Major Effects on Music Industry:
The event industry depends heavily on ticket sales, max crowd, and sponsorships from live performances; the restrictions on the large crowd gathering and congregating indoors were a heavy blow.
Some artists and venues attempted to find loopholes or workaround regulations by hosting virtual and socially distanced events. However, the concert industry still got a loss of more than $30 billion due to the pandemic. BBC calculated that musicians and DJs lost 2/3 of their income in 2020.
In 2020, when a global covid pandemic brought music festival performances to a stand-still and sales of music records shut down, digital live music streaming emerged as the savior for India’s music industry. Digitalization help the music industry to sustain during pandemic.
Technology in the music industry plays a major role in helping artists grow in the music industry. Digital music service streaming revenues rose 21% in 2020 to $153 million but slower than the 26% growth calculated in 2019, Still it’s enough to grow the overall music industry growth to better height despite a major collapse in other music revenue streams. So, music industry streaming revenues grew from 5% to $180 million in 2020.
The dependence of the music industry on digital music streaming has been increasing even before the covid-19 pandemic. In 2016, less than 1/2 of music industry revenues came from digital music streaming royalties. By 2019, digital streaming grows for nearly two-thirds of overall music revenues. Also, digital music distribution has been increased so much.
The continuously changing revenue mix has allowed the Indian music industry to weather a global storm that ravaged several other industries over the past year. It also reflects major shifts in the listening habits of the Indian audience and their willingness to pay for something that they were used to consuming for free in the not-too-distant past.
The rapid increase in the number of music streaming apps is likely to increase consumption of licensed music online and reduce piracy of music further in the coming years ahead,
The crowd for music rose complex during the pandemic-incited lockdown as individuals had to close themselves in their homes. Music appears to have become the counteractant to both fatigue and despairing in an uncommonly intense year.
AS Covid-19 impacted music industry , The loss of music streaming while commuting, travelling, etc. was compensated by crazy growth in music streaming while people were busy in workouts, household chores or simply working or studying from home.
Tapping this amazing opportunity, Spotify and music streaming app that officially launched in India in 2019 created its “At Home” hub to execute many new activities to engage listeners.
Freemium Model
As many people are paying for music than before, the dominant revenue stream is based on a ‘freemium’ model. Maximum digital music subscribers listen to music on ad-supported video and audio streams,
28% of the total music streaming revenue in 2020 came from major premium subscriptions. Ad-supported video and audio streaming accounted for 27% and 45% of digital streaming revenues, respectively across the music industry.
The freemium model always works better than the earlier physical model of records since it prevents piracy and allows music brands to make some money from ads. Most streaming apps keep their prices competitive to other apps to make people subscribe to 24*7 ad-free music, often with offline availability options.
Digital streaming contained up to 85% of our revenues for now, but we have just explored the surface of other various revenue streams such as public performances, live virtual shows, etc. The major target for raising streaming revenues remains subscriptions.
In November 2020, companies found that the share of listeners with a paid music subscription was very high in India than in many other large economies. Digital music apps are on rapid growth in 2020. This growth will be higher in 2021 as digital music distribution is increasing with increasing number of artists and increasing more music listeners’ audience on streaming apps day by day. Hence, 2021 will be boom more digital music companies.
