Photo credits: www.perspecsys.com

 

The number of tracks streamed in the US so far this year are almost double the amount of streams in the US last year.

With two new massive players to streaming this year, Tidal and Apple Music, it has clearly been a monumental year for music streaming. Well 2015 just got a little more monumental for streaming services as the latest Nielsen Music report shows a total of 232 billion streams so far this year. This is a 96.4% increase on the first 9 months of 2014.

Stream Equivalent Albums, where 1,500 streams equal an album sale, are up 96%  from 78.8 million in 2014 to 154.6 million this year. Although digital music sales are slightly down, roughly 6.4%, it is suggested that the massive increase in streaming has made up the artist revenue that would be lost from sales.

According to Billboard, independent artists and labels make up about 13.7% of the market. They explain however that that is based on a strict definition and doesn’t include independent artists distributed by majors, saying that in reality the independent market makes up around 35% of the market share.

Yesterday we heard that major EDM artist Deadmau5 had dropped his label Universal Music Group in favour of an independent approach with publisher and label Kobalt. With Independents holding a large share of the streaming market and more artists like Deadmau5, Paul McCartney, Lionel Richie and others going for independent alternatives it seems the time has come for artists to take their own reins. Raising hopes for a future where the artist is in control rather than the label.