After several weeks of work together with Markus Larsson, who wrote a masters thesis on the Swedish music industry in Spring 2009, the results are now ready. We have been gathering statistics and analyzing data from different music industry organizations in Sweden for the years 2000 – 2008 and are releasing a report on Monday.
(The full PDF report will be available here and on TrendMaze.com on Monday)
The findings can be summarized in this graph:
When combining all data from the collecting societies, record labels and live promoters, adjusting certain revenue streams for overlaps between the different organizations, it is possible to see the overall picture of the Swedish music industry for the time period 2000 - 2008.
In 2000 these three parts of the music industry had a total revenue of 3 521 Million SEK (app. 350 Million Euro), compared to 2008 when total revenues where 3 712 Million SEK (app. 370 Million Euro. The highest year 2002 and the lowest year 2007 are within an 9.3% marginal.
Total revenues declined somewhat during the years 2003 and 2005, mainly as a result of a large decline in recording revenues and a flat live revenue year in 2003 compared to the year before, but the total trend is steady. In nine years, total revenues for the Swedish music industry, as a whole, have stayed basically the same.
In the report we also make an estimation of the changes in revenue streams for artists as a group:
![clip_image002[5]](http://www.danieljohansson.se/image.axd?picture=clip_image002%5B5%5D_thumb.jpg "clip_image002[5]")
Our calculation shows that total artist revenues have increased in Sweden by 34.6 % since 2000. The model gives 50% of Total (T) Live Revenues (L) to artists after venues and promoters have taken their share, 20% of Recorded Revenues (R) to artists and 80% of SAMI (A) revenues, after administration costs.
The reason why we have chosen a higher artist ratio on Recorded Revenues than for example the Times Online Lab’s estimation based on PRS figures (the UK equivalent to STIM and SAMI) in the article “Do music artists fare better in a world with illegal file-sharing?”, is the fact that record deals are different and labels often pay advances to artists, advances that are not reported anywhere. The scope of these advances is usually confidential, but is still an essential part of the artist revenues and can be even larger than the actual income from future music sales. Also, many artists are releasing albums by themselves on their own labels or in other ways. In these cases a much larger share of the recording revenues goes to the artist.
Even though these graphs suggests that the Swedish music industry as a whole is still “alive and kicking”, there are some things that the graphs do not say.
The downturn in recording revenues can have severe long term effects for the music industry since record labels have been important investors and financers of new and creative music releases. The figures provided by the industry associations does not specify which kind of song writers, artists or labels that are increasing or decreasing their income. During a long period of time, the record labels have invested in music production, and used successful releases to finance other music projects that might not have had a commercial potential. When revenues are moving from traditional unit sales to live performance and collecting for the usage of the recordings, it is therefore essential that the music industry finds new ways of keeping a musically creative climate.
The public debate around the situation for the music industry have been polarized and intense during the latest years, and sad to say, many discussions have been based on missing data and misguided knowledge of the whole picture, specially when it comes to the role of record labels in the music industry system. Making these kinds of calculations is always a bit dangerous when it comes to an industry so diverse and multifaceted as the music industry. But, our goal is that this study can help the different parts of the music industry as well as music fans and consumers to get a better understanding of the changes and the challenges that the music industry have faced, and are still facing.
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