songwriters, session players and the legions of those who support and distribute music — producers, publishers, road crews and venue operators, tour support, managers, digital services and more.
It is also the product of round-the-clock drive and commitment by the people working at record labels– music lovers who wake up every day fighting for the artists they work with and helping them achieve their creative dreams and commercial goals. From marketing and promotion to brand and design to social media campaigns to wellness and health to business and back office services, labels today do more than ever to support artists and position them to break new ground and thrive.
The labels that make up the RIAA are committed to a future of continued shared growth. We are determined to keep pushing for even more positive change. And we will work every day in this new year to unite our music community with forward-looking policies and goals that benefit artists, songwriters and fans as well as rightsholders and music services.
That means standing together and ensuring creators get full value for their work on every platform, service, game, fitness app and anywhere else it is used — from AM/FM radio to the metaverse. It also means building on shared commitments to diversity, wellness, and equality — both inside and outside the recording studio and across our entire community.
Additionally, it means presenting a united front when tackling the next generation of challenges, including artificial intelligence, where artists, songwriters, labels and publishers have an immense and shared interest in establishing responsible rules of the road that value human authorship and creativity. Also important is fighting against new forms of music piracy and other efforts to undermine the creative economy, from stream ripping to stream manipulation to pre-release leaks that suck the economic value out of the most seminal times in an artist’s career.
All of us who make up this community are bound together by a shared love of music — and a shared commitment to the people who create, distribute, and listen to it.
In 2023, let’s work — together — to turn those values into concrete action that builds a rich and lasting music future for us all.
Mitch Glazier is the Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the trade organization that supports and promotes the creative and financial vitality of the recorded major music companies.
Post Malone and Swae Lee celebrated a major milestone this week when their smash Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse single “Sunflower” became the highest-certified single in RIAA history. The pair took a photo op with their gaudy hardware on Monday (Nov. 14), showing off their 17x-platinum award, posing alongside co-producer Louis Bell and co-writer Billy Walsh.
The 2018 single leapt into first place over the previous record holder, Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Old Town Road,” which previously held the record at 15x platinum. In addition to appearing on the Spiderverse soundtrack, the song was also on Posty’s third album, Hollywood’s Bleeding. It was a big haul for Posty on Monday, when he also picked up 14 other pieces of RIAA hardware, including a 14x-platinum plaque for “Congratulations” and a 10x-platinum one for “Psycho,” while his debut single, “White Iverson,” hit 10x-platinum as well.
TMZ reported that Rae Sremmurd’s Swae Lee was feeling the love from fans, who he thanked for their continued support. “You guys made history with us!” he said. “And to post and [Spiderverse character] Miles Morales, glad the music could get the attention and love it deserves. So much more to come! SREMMLIFE!”
The site also reported that Malone gave huge kudos to Swae Lee for being the “secret sauce” behind the moving hip-hop ballad, saying that his rhyme partner was very involved in the arranging of the melodies and did the “heavy lifting” on the song. The “Sunflower” video has racked up nearly 2 billion views to date.
Malone is getting ready to wrap the North American leg of his Twelve Carat Tour, with a pair of shows at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Tuesday and Wednesday (Nov. 16) nights.
See the pair with their plaque below.