5. More Streaming & Less Sales
For the first time sine iTunes launched in 2003, global digital music sales fell in 2013, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The same data revealed that individual track sales were down 6%, with Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" leading the charge at 6.5 million copies sold. CD and album sales also dropped 8% with Justin Timberlake's 20/20 Experience on top spot. The results point to a bleak future for the traditional way to consume music, either by purchasing it on hard copy CD or a locked in digital source. However the emerging trend and one that will be continue to grow in 2014 is the online streaming of music. Many people will know of services such as Spotify & Pandora. So much are their influence, that Businessweek described Spotify as "music's last great hope". But what exactly does Spotify do? Well the company's vision from the start was to create a vast online database of songs, that music lovers could access legally. Basically an improvement on the Napster model, that gave labels so much headache in the early 2000s. Spotify can be accessed via your Facebook account, or you can sign up for free. The system is used by all the major record labels, in return for revenue of course. Playlists can be streamed from a computer, smartphone or tablet. Ad revenue is the crux of earnings for the free service, but a $10 monthly subscription can eliminate this. Streaming of music was found to be 24% higher in 2013, from the same Nielsen study. It gives consumers a level of choice and flexibility that has never been available before and users are choosing streaming options in their thousands. 2014 will see this upward trend of streaming continue, especially with the launch of Beats Music, off the back of the same people who brought the world the wildly popular Beats Headphones. There will be no free Beats Music service, instead a flat $10 rate for monthly subscription will be available. Furthermore, this service is tailored to mobile devices which I feel will become a dominant form of music consumption in the next twelve months. Streaming music from your phone is the height of convenience, especially when you could plug that phone into a larger sound system if needed. Spotify has been criticised in the past for extremely low royalty payouts. A BBC News report in December of last year reported that artists receive $0.007 per play. That same report stated than $1bn in royalties has been paid out since 2008, with $500m of that paid in 2013. It is certainly compelling evidence that points to streaming earnings increasing once again this year with artists eventually being able to make legitimate money from the services.