Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

BPI fiddles with music consumption figures while revenues burn

Consumption up by four per cent, but post-Apple income set to fall

The BPI reckons music consumption rose four per cent in the first half of 2015, thanks to a string of best-selling albums.

But how do you measure an album's sales when a lot of your audience is streaming, or has YouTube on in the background?

The music industry has started to use a new metric it calls Album Equivalent Sale (AES). The metric combines a la carte transactions with streaming for its charts and trade figures.

These new metrics do not yet count video streams from the likes of YouTube, although the video numbers are substantial. An estimated 14.3 billion tracks were video streamed last year, with 12.5 billion in the first half of 2015 alone.

By comparison, the much-touted vinyl revival saw album sales of two million.

You can see why British trade groups are keen on stressing album sales, since the UK punches far above its weight in terms of global hitmakers. Seven out of the top ten best-selling albums of 2015 in the UK so far have been British.

So what’s an AES?

Bear in mind that it’s a figure of consumption, or popularity (which is what the charts want to measure), rather than revenue. AES combines two more estimates: “Track Equivalent Albums” (TEA) and “Streaming Equivalent Albums” (SEA).

TEA takes the number of individual singles and divides them by 10. SEA takes the number of albums and divides them by 100 and again by 10, the BPI says.

Physical album sales (CDs and vinyl LPs) fell 4.4 per cent in H1 2015 over the corresponding period last year, to 22.24 million. Digital album sales fell 6.6 per cent to 13.8 million AES. TEA fell 12.3 per cent to 7.1 million, while SEA rose 4 per cent to 11.4 million.

The revenue's the rub. The industry's main form of a la carte digital album sales is iTunes, and Apple has just made that pointless by replacing its Music player with an integrated streaming service.

Labels big and small remain bullish that Apple has the clout to start converting the public to subscription, which, despite the hype, existing streaming services have failed to do in significant numbers. ®

 

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like