Music may double in revenue by the end of the year
Image credit: Aditya Chinchure
Music is generated even more than cinema in 2023 with revenues expected to shoot up even further at the end of this year.
A new report reveals music revenues reached astonishing heights in 2023. Economist Will Page, former chief economist for Spotify, has released his annual study showing astonishing revenues of $45.5 billion for 2023.
That puts music revenues larger than the global box office revenue for the year, despite the Barbenheimer push. Cinema is estimated to have generated $33.9 billion in 2023, more than $10 billion less than music copyright.
Page reveals that global music copyright grew 11% last year on the year before. He admits that the total value could be even higher than the figure he has provided, collating his results from various industry reports like those from the IFPI, CISAC, IMPF, MiDIA, and more.
It is difficult to get a cohesive view of global figures, as reports around the world will track different areas of income. For example, MiDIA estimates global recorded music revenue in 2023 to be £30.5 billion, 6.6% higher than the IFPI – probably as MiDIA includes revenues from independent music sectors.
Will Page attempts to collate a unified figure that takes into consideration revenue streams such as mechanical and performing rights that the IFPI might not in their Global Music Report. Page says: “In music, this is the biggest number there is.”
Page writes:
Copyright’s 2023 stack is composed of $28.5bn in recorded revenues, $12.9bn in collective management organisation (CMO) collections, and $4.2bn in direct publisher income. Labels grew at the fastest annual rate (12%), followed closely by CMOs (11%), and lastly publisher direct income (4%).
Page has been calculating his global music copyright figure since 2014. His report for that year put global music copyright revenues at $25 billion, showing astonishing growth in the 9 years since. Page predicts that the figures for 2024 may be double the figure from the year he started, a decade earlier.