How music streaming saved the music industry?
There was an article in the G2 section of the Guardian on the 25th April 2018 saying music streaming saved the music industry.
Streaming may have saved some parts of the music industry but it carries problems for under-represented music such as jazz.
The nub of the problem with streaming for the jazz musician is the pitiful sums that can be earned. A musician recently sent me a statement of his/her earnings from streaming for the three month period ending the 1st April 2018. The total number of streams was 58,377 and earned $59. At current exchange rates $59 would buy ÂŁ42.03. Therefore estimated earnings per annum are ÂŁ169 from 235,508 streams. To earn the National Average Annual Wage of ÂŁ27,600 in 2015 this particular musician would have to have his or her music streamed 38,461,659 times.
Comparisons are drawn with Ed Sheeran who earned $6.6 million from the âShape of Youâ on Spotify. However it took 1.318 billion streams to do it. For musicians such as Adele and Ed Sheeran over a billion streams is feasible and has been achieved, for the jazz musician, especially in a world where people have got used to free music, paltry earnings from streaming poses a problem of endemic proportions.