In early 2024, Spotify announced a new policy: Tracks that failed to attract more than 1,000 plays in a 12-month period would be excluded from the service’s royalty payouts.
This was a move towards what Universal Music Group has branded “artist-centric” royalty payout models – i.e. rewarding artists with significant audiences at the expense of artists with only a handful of listeners.
Important context, then, for the following figures, taken from Luminate‘s latest annual year-end industry report.
According to Luminate’s data, there were 202 million separate ISRCs (i.e. music uploads) on audio streaming services in 2024.
Of that 202 million, some 175.5 million each received 1,000 or fewer plays on audio streaming services in the year.
To put that another way, around 87% of tracks measured by Luminate didn’t hit 1,000 plays.
See the key data visualization based on Luminate’s annual reports below.
