As digital albums sales go beyond the 100m mark in the UK, Beggars boss Martin Mills has revealed that some artists on their roster see much more revenue from streaming services than radio play.
Speaking at the UKTI creative content business summit on Wednesday (1 August), Mills supported services such as Spotify, saying: "I’m finding that some of our artists, particularly the more catalogue artists, are opening their royalty statements and earning more [from streaming] than from any other source on some individual tracks. It pays many, many more times than radio play. We’re big supporters."
Spotify recently hit over 4m paying subscribers despite previous criticism over how much artists can actually make from streaming, with musician and producer Max Tundra making a unique protest by tweeting a miniature bowl of peas to represent his Spotify royalties last year.
In related digital news, it was confirmed today that, despite the previously reported prominence of single tracks in digital sales over 100m digital albums have now been sold in the UK, only two years after reaching 50m.
BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor, flicking through a popular encyclopaedia of tenuous Olympic analogies said: "Sales of digital albums are surging ahead as British consumers embrace the convenience, value and choice offered by online services. As our athletes compete against the best in the world, British artists have taken the gold and silver positions in the best-selling digital artist albums of all time, and six places in the top ten”.
We should be thankful- At least Taylor didn’t say that despite many hurdles, sales had ‘pole vaulted’ over 100m or ‘whistled past the finishing line faster than world class cyclist Wiggo’.
The BPI and the Official Charts Company backed this up with data published today revealing that each of the ten best selling digital albums so far (Lady Gaga. Ed Sheeran, Adele et al) have sold over 250,000 each, meaning that XL-signed Adele probably doesn’t make more from streaming than sales or radio.
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