State Champ Radio Streaming
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Spotify paid out $9 billion in music royalties in 2023, with $4.5 billion going to independent artists. That huge pool of money is divvied up amongst hundreds of thousands of artists — some wealthy enough to live without royalty checks while many others need streaming to help keep their lights on.
The number of artists who made at least $10,000 in royalties from Spotify rose 16% to 66,000, according to the company’s latest Loud & Clear report released Tuesday (Mar. 19). That was twice the growth rate in artists earning at least $10,000 as the 8% uptick seen in 2022 when that number rose to 57,000.
The number of artists who reached other thresholds also increased at a higher clip in 2023 than in 2022. Last year, the number of artists who made $100,000 from Spotify in 2023 rose 15% to 11,600, compared to 10,100 the prior year, when the number was up 6%. And there were 1,250 artists who generated over $1 million from Spotify in 2023, an 18% increase from 1,060 in 2022 when the $1 million club grew by just 2%.
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The company’s fourth annual Loud & Clear report provides an update on the company’s goal of allowing 1 million creators the opportunity to make a living from their art, a statement that goes back to CEO Daniel Ek at the company’s 2017 investor day presentation. How much an artist requires to pay the bills will vary by country, but it’s safe to say Spotify isn’t allowing 1 million artists to quit their day jobs and be working musicians.
Nevertheless, the number of artists who made what could be called a substantial amount of royalties on the platform continues to grow. The number of artists who made $10,000 from Spotify (66,000) last year was 2.8 times the 23,400 who reached that level in 2017. Compared to 2017, the number of artists who reached the $100,000 threshold in 2023 (11,600) was 2.7 times higher; and the number of artists who earned $1 million (4,300) last year was also 2.7 times higher. Over that period, Spotify’s annual revenue grew 3.2 times, rising from 4.1 billion euros ($4.6 billion) to 13.2 billion euros ($14.3 billion), according to the company’s financial statements.
By Spotify’s own estimate, the universe of working musicians is much larger than the 66,000 artists who earned $10,000 last year. The company says there are 225,000 emerging or professional recording artists globally. Separately, 235,000 artists have released at least 10 songs in their careers, a group that averages at least 10,000 monthly listeners.
Loud & Clear makes a point of highlighting how independent artists can make a living from streaming royalties. Last year, a quarter of the 66,000 artists in the $10,000 club were self-distributed through do-it-yourself platforms such as DistroKid and TuneCore. Unlike artists signed to record labels, self-distributed artists can pocket the entirety of their streaming royalties minus any distribution fees. Artists signed to labels may make more overall than independent artists, but they earn a fraction of the total receipts and must repay advances and marketing and promotion expenses.
Another Loud & Clear point of emphasis is that streaming is benefitting artists around the world. Indeed, the global nature of streaming platforms means music can easily travel from any corner of the globe to a mature streaming market where a high proportion of paid subscribers provides attractive royalties compared to ad-supported platforms. Of the 66,000 artists who generated at least $10,000 in Spotify royalties in 2023, more than half are from countries where English is not the first language. That’s not surprising given that Spotify is available in 184 countries and territories and has a major presence in large markets — such as India, Mexico, Brazil, Spain and France — with strong local, non-English music scenes.
To get a sense of which artists might be in Spotify’s $1 million club, Billboard examined a list of Luminate’s top 1,000 U.S. artists ranked by audio on-demand streaming. The list includes some young artists who have found success in the streaming era — such as Jelly Roll (No. 66), The Neighbourhood (No. 102) and PinkPantheress (No. 144) — and rely on streaming royalties more than more established artists with greater touring success.
Many of the top streaming artists are older musicians who earn far more from touring than streaming royalties: Fleetwood Mac (No. 54), George Strait (No. 97), AC/DC (No. 110), Elton John (No. 125), P!nk (No. 128), Billy Joel (No. 169), Journey (No. 172), Motley Crue (No. 395) and Garth Brooks (No. 489), among many others.
The top 1,000 list also includes bands that broke up long ago or haven’t released new music in decades: the Beatles (No. 49), Queen (No. 87), Nirvana (No. 112), Creedence Clearwater Revival (No. 134), Led Zeppelin (No. 151), Abba (No. 318), Bee Gees (No. 328), The Smiths (No. 341) and the Grateful Dead (No. 444). Those music royalties are undoubtedly welcomed, but these artists are certainly secure financially without them.
Other top-streaming artists are deceased: Juice WRLD (No. 15), 2Pac (No. 89), Frank Sinatra (No. 109), Elvis Presley (No. 146), Notorious B.I.G. (No. 150), Bob Marley (No. 167), Johnny Cash (No. 245), Dean Martin (No. 336), Prince (No. 362), Jimmy Buffet (No. 425), Tom Petty (No. 428), David Bowie (No. 441) and John Denver (No. 470).
Some artists don’t even pocket their Spotify royalties because they’ve sold their rights to investors. Katy Perry (No. 82) sold her recorded music catalog to Litmus Capital. Kenny Chesney (No. 157) sold a majority stake in his recorded music catalog to Hipgnosis Song Management. Jason Aldean (No. 50) sold a portion of his recorded music catalog to Spirit Music Group. Primary Wave acquired a 50% stake in Whitney Houston’s master recording revenue. The list of contemporary artists who sold their publishing rights is long; the list also includes Future (No. 12), Bruno Mars (No. 57), Imagine Dragons (No. 58) and Metro Boomin (No. 132).
Artists in the $1 million club are outliers, however. Anyone fortunate enough to be earning $1 million a year from Spotify already makes a good living from touring, merchandise, sponsorships and other areas. The point of Loud & Clear is to highlight the financial opportunities Spotify provides to those artists the report calls the “most dependent on streaming as part of their livelihood.” For that middle class of artists, streaming pays much better than it used to. While only a small fraction of 1 million artists can say they make a living from Spotify, the number rises every year.
It’s no secret that Taylor Swift and Beyoncé staged the two biggest tours of 2023, with Swift even continuing the Eras Era throughout 2024. But not only did both artists earn record-breaking grosses and affect local economies with their treks, the stage shows also juiced each artist’s recorded music consumption.
Luminate and Billboard partnered to dig deeper into the connection between touring and streaming, capping a colossal year of headline tours. Beyoncé and Swift proved perfect examples of artists’ abilities to capitalize on their concert calendar to not only score a local bump in each city but sustain long-term national interest throughout the duration of their tours and beyond.
Both Beyoncé and Swift saw expected bumps to their consumption totals upon their respective tour kick-offs. When The Eras Tour launched, Swift’s U.S. on-demand audio streaming count increased by 59% in the week ending March 23, according to Luminate. For Beyoncé, the effects were teased out, as the tour’s first leg in Europe allowed domestic streaming to build slowly before her North American arrival. By the end of their U.S. runs, streams were up – from the week before each tour began through the release of each artist’s concert film – by 106% and 34%, respectively.
Initially, these bumps could be explained by the analysis of touring’s local short-term impact on consumption. In each city that Beyoncé and Swift played, market-level streams immediately grew by 89% and 95%, respectively, on average. But as their tours continued, isolated regional bumps compounded on one another, with particular narratives and trends aggregating to a mountain of consumption at the national level.
The mere announcement (Feb. 1, 2023) of Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour – coupled with the 65th Annual Grammy awards, where she did not perform but accepted two record-breaking trophies – spurred three weeks of gains, as the tour’s on-sale kept excitement alive. The beginning of Beyoncé’s domestic dates naturally fueled consumption in dramatic fashion with six consecutive weeks of increases (July 7 – Aug. 17).
Beyoncé stretched out her summer streaming bump with intention, focusing on individual moments of choreography and arrangements within the setlist. For “Energy,” a deep cut from Renaissance, she made a meal out of the lyric, “Look around, everybody on mute.” She took it literally, pausing the song and freezing alongside her dancers and band, teasing the audience before resuming, “Look around, it’s me and my crew/ Big energy.”
The Mute Challenge soon became an integral part of the show. By the time “Energy” hit its own streaming peak of 1.7 million clicks (week ending Sept. 7), it had nearly tripled its consumption from before the tour.
When Beyoncé performed “My Power,” a non-single from The Lion King: The Gift, she was joined by daughter Blue Ivy Carter on stage. Their much-memed and much-imitated dance routine entered the cannon of iconic Beyoncé choreography, with fans tracking Blue’s progress throughout the tour. The track posted explosive streaming gains over several months, ultimately up 449% by its peak (the week ending Aug. 17) from before the tour’s launch (the week ending May 4).
Spotlights for under-the-radar tracks like “Energy” and “My Power” yielded organic, drawn-out increases in consumption that snowballed alongside a parade of guest stars, controversy over the Queens Remix of “Break My Soul,” and a constant influx of social media content showcasing Beyoncé’s rotating wardrobe from local designers.
Swift’s catalog soared as soon as her tour began on March 17. Even before the July 7 release of Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), which warped her streams beyond the impact of The Eras Tour, consumption had almost doubled, at 372.9 million clicks in the week ending June 1. After the new release receded, her catalog maintained, at 391.4 million by the U.S. leg’s end in the week ending Aug. 10.
Like Beyoncé, Swift found songs within her ever-expanding catalog to highlight, particularly those that weren’t already world-conquering hits. Even with a nightly setlist of more than 40 songs, she left room each night to perform two rotating “surprise songs.” On average, the surprise songs got a 27% bump the week of their performance. Removing performances of songs from Speak Now after the release of the Taylor’s Version set, more affected by new-release streaming patterns than the typical tour impact, the average gain bumps to 31%.
After the exposure and subsequent streaming increase, the typical next-week drop was just 5%, indicating that inclusion in the surprise-song section encouraged sustained streaming action.
Within the show’s routine set pieces, Swift turned a fan-favorite into a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit. Lover’s “Cruel Summer,” from 2019, was the first properly performed song each night at The Eras Tour, helping to reignite Swifties’ passion for the album cut. Without an official music video or announcement, even as Swift launched the 2022 Midnights track “Karma” as a single with its Ice Spice remix, “Cruel Summer” showed unstoppable growth from the tour’s launch. Steady between 1.9-2.1 million streams in the early months of 2023, the song ballooned to 16.7 million by the final U.S. show (in the week ending Aug. 10).
The prolonged championing of “Cruel Summer” and the one-after-another success of Swift’s surprise songs underlined The Eras Tour’s ability to transform her from superstar to stratosphere. Her relationships, philanthropy and seemingly every move during the tour continued to fuel her consumption, consistently more than double the streams she drew from earlier that year.
Both Beyoncé and Swift extended their good fortunes with the release of record-breaking concert films, each delivering profits for distributor AMC and more consumption boosts for their catalogs. The seeds they planted with “Energy, “Cruel Summer” and more took full bloom, even inside movie theaters, with audiences singing and dancing along — except when they had to be on mute.
Months after each tour wrapped in the U.S., Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé scored the pop-dance-R&B(-country) chameleon a streaming increase of 54% the week of its Dec. 1 release, while Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour earned its once-country-now-pop star a 20% boost upon its Oct. 13 release.
Beyoncé and Swift are, of course, enormous stars that were likely to attract some amount of attention for going on tour even if they didn’t plan and work for these kinds of long-term rewards. But this kind of long-term, national growth isn’t only reserved for top-of-the-line megastars, as Maluma, ODESZA and Weezer experienced similar touring impact last year.
Both five years removed from their last stadium tours, Beyoncé and Swift designed their shows for maximum impact and staged campaigns that turned each trek into an era of its own.
Click here for more on the symbiotic relationship between touring and streaming.
On Mar. 6, the Digital Media Association’s (DiMA) new president/CEO, Graham Davies, published a blog post calling the five-year anniversary of the Music Modernization Act (MMA) a “key moment to course-correct” in a blog post about the Mechanical Licensing Collective. In the process, he suggested the organization has “gone beyond its remit” in collecting and administering the blanket mechanical license in the United States.
On Monday (Mar. 18), the National Music Publishing Association (NMPA) responded to the letter in an email sent to members, in which it said DiMA’s “calls for change” were not “a good faith effort to make the MLC more effective and transparent.”
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So why are the two organizations sparring now?
According to the MMA, the MLC — which serves as the collector and administrator of the blanket mechanical license in the United States — is reviewed every five years by the Copyright Office in a process called “re-designation.” This process will be a routine occurrence moving forward to ensure efficiency, effectiveness and neutrality for the organization.
Now, with the MLC’s first-ever re-designation currently underway, both its critics and supporters have become more vocal in hopes of swaying the results and/or public opinion about the organization’s operations to date.
DiMA’s blog post begins by saying it “remains committed to the success of the MMA and the mechanical licensing collective it established.” Later, the letter focuses on the fact that its membership, which includes the world’s biggest streaming services, is required by the MMA to foot the bill for the MLC. While in the letter it does not ask for this arrangement to be changed, the organization does point out that it feels this system has led to a lack of incentive for the MLC to be cost-conscious, neutral and efficient.
“Reasonable costs of the collective cannot include everything from traveling to distant countries to conduct outreach to songwriters far beyond the U.S. licensing system,” writes Davies. The DiMA CEO/president, who assumed the role in January of this year, also points out that the MLC is “suing one of the licensees [Pandora] that pays its costs — using licensee money to pursue its allegations against a licensee on a novel legal theory.”
The NMPA’s reply, titled “DiMA using copyright office MMA review as opportunity to re-write history and undermine MLC’s progress,” focuses first on re-explaining to its members the history of the MMA and the MLC and the nature of the MLC’s duties before getting into its reply to DiMA. It has a far more favorable take on the MLC overall, claiming the organization “is currently the most efficient, transparent, and cost-effective licensing collective in the world.”
The NMPA goes on to say that streamers “do not want what is in the best interests of music publishers or songwriters,” calling DiMA’s “new…strategy” “an effort by the world’s largest digital companies to leverage their power to pay less, make it easier for non-compliance, and make it more difficult for the MLC to execute its statutory responsibilities as envisioned by Congress.”
“Make no mistake, when big tech says ‘course correct’ they mean a change to the carefully negotiated law to fund only MLC activities that benefit digital companies,” the letter continues.
DiMA’s blog post can be read here. The NMPA’s reply can be read in full below.
MMA Five Years On
It’s astounding how much progress can happen in five years. In 2018, the Music Modernization Act (MMA) became law, creating the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) and fundamentally changing how songwriters and music publishers are licensed and paid by digital streaming services.
Since 2018, the MLC has done a great job building a rights organization that today represents thousands of rightsholders, administers over fifty blanket licenses and has distributed over $1.5 billion in royalties.
The MLC Review
Under the MMA, the Copyright Office reviews every five years its initial designation of the MLC, with the first review starting this past January.
DiMA, the trade association representing the five largest digital music companies—Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google and Pandora (DSPs)—recently released a blog about the review process.
In it, DiMA called for radical changes that would upend the purpose of the MMA and the MLC under the guise of a “course correction” and a focus on MLC “neutrality.” Reflection at this pivotal point is necessary. But what’s clear is the digital services’ calls for change are not a good faith effort to make the MLC more effective and transparent, as they argue, but the opposite. It is time to set the record straight.
MMA History Refresher
It is important to remember that DiMA and the DSPs were significantly involved in the drafting of the MMA, which reflected the culmination of years of negotiation and consensus building among songwriters, music publishers, and digital music services.
The central compromise of the MMA was the creation of a new mechanical licensing collective to administer Section 115 streaming blanket licenses, governed by rightsholders, and funded by DSPs. The agreement to fund the MLC’s operations was made in exchange for the MLC taking on what had been the DSPs’ royalty administration responsibilities and the DSPs’ securing limited liability for hundreds of millions in statutory damages exposure due to their prior failures to properly license and distribute royalties.
The MLC’s Fundamental Role & Responsibilities
The MMA placed upon the MLC expansive responsibilities under Section 115. In addition to administering licenses and distributing royalties, the MMA provides explicitly that the MLC must handle non-compliance of DSPs through legal enforcement efforts, default of licenses and collection of late fees. It requires the MLC to audit DSPs to ensure proper royalty payments and accounting. These critical rights were traditionally held by copyright owners. However, the MMA took these legal rights from rightsholders and gave this authority to the MLC alone to act on their behalf.
Further, the law empowers the MLC to initiate proceedings before the CRB to set its funding and before the Copyright Office in rulemaking and regulatory processes on behalf of copyright owners. The MLC can also negotiate against DSPs and on behalf of rightsholders non-precedential interim royalty rates for new service offerings under the blanket license.
The MLC’s Success
By any metric, the MLC has been successful in meeting the MMA’s broad directive. After only five years, it is administering over 50 interactive streaming licenses and distributing billions in royalties to thousands of rightsholders. It has heeded the calls of the MMA and the U.S. Copyright Office to focus on outreach to all copyright owners, from the smallest self-published songwriters to the largest music publishers, and domestic and foreign organizations that exploit musical works in the U.S. It maintains a fully public database. And yes, it just announced the start of DMP audits and has used its legal enforcement authority where necessary to ensure compliance, such as the recent Pandora litigation.
It has succeeded in doing all of this with the lowest operating budget of any license administration collective. The MLC is still developing its capabilities, and the next five years will see it continue to grow and improve, but it is currently the most efficient, transparent, and cost-effective licensing collective in the world.
The DSPs’ Vision
Back in 2019, as industry participants sat down to develop the new MLC, it was clear that while the DSPs wanted the benefit of a blanket license and limited liability, they did not want to fund an effective MLC that could accomplish everything statutorily required of it. One DMP executive suggested that the MLC could be just several employees at a WeWork.
Thankfully, the music publishers and songwriters that supported and created the MLC understood—and convinced the DSPs at that time—that to develop a collective that fulfilled the mandate of the MMA and addressed the significant issues of the past, the MLC needed reasonable funding equal to its broad statutory responsibilities.
In their latest calls for a “course correction” and MLC “neutrality,” however, the DSPs and DiMA are once again trying to undermine the MLC and the central compromise to which they agreed.
Make no mistake, when big tech says “course correct” they mean a change to the carefully negotiated law to fund only MLC activities that benefit digital companies.
When they speak of “neutrality,” what they want is to “neuter” the ability of the MLC to accomplish the clear responsibilities set out for it in the MMA. Those responsibilities include being an effective administrator of the compulsory license, being a diligent enforcer of DSP reporting and royalty obligations, and being a strong defender of the rights that the MLC is charged with licensing on behalf of music publishers and songwriters. It should come as no surprise that MLC neutrality vis-à-vis DSPs, either explicitly or in spirit, is not found anywhere in the MMA.
In Short
DSPs do not want what is in the best interests of music publishers or songwriters. Instead, this new DSP/DiMA strategy is an effort by the world’s largest digital companies to leverage their power to pay less, make it easier for non-compliance, and make it more difficult for the MLC to execute its statutory responsibilities as envisioned by Congress.
Their strategy will disempower rightsholders by disempowering the only entity created and authorized to act on their behalf with respect to mechanical licenses – the MLC.
As we look to the next five years, know that the NMPA will continue to be laser focused on fulfilling the clear goals of the MMA and ensuring the MLC is empowered to effectively work for us all.
In their much-cited 2023 paper “Glocalisation of Music Streaming within and across Europe,” Will Page and Chris Dalla Riva note that the rise of global streaming platforms correlates with the strengthening of local music.
This seemingly contradictory state is what the authors refer to as “glocalisation” — or “glocalization” in the American spelling. And in Latin music, that phenomenon has led to a spike in local genres like corridos, banda, funk and Argentine rap in recent years.
According to Pedro Kurtz — Deezer’s head of music for LATAM, speaking on a SXSW panel titled “Latin Music Momentum In The Age of ‘Glocalization’” on Tuesday (Mar. 12) — it’s about relatability.
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“We listen to music that we relate to, that represents us culturally. You look at artists and they’re speaking my language, and everything moves from there.”
Kurtz appeared on the panel alongside Cris Garcia Falcão, MD of label and artist strategy/GM of Latin at Virgin Music, and Sandra Jimenez, head of music in Latin America at YouTube — and the conversation (which I moderated) often turned lively between the three Brazilian executives.
Their points of view not only highlighted the glocalization phenomenon and how democratization and streaming dramatically changed Latin music, but also the similarities and differences between the Brazilian and Latin American markets, which many tend to lump together — even though they’re vastly different.
Although Brazil is an enormous and powerful market, the music is in Portuguese, and there is still a language barrier that must be broken down in order to break through internationally; even Brazilian megastar Anitta had to sing in Spanish to get noticed.
But, notes Jimenez, “There is no language barrier for Spanish. It’s almost like one big country. It’s a region with more than 300 million people. It’s a huge region.”
Its sheer size has given the region clout.
On YouTube, Latin America is “one of the top three regions in the world in terms of music consumption,” said Jimenez. For Deezer, added Kurtz, “It’s the second most important region in terms of streaming and engagement.”
And the vast majority of the content consumed on streaming platforms in Latin America is local.
For example, Falcão said that before the pandemic, “It was more about Anglo content. Now, it’s more democratic. Everyone should understand our region and our culture and adapt.”
Those who do, win. In Brazil, more than 80% of music consumption is local. In Mexico, says Kurtz, “72% of our streaming comes from local artists. It’s a big number, and local branches are getting more autonomy. Back in the day, we had other forces pushing music.”
Beyond the numbers, there are other intangibles. The Latin diaspora globally has led to music in Spanish, in particular, being consumed all around the world — and that phenomenon was accentuated during the pandemic. “It made us more internal,” said Jimenez. “It wasn’t possible to meet with friends and family, so we created community.”
As Latin music consumption has increased, so has music creation and investment in the region. Kurtz says that starting in 2020, Deezer has seen its number of weekly pitches in the region almost double — reflecting an increased interest in making music.
“It’s about people valuing their own cultures, and the charts are basically a mirror of that,” he said.
The global record business will soon pop the champagne to celebrate another year of streaming-led revenue growth, judging from the handful of individual country revenue figures for 2023 made public so far this year. The IFPI won’t release its 2023 report until Thursday (Mar. 21), but major markets such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain and Japan have already released data that shows 2023 produced another bumper harvest for record labels.
But while streaming continues to push markets in positive directions, growth has slowed, and revenue in some markets remains well below the levels of the CD era. Worse yet, some countries may have insufficient streaming growth to get back to earlier peaks.
SNEP, the recorded music trade group in France, issued a stark warning this week when it announced that the country’s 2023 revenue rose a respectable 5.1% to 968 million euros ($1.05 billion at the average exchange rate in 2023). But even though digital revenue rose 8.8% to 620 million euros ($671 million) and streaming revenue climbed 9.2%, a 10% increase in subscription streaming revenue “remains too weak to fully fuel the development of the market even though it is the primary source of value creation,” SNEP wrote in its 2023 report.
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France might reasonably be expected to be faring better in 2024. The country was the sixth-largest recorded music market in 2022, according to the IFPI, and is the home of Deezer, an early entrant to the music subscription market. But in 2023, France had only a 16% penetration rate for paid subscribers, according to SNEP, “one of the lowest among the main music territories. The growth in revenue from these subscriptions is slowing down here while our market is far from having reached maturity.” This isn’t a brand-new concern: SNEP sounded the same alarm a year ago.
So, while streaming is creating new opportunities globally for labels, publishers and creators, it hasn’t grown enough to help France recapture revenue lost during the fall of the CD in the 2000s. France’s revenue of 968 million euros in 2023 was 25% below the 1.3 billion euros of revenue it enjoyed in 2002. In contrast, the U.S. market’s $15.9 billion in recorded music revenue was well above the peak of the CD era, $14.5 billion, set in 1999, according to the RIAA.
Elsewhere, some major recorded music markets have announced decent gains in 2023 without voicing the kind of dire warning seen in France.
The German recorded music industry grew 6.3% in 2023, the BVMI announced Mar. 6. Digital revenue grew 8.4% and accounted for 81.5% of total revenue. Audio streaming rose 8.4% and accounted for 74.8% of the total market and 92% of digital revenue. Physical sales accounted for 18.5% of total revenue and rose 0.1% from 2022. CD sales dropped 5.9% but accounted for 11.3% of total revenue and about 61% of physical revenue. Vinyl sales grew 12.6%.
Spain’s recorded music market grew 12.3% to 520 million euros in 2023, Promusicae announced Tuesday (Mar. 12). Streaming grew 17.3% to 398.6 million euros ($432 million) and accounted for 77% of total revenue, which was a remarkable 150% higher than the low point of 159.7 million euros ($212 million) in 2013. But, like France, Spain has yet to match its peak revenue from the CD era. Last year’s revenue was on par with the 475 million euros ($534 million) seen in 2005, itself a sharp decline from revenue that surpassed 700 million euros ($630 million) in 2001.
Aside from SNEP in France, only the BPI in the United Kingdom sounded an alarm of any sort. The market’s recorded revenue rose 8.1% in 2023 to a record 1.43 billion pounds ($1.78 billion), the organization announced Thursday (Mar. 14), with streaming revenue increasing 8.4% to 962 million pounds ($1.2 billion) and accounting for 67.4% of total revenue, up from 67.3% in 2022 and well above the 8.6% seen a decade earlier. But BPI CEO Dr. Jo Twist cautioned not to take the growth for granted and emphasized the need for “significant label investment” to keep the market prosperous.
There’s a reason the kind of gains music markets are seeing currently might not feel like unqualified success stories: inflation. Adjusted for inflation, revenue in France last year was actually 48% below 2002; and in 2022, the United States was 38% below its 1999 peak.
These major markets’ failure to return to CD-era highs helps explain the music business’s unprecedented land rush as companies invest in developing markets in search of export-ready artists and untapped streaming potential. Both majors and independents are investing in Africa, the Middle East/North Africa, Asia and South America — regions with large populations, under-monetized streaming markets and exportable music that could generate royalties in Western countries.
Those developing markets, and some major ones like the United States and United Kingdom, helped global recorded music trade revenue reach a new high of $24 billion in 2021, surpassing the $23.2 billion from 1999 (unadjusted for inflation). While both the United States and United Kingdom surpassed their CD era peaks in 2021 (without adjusting for inflation), some other major markets are still trying to recapture their glory days. Growth-minded companies in those markets may have to look beyond their borders to get there.
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It’s been 40 years since the first Ghostbusters premiered, but the franchise continues to haunt our screens with its latest installment, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, premiering Friday, March 22. You can get tickets to see the new Ghostbusters movie in theaters, but for fans looking to watch every Ghostbusters film at home before you see Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, there are some streaming options available.
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The upcoming Ghostbusters movie will continue the story from Ghostbusters: Afterlife, as the Spengler family heads to New York City and into the legendary fire house (aka the original headquarters for the Ghostbusters). When an ancient artifact is uncovered, an evil force is accidentally unleashed, wreaking havoc and threatening the safety of the world. Ghostbusters new and old must come together to help defeat the mysterious new villain — or risk the world enduring a second ice age.
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Cast members for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire include original stars Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and Dan Aykroyd, in addition to Paul Rudd, Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Emily Alyn Lind, Carrie Coon, Patton Oswalt, Kumail Nanjiani, Celeste O’Connor, Annie Potts, William Atherton, James Acaster and Logan Kim.
Keep reading to learn how to stream the Ghostbusters movies online.
How Many Ghostbusters Movies Have There Been?
The release of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire will mark the fifth movie in the franchise. The first Ghostbusters was released in 1984, followed by the sequel, which premiered in 1989. In 2016, the series was rebooted with an all-female cast in Ghostbusters that included Kristin Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Melissa McCarthy. After a five year break, the ghost-fighting continued in the 2021 release of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which brings a new set of heroes to the forefront.
How to Watch the Ghostbusters Movies in Order
If you’ve never seen the Ghostbusters movies, you’ll want to start with the very first one in the franchise in order to catch all the easter eggs scattered throughout the newer movies. From there, follow the release order and you’ll be able to better understand the characters and their significance in the movies.
How to Watch the Ghostbusters Movies Online
You can watch Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters 2 online for free through Hulu. Current Hulu subscribers can stream Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2 for no additional cost when you sign into your account.
Don’t have a Hulu subscription? The streaming platform offers a 30-day free trial for new users who sign up, which mean you can watch both movies and more for free. Once your free trial is done, you’ll be charged the regular subscription fee based on the plan you choose. Plans start at $7.99/month and give you access to the entire Hulu library in addition to most new episodes of live TV shows the day after they air, the ability to download content to watch offline and more.
Looking to save more money? You can grow your content library by bundling Hulu with Disney+ and ESPN+ for as low as $14.99/month. If you’re interested in live TV channels, check out Hulu + Live TV.
You can watch Ghostbusters (2016) for free through Freevee with ads on Prime Video. It doesn’t require a Prime membership in order to stream — just head to Prime Video or click here to instantly watch the movie.
To stream Ghostbusters: Afterlife online, you can buy or rent the movie through Prime Video. Rentals cost $4, or you can buy the movie to own for $13. A Prime membership isn’t need to watch Ghostbusters: Afterlife online — once you purchase the movie it’ll automatically be downloaded into your library to watch as you please. Rentals will remain in your library for 30 days after purchase and 48 hours once you start watching the movie. Click here or below to buy Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
Don’t want to jump around streaming platforms? Prime Video offers a digital three-movie collection that includes Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters 2 and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. It’s currently on sale for $30 (regularly $32), and will automatically download all three movies into your digital library after purchasing.
How to Watch the Ghostbusters Movies At Home
Collectors can get hardcopies of the Ghostbusters movies, which are available in Blu-ray and 4K editions.
‘Ghostbusters’ (1984) / ‘Ghostbusters II’ / ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ [Blu-ray]
$25.99
$49.99
48% off
Keep all three movies in one place with a Blu-ray edition of Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters 2 and Ghostbusters: Afterlife. It’s on sale for almost 50% off and includes three discs filled with bonus features and commentary that’ll provide more insight into the making of the movies.
‘Ghostbusters’ (2016)
$22.99
$30.99
26% off
The 2016 version of Ghostbusters is now available in a 4K DVD set, giving you the ultimate viewing experience. You’ll not only get a 4K disc, but a Blu-ray 3D version, Blu-ray disc and digital code to take the film with you on the go.
Check below to watch the trailer for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
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The men’s college basketball postseason is upon us, with March Madness kicking off next week.
The First Four play-in games are set to take place Tuesday (March 19) in Dayton, Ohio, while the Final Four games will see the last remaining quartet of teams go head-to-head at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., April 6-8. Cord-cutters don’t have to hunt for their nearest sports bar to watch March Madness live: For a limited time, Sling TV is offering up to 50% off the first month with access to all the 2024 March Madness games.
Selection Sunday takes place this weekend, on March 17, to determine the 68 teams competing in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Once the bracket has been revealed, March Madness will commence with teams competing across the U.S. in cities including Brooklyn, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Omaha, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, Spokane and Memphis.
Keep reading to learn when and how to livestream March Madness 2024 on Sling TV.
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When Does March Madness 2024 Start?
After Selection Sunday, March Madness will start on Tuesday (March 19) with two play-in games. Then the 64-team tournament games begin Thursday (March 21) and go until the Final Four games that begin on Saturday (April 6). See below for the full breakdown of the schedule.
First Four games: March 19-20
First Round (round of 64): March 21-22
Second Round (round of 32): March 23-24
Sweet 16 (regional semifinals): March 28-29
Elite Eight (regional finals): March 30-31
Final Four (national finals and championship): April 6, 8
How to Watch March Madness 2024 on Sling TV
Sling TV offers a variety of affordable streaming options that will allow you to stream March Madness 2024 live online. The live TV streaming platform is offering a limited-time promotion on eligible plans that will earn you up to half-off the first month, saving you as much as $20. Click here or the button below to start your subscription.
Sling TV has three different sports packages to choose from: Sling Orange, NBA League Pass and Sling Orange + NBA League Pass. With Sling Orange, you’ll receive a discount of 50% off for the first month, dropping the price down to $20 (reg. $40); national coverage on ESPN, TNT and more channels; access to ABC through ESPN3; and up to 50 hours of DVR storage. After your first month is up, you’ll be charged the regular subscription price of $40/month.
For even more basketball, NBA League Pass is slashing $5 off the first month, which takes the price down to a wallet-friendly $10. You’ll be able to watch all the out-of-market games (subject to local blackouts), more than 400 channels of free movies and TV shows through Sling Freestream, a $5 Sling credit toward your first month and 24/7 access to NBA TV.
And, if you want both plans, you can bundle the two together with Sling TV + NBA League Pass, which is on sale for only $50 for the first month (reg. $55).
Neil Young is bringing his music back to Spotify more than two years after requesting its removal from the platform, the singer-songwriter announced Tuesday (March 12).
In January 2022, Young published an open letter asking Spotify to pull down his catalog, citing what he called the spread of vaccine misinformation on the wildly popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast, which was then hosted exclusively on the streaming platform. Several other artists, including Joni Mitchell, Indie.Arie and Young’s Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young bandmates David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, subsequently followed suit, though CSN/CSN&Y and Arie’s music have since been restored to the service; Mitchell’s catalog remains absent.
In a new post on his Neil Young Archives website, the legendary artist said the end of Spotify’s exclusive deal with Rogan led to his decision to restore his music to the service. “My decision comes as music services Apple and Amazon have started serving the same disinformation podcast features I had opposed at Spotify,” the post reads – a clear reference to the Joe Rogan Experience, though Young never mentions it by name.
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“I cannot just leave Apple and Amazon, like I did Spotify, because my music would have very little streaming outlet to music lovers at all, so I have returned to Spotify, in sincere hopes that Spotify sound quality will improve and people will be able to hear and feel all the music as we made it,” Young continued, before shouting out Qobuz and Tidal, where his catalog also lives, as “High res” streaming options.
Young concludes his post by stating his hope that Spotify “will turn to Hi Res as the answer and serve all the music to everyone. Spotify, you can do it! Really be #1 in all ways. You have the music and listeners!!!! Start with a limited Hi res tier and build from there!”
Spotify announced plans to roll out a HiFi tier in February 2021, though those plans have yet to come to fruition. In June 2023, Bloomberg reported the streaming giant would finally launch the product later in the year, but the company declined comment when reached by Billboard – and the calendar rolled over without the tier materializing.
Young has long been an advocate of high-resolution audio, even launching his own (now-defunct) high-res audio download platform, Pono, in 2015 before shuttering it two years later.
In September, Billboard estimated that the absence of Young’s catalog on Spotify had cost him roughly $300,000 in lost recorded music and publishing royalties to that point.
At press time, Young’s music catalog had yet to be restored to Spotify, which did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.
A dozen years after Spotify launched in the United States and 18 years into the existence of YouTube, streaming music is so ingrained in Americans’ behavior that 91% of the U.S. internet population used a music streaming service in the last year, according to the 22nd edition of MusicWatch’s U.S. Annual Music Study.
According to the report, released Monday (Mar. 11), the number of U.S. subscribers to music services such as Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited reached 109 million in 2023 — meaning over half of U.S. internet users aged 13 and over now pay for a music streaming service. That number increases to 136 million if SiriusXM and Amazon Prime Music are included. SiriusXM is predominantly a satellite radio service that also has an internet product. Amazon Prime provides music streaming to customers who sign up for Prime for free shipping and other perks.
In 2012, just 56% of Americans used any type of music streaming service. That number jumped to 69% in 2014 and surpassed the 80% mark in 2018. But 2023 was the first time music streamers surpassed 90% of the internet population. MusicWatch counts music streaming on ad-supported audio platforms such as Spotify and Pandora, paid services such as Apple Music, and video services such as YouTube. For the sake of this survey, short-form video platforms such as TikTok and Instagram Reels are not considered to be music streaming platforms.
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The number of people who stream music has grown even faster than the proportion of the population that does so. In 2012, the U.S. internet population stood at roughly 125 million. By 2023, it had grown by nearly 60 million to 193 million. The way people access the internet has changed over that period. In the early days of the internet, people mostly had a dial-up home internet connection, but over time, home internet access improved while mobile internet usage exploded.
The prevalence of mobile internet has played an important role in music streaming adoption. Not long ago, MusicWatch principal Russ Crupnick noticed a change in the reasons why people paid for subscription services. Early subscription adopters were heavy users who found value in features such as playlists, connecting to their social networks and recommendations. Then, about five years ago, Crupnick found new subscribers’ reasons for paying a monthly fee started to change.
More recent adopters of paid music streaming services care more about access, not features, says Crupnick. As more people had smart speakers, bluetooth headphones and in-dash entertainment systems in their cars, it was important for services to offer a seamless listening experience as they moved from place to place. “It just works,” he says of subscribers’ rationale for paying. “It works everywhere that I want and works on all of my devices.”
Per-capita spending on recorded music increased 7% from 2022 as music subscriptions, CDs and vinyl all saw double-digit gains. That improvement came from both organic growth and price inflation, says Crupnick. Music subscription services pushed through a string of price increases after keeping their prices mostly untouched for many years — Apple Music in Oct. 2022, Spotify in July, YouTube Music also in July and Amazon Music in August.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Jack Black‘s animated film takeover is continuing as he returns as Po the panda in Kung Fu Panda 4. The actor has been dominating the screen with his viral performance as Bowser in the Super Mario Bros. movie, which landed him on the Billboard Hot 100 for his electric breakout hit “Peaches.”
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And Kung Fu Panda 4 won’t be the last animated film that Black lends his voice to: He’s also planning to join another video game-turned-movie for Minecraft alongside Jason Momoa. Until then, the Jumanji actor will bring Po back to life onscreen as he faces new foes and adventures on his kung fu journey.
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Is Kung Fu Panda 4 Out Now?
Kung Fu Panda 4 premiered in theaters on March 8, and you can still get tickets to the movie to watch the latest film on the big screen.
In the fourth installment, Po (Black) is asked to evolve from the Dragon Warrior to the Spiritual Leader of the Valley of Peace. But, before he can undertake his new responsibilities (and figure out what it means to be a spiritual leader), he must find and train someone else to become the Dragon Warrior. Matters only get more complicated when a mysterious and powerful shapeshifting sorceress, Chameleon (Viola Davis), sets her sights on Po’s staff of wisdom, which would give her the power to summon all of Po’s past villains that he vanquished to the spirit realm.
Other cast members include Awkwafina, Dustin Hoffman, James Hong, Bryan Cranston, Ian McShane and Ke Huy Quan.
Now that all four movies are out, you can check below to see the streaming options for how to watch all three Kung Fu Panda movies online.
How to Watch Kung Fu Panda Movies Online for Free
The Kung Fu Panda movies were distributed by Universal Pictures, which makes Peacock the official streaming platform for the franchise. You can stream Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Kung Fu Panda 3 online through Peacock. If you’re already a Peacock subscriber, you can watch all Kung Fu Panda movies for free when you log into your account.
Don’t have a Peacock subscription? The streaming platform doesn’t offer a free trial, but does have affordable plans starting at $5.99/month or you can save around 17% off with an annual plan starting at $59.99/year. Click here or the button below to start your Peacock subscription.
Peacock has two subscriptions to choose from: the Premium Plan and the Premium Plus plan. The Premium Plan is ad-supported and the cheapest option at $5.99/month. With it, you’ll get access to all the new and hit Peacock, NBC and Bravo content, thousands of hours of movies and TV series, live sports and events and more than 50 live channels.
Peacock’s Premium Plus plan is ad-free for $11.99/month and includes everything in the Premium plans as well as your local NBC channel live 24/7 and the ability to download select titles to watch offline.
Original Peacock, NBC and Bravo content you can look forward to streaming include Mission Impossible, Based on a True Story, America’s Got Talent, Kevin Hart: Reality Check, Love Island, Poker Face, Bel-Air, Poker Face, Yellowstone, The Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip, Vanderpump Rules and more.
How to Watch Kung Fu Panda Movies At Home
If you’d rather own the movies you can buy Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Panda 2 and Kung Fu Panda 3 as a set online through Prime Video for 40% off. A Prime membership isn’t required in order to stream the Kung Fu Panda movies online either — once you purchase the films all three will automatically be downloaded to your library to watch at your leisure.
Collectors can also buy the Kung Fu Panda: 3-Movie Collection on DVD to keep on display or watch on your portable DVD player on your travels. Amazon is offering the movie collection for 38% off slashing the price to $12.
“Kung Fu Panda: 3-Movie Collection” [DVD]
$12.41
$19.98
38% off
You can keep all three movies in one safe case with the Kung Fu Panda: 3-Movie Collection. Inside is three discs as well as bonus content and special features that’ll give you more insight into the making of the films.
Check out the trailer for Kung Fu Panda 4 below.
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