Music Industry Revenue Up 16.5% In 2017, says RIAA

The U.S. recorded music business grew for the second consecutive year in 2017, driven largely by a 56% increase to 35 million paid music subscriptions, according to the RIAA’s 2017 year-end music industry revenue report. Overall, recorded music saw a 16.5% increase in retail revenue to $8.7 billion, of which $5.7 billion came from streaming.

But for all the dramatic improvement, overall recorded music revenue is still 40% below its peak in 2008, and RIAA Chairman & CEO Cary Sherman blames music’s value gap.Last year, Sherman focused on underpayment by YouTube; but this year he points the spotlight at SiriusXM and broadcast radio:

“Even as the shift to streaming powers the industry’s recovery, the digital migration also exposes the growing gap in our core rights — because, under current laws, not all platforms pay artists and labels fair rates reflecting market value for the use of their music. This includes terrestrial AM/FM radio, which inexplicably pays artists and labels nothing for the commercial use of their music, and SiriusXM, which pays under a below-market rate standard set more than 20 years ago when Sirius and XM were mere start-ups instead of the merged, wildly successful satellite service it is today.”

Read the full report compiled by the RIAA’s Josh Friedlander here.