The entire Australian music market, encompassing physical, digital and live, is heading for five flat years, according to the annual outlook by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC).
2015 will see a 1.5% drop on 2014’s total revenues and that picture is unlikely to change until 2018, when a small incremental growth of 0.3% is expected, followed by another tiny injection of 0.5% in 2019.
The digital music market is currently worth $460m, but will rise to $537m by 2019.
Streaming is forecast to become a third of all digital revenues by 2019, accounting for 30% of the $537m digital music market.
Use of streaming services rose 111% over the last year, but still only account for 7% of the total music market.
As expected, the physical market will almost half during that time, experiencing a downward trend from $245m now to $131m in 2019.
Vinyl sales meanwhile will continue to experience a revival with revenues almost tripling in the last 12 months from $2.8m in 2013 to $6.4m in 2014.
According to PwC, this is only set to continue.
PwC executive director and editor of its annual Outlook Megan Brownlow says that the figures are very much in line with the broader media and entertainment outlook in Australia, which has already experienced five static years.
She added that there will be reward for media companies (radio and digital) who bite the bullet, invest and start being brave about various parts of their business.
“It’s going to fertile for them – TV, radio and even the digital arms of those businesses,” she said.
Live music is accounted for in the total revenue prediction, although that market also appears to be falling flat with a series of casualties on the festival scene.
Multi-city electronic music festival Future Music, operated by the Mushroom Group, was cancelled earlier this year when owner Michael Gudinski cited underperforming ticket sales for two years in a row.
Mushroom issued a statement saying it shared “the belief expressed by a number of promoters globally that the day of the large scale travelling festival in its current form is unfortunately numbered.”
Future joins a growing list of failed festivals including Big Day Out, Harvest and Peat’s Ridge.
However, some large, international tours continued to find appeal in the Australian market in 2014, with Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Eminem and Justin Timberlake embarking on significant jaunts in the five main metro areas.
Timberlake proved to be the most successful, playing the most dates in all key states.
Ed Sheeran became the first artist to play completely solo in Australian stadiums, armed with his guitar and loop pedal. He is expected to tour in Oz again towards the latter part of the year.
Music will account for 5.5% of total consumer spend by 2019 – some $1.488m of a total $27bn.
[Pictured: Ed Sheeran, whose album X has spent a full year in the Australian Top 40 chart’s Top Ten.]Music Business Worldwide
