Digital music revenue overtakes radio in UK for the first time

Last year in the UK, artists earned more money from digital royalties than radio.

British songwriters earned £51.7m in UK royalties from digital music services in 2012, compared with $47 million from radio licence fees. The increase is a result of increased revenue from streaming music services and music used in games.

Digital music players are now the biggest single source of income for songwriters in the UK, having overtaken radio last year after previously eclipsing live events and pubs. The global success of British artists also accounted for some of the increase last year.

The UK’s copyright collecting agency, PRS for Music reported a record £641.8m collected in royalties for songwriters, composers and music publishers in the 2012 fiscal year overall.

Expansion in the online market, especially streaming services, netted £51.7m in music royalties.  This is the highest figure to date and up 32.2% on 2011’s £38.5m. Over the last five years average annual growth for online has been 27%.  New licensing deals with Google Play, Vevo and Microsoft Xbox and the renewal of existing agreements means UK creators now receive 8% of their royalty income from online music services. 

The organisation collects royalties for over 95,000 members and licenses in excess of 350,000 UK businesses including 300 radio stations and 450 television channels. Royalties from broadcasters in 2012 rose by 3.1% to £153m representing almost 24% of overall income for music creators.

International revenues suffered a decline of 4.1% due to significant exchange rate losses, specifically because of the Euro and a challenging economic climate in many countries. Despite these challenges, international royalty revenue provided UK music creators with their single largest source of income at £180.1m. 2012 was a year when UK songwriters continued to dominate internationally with Mumford and Sons, Ed Sheeran and Calvin Harris enjoying global chart success and other prominent writers seeing their music accompany television and film content worldwide. 

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See the full report here.