The sad state of Australian music on the ARIA charts and on major streaming services is well documented.
But the lacklustre performance for Australian music has now become a global problem for the local industry. This has been reflected in two separate reports last week – by ARIA (The Australian Recorded Industry Association) and the IFPI (the London based) International Federation of the Phonographic Industry – on how things fared in 2024.
Perspective
To put things in perspective, Australian (and New Zealand) artists in the ARIA top 100 singles chart fell from an average of 16% in 2000–2016, to around 10% in 2017–2023 and gasped for breath at 2.5% in 2023.
Album share declined from an average of 29% in 2000–2016, to 18% in 2017–2023 and 4% in 2023.
Analysis
This was from analysis last year Down, And Under Pressure by Tim Kelly, a former record company executive turned PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).
It was published in The International Journal of Music Business Research.
Read up on all the latest features and columns here.
Streaming
In a study of the top 10,000 artist streaming share in Australia, American acts were streamed to the tune of 61.2% and those from Britain were 16.6%.
Local acts only made up 9.2% of what was being streamed by Australians.
After that came music from Canada (5%), India (1.7%) and South Korea (1.5%).
Bad Look
This is not only just a bad look in this country, but sends bad vibes around the world.
Tim Kelly explained: “Building a strong local music industry is important not just for supporting diverse cultural expression, but also for creating jobs – Australia’s recorded music industry was worth $676 million in 2023 – and boosting Australia’s reputation on the global stage.
Australian singers
Kelly continued: “When local artists succeed, it attracts global investment, which in turn stimulates and benefits the Australian music industry and consumers.
“However, the emergence of streaming correlates with an acceleration in the decline of both local and non-Anglo music in the charts.”
ARIA
Last week’s ARIA and IFPI accounts showed the crisis was continuing.
The good news from ARIA was that in 2024, the Australian recorded music industry posted its sixth consecutive year of growth.
It grew by 6.1% to $717 million, covering both digital and physical formats.
Digital
Digital now represents $656 million, or 91.5% of the total market.
Subscription services remain dominant, up 2% to represent 71.0% of Australia’s total music market, or $509 million.
Ad supported streaming models slowed dramatically however, from a 15.3% jump in revenue in 2023 to just 1.9% growth in 2024.
Celebrate
For ARIA chief Annabelle Herd, there were two things to celebrate.
One, she said, was that despite the escalating cost of living, a sixth consecutive year of growth spoke volumes about the “enduring connection Australians have with music”.
Vinyl
Secondly, there was the physical format, especially the continued growth of vinyl.
Despite prices going up, revenue from vinyl albums rose by 5.6% last year to $44.5 million, despite a drop in the number of units by 0.5%.
Vinyl represented 72.8% of total physical sales in 2024 by dollar value and 45.7% of physical sales by volume.
Compact Disc
In comparison, compact discs slipped down 5.6%, and music videos and DVDs continued their merry way to oblivion with a further near-20% drop.
Of this, Herd commented, “While digital dominates, the sustained demand for physical formats like vinyl shows that fans want to engage with music in multiple ways.
“This isn’t just a resilient music listening market, it’s a thriving one, and that’s something to be proud of.”
Competitive
However, Herd also addressed the crisis: “At the same time, breaking new Australian music has never been more competitive, something everyone in the industry knows firsthand.
“Every new track is launching into an increasingly crowded landscape, with local and international artists vying for attention in media and on all discovery and listening platforms.”
Message
In a powerful message, she made it clear that Australian musicians and songwriters – and by that nature, A&R execs and producers – had to lift their game.
“In this fiercely competitive market, Australian music must be better than it’s ever been.
“We have incredible talent and numerous success stories from the past year, but our challenge is how to make more of our artists and their recordings stand out on a local and global stage.
“Now is the time to try new things and be bold.
“ARIA’s focus is squarely on promoting initiatives and programs designed to grow audience, grow export, and develop a highly skilled and innovative local music industry.
“These initiatives will take time to come to full fruition, but the opportunity is there and it is big.
“Connecting local success stories with Australia’s passionate music fans remains our focus and our mission.”
IFPI Global Music Report 2025
Last week’s IFPI Global Music Report 2025 had more bad news for Australia.
It noted that the international recorded music industry was growing and in reasonable good shape.
Revenue
The revenue generated in 2024 rose by US29.6 billion (AU$47.1 billion), a rise of 4.8% from 2023.
The amount of paying music streaming subscribers hit 752 million (up 10.6%) and subscription streaming revenue grew 9.5% to $15.15 billion (AU$24.1 billion).
Free
Music fans were still relying on free (ad supported) streaming but these only grew by 1.2% from the year before.
Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of the world’s largest record company, Universal Music Group stated, “As a global community that supports artists and their music, it’s more critical than ever that we continue to advance the artist-centric principles that elevate the entire music ecosystem by rewarding real artists and those who support them.
Promote
“Working together to promote creativity, innovation and the responsible application of new technologies we can create an environment where artist development can flourish for years to come.”
In terms of physical formats (vinyl, CD, cassette), these proved a disappointment, declining by 3.1% around the world to $4.8 billion (AU$7.6 billion) after a strong revival in 2023 when revenues jumped up by 14.5%.
Fell
Global CD and music video revenues fell by 6.1% and 15.5%, respectively.
Vinyl which has been growing for the past 18 years still posted a growth, of 4.6%.
Performance rights revenues reached $2.9 billion (AU$4.6 billion) after a 5.9% climb.
Growth
Fifty-five out of 58 markets recorded growth in 2024, which included eight of the top 10 global markets.
The traditionally major music markets had different rates of growth.
According to the IFPI, the US grew by 2.2% in 2024 from the year before, and Canada by 1.5%.
Europe
Europe remained the second largest recorded music market in the world. Revenue was up 8.3% in 2024, and now representing 29.5% in the world.
By region, the UK rose by 4.9%, Germany by 4.1% and France by 7.5%.
Asia
Asia was third largest region, up 1.3% although Japan – the second largest market in the world – dropped by 0.2% and China powered on as fifth largest market with revenues going north by 9.6%.
The world’s second-largest market, Japan, was flat year-on-year (down 0.2%) due to a decline in physical revenues], while China, the world’s fifth-largest global recorded music market, increased revenues by 9.6%.
Australasia
Australia and New Zealand were lumped in together in the report as Australasia.
The two countries together grew 6.4% in 2024 (after a growth of 10.8% in 2023) with a total $629 million (AU$1 billion) in revenue.
Breaking that down, Australia’s revenue was up 6.1% and NZ by 7.8%.
Jeopardy
These were acceptable figures. But alas, as Mixdown warned years back, Australia’s position as a Top 10 music market was in jeopardy.
Sure enough, that seems to have been the case in 2024.
Jump
Latin America had a huge jump of 22.56%, the Middle East & North Africa up 22.8% (with streaming accounting for 99.5% of its revenue) and Sub-Saharan Africa by 22.6%.
Sub-Saharan Africa broke the $100 million mark for the first time.
South Africa remained its largest market (75%) after growth of 14.4%.
Development
Observed IFPI chief Victoria Oakley, “These positive developments don’t happen by accident.
“They reflect the brilliant creativity, vision and hard work of artists and songwriters around the globe, powered in part by the work, investment and passion of record companies and their teams.”
Pushed Out
Brazil grew by 21.7% making it the fastest-growing Top 10 market, while Mexico’s recorded music revenues increased by 15.6%.
Australia as a result has been pushed out of the Top 10 music markets for the first time in decades.
It was around the #6 market for ages, and been slowly dropping.
In 2024, Mexico has replaced it.
Top 10
As a result, the latest Top 10 music markets are:
- USA
- Japan
- UK
- Germany
- China
- France
- South Korea
- Canada
- Brazil
- Mexico
Arguments
There are great arguments about how to increase the presence of Australian music among local and global audiences.
Between 2011 and 2020, Australia was breaking at least two acts a year internationally. That has not happened in the last five years.
Goods
One line of thought is that musicians and songwriters simply aren’t coming up with the goods to cut through the chatter of 120,000 new tracks being uploaded on Spotify each day.
They put the blame on record companies who don’t push their acts to come up with at least two or three tracks on an album with strong commercial appeal.
Tougher
This debate also urges record companies to be tougher on getting professional songwriters to come up with songs with strong hit potential – the way it was done in the ‘50s and ‘60s – if the signed act couldn’t – and follow up with smarter digital marketing strategies.
The other argument is that the Australian Government needs to do more to help local talent.
Tax Incentives
This is through tax incentives for private companies and individuals to invest more, and local quotas for streaming service.
One idea is to set up a body similar to New Zealand’s NZ On Air which funds the creation and promotion of local content across screen and music broadcasting and streaming services.
Consume
In Canada, music fans tend to consume more music from outside their home market.
But, according to a Luminate report, Canadians “strongly support homegrown artists, with 71% of music listeners engaging with music from Canada in 2023, compared to 66% in 2022.”
To make it easier for their acts, Canada’s Parliament passed the Online Streaming Act, to expand “Canadian content” regulations from broadcasting into the world of online streaming. Fingers crossed the trend continues into Australian Music. Keep reading about the fight against Artificial Music Streaming here.
