In today's CMU Daily: Ahead of next week’s IFPI’s Global Music Report, headline stats for UK, France, Germany and Spain have been published. We delve into them and pull out the key trends. Which isn't as straightforward as you might think it would be.

One Liners: NME C24 compilation; MPG Awards shortlists; Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds and Jamie Cullum tour dates; new music from Zayn, Bon Jovi, Becky G, PartyNextDoor, X Ambassadors, Vampire Weekend, Bicep x Benjamin Damage and Qrion

Also today: Spanish collecting society SGAE guilty of anti-competitive behaviour; Nine streaming manipulation websites taken offline in Canada; Spotify says Apple is failing to approve its latest iOS app update and wants the European Commission to intervene

Plus: Mutya Buena has admitted that the Sugababes were responsible for an increase in sugar consumption in the 1990s. Is that true? Well, Jacob Rees-Mogg is convinced

Think you understand the music industry’s revenue stats? Think again…

On Thursday 21 Mar, the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry, known better to most people as the IFPI, will release its annual mega-stats drop, in the shape of the £25,000-a-copy Global Music Report. As is traditional, this means a flood of country level stats being released by national record industry trade bodies ahead of the GMR being published. 

With a number of major music territories releasing stats over the past week or so, CMU has pulled together some key numbers for four markets: Germany, France, UK and Spain. We’ll have more analysis - and more numbers - over coming weeks as we dive into some of the key trends and key drivers in Europe and beyond.

For now, the TLDR is this: all four countries saw top line increase in revenues; the physical market in Germany is still huge; France is lagging behind its neighbours on subscription streaming adoption; UK wholesale streaming revenues are worth £962 million to the record industry while retail streaming revenues topped £1866 million, with Germany’s retail streams hitting an estimated €1652 million.

Like almost everything in the music business, there’s a gotcha. If you don’t understand what you’re looking at, you might look at two numbers that appear similar, but are actually calculated in a completely different way. 

Slightly confusingly, different trade bodies publish figures derived from different pots of money - consumer sales or wholesale revenues for the industry. The first number is normally going to be bigger, because it includes the full price of a CD, vinyl LP or streaming subscription, inclusive of tax, but also, critically, the retailer’s share and publishers’ share. 

So this means that - at a basic level for a single streaming subscription - retail revenue will be the full £10.99 a month, while wholesale streaming revenues are just what (in the case of sound recordings) the record industry gets - excluding VAT, the streaming platform’s share, and the publishing industry’s share.

So when UK entertainment retail trade body ERA released its recent 2024 Yearbook, which shows entertainment retail and consumption stats for the UK, the revenue figures in there are consumer retail, accounted at the point of sale. 

So, for example, where ERA reports total retail sales of £2219.9 million, this is what consumers paid at the checkout, and explicitly includes VAT. German record industry trade group BVMI uses the same method for its figures, with its topline coming in at €2208 million, a sum which includes VAT. Promusicae Spain uses the same method for its headline figure of €520 million in music revenues for 2023. 

It’s worth noting that in countries like the US where taxes are applied at a local level, similar figures for retail may or may not include tax, which just makes everything more confusing. 

However, other bodies - notably the UK’s BPI and France’s SNEP - report record industry wholesale numbers. This is the amount of revenue that record labels and other sound recording rightsholders have made - and is significantly different from the retail value, because it excludes not only VAT, but also excludes any revenues paid to publishers and songwriters, or any money kept by DSPs or retailers. 

Even more confusingly, this wholesale figure will generally also include international revenues - so, for example, if a UK-based record label’s music is streamed in the USA, the revenues that flow through the streaming platform in the US will ultimately end up being paid to the label in the UK, and this figure would be included in that wholesale revenue figure. More simply, retail figures are wholly domestic, while wholesale figures include export.

With that all cleared up, let’s take a look at some of those figures in more detail - bearing in mind that key difference.

Headline numbers look like this. Headline music revenues in 2023 were:

£/€ million

452.5/520 (Spain, retail)

1921.3/2208 (Germany, retail)

2220/2551 (UK, retail)

1427/1639 (UK, wholesale)

842/968 (France, wholesale)

In Germany (population 84.7 million) the physical market appears to be surprisingly huge: at retail values, it’s shifting €409 million in CDs and vinyl, compared to the UK (population 67.7 million) €357.4 million (£311 million). Compare this to Spain (population 48.1 million) where physical music retail brings in just €62.1 million each year. 

However, if you look at this as a per head spend, then the UK leads with an averaged per-head spend of €5.28 vs Germany’s €4.83. Spain is far lower, with just €1.29 spent per head on physical music.

Apply the same calculation to streaming and you get some interesting results. BVMI says Germany’s total retail music streaming value is 74.8% of total revenues, which comes out as €1651.6 million.

In the UK, BPI and ERA estimate the comparable number to be €2144.6 million (£1866.2 million)

In Spain, the total value of retail audio streaming as reported by Promusicae is €398.6 million, with a further €68.7 million for video streaming. 

Again, looking at these against population sizes gives some interesting results. Although Germany has a far bigger population than the UK - 25% larger - its total retail streaming revenues are just 77% of the UK’s.

At a per head of population level, the UK is spending €31.68 each year for every single adult and child, while Germany is spending just €19.50. Spain, with its significantly smaller population, is significantly lower at just €8.29 annual spend on streaming.

However, if you throw another number into the equation, you get a different picture of this again: Germany’s average income is €4105 per month (€49,260 annually), compared to Spain’s average of €2250 (€27,000 annually).

If you take that average annual spend and compare it to income, then Germany is spending 0.04% of average annual income on streaming, while Spain spends 0.03%. So although Spain is generating far less revenue than Germany, and has just 42.5% of the per head spend, when compared to average earnings, Spain is spending 75% of Germany as a proportion of income. 

Look out for our deeper analysis of these numbers next week, but for now, you might want to check out the various reports yourself… click through to get the links.

AEG Europe // Strategy And Insights Analyst (London)

AEG Presents // Tour Accountant, International Touring (London)

Kilimanjaro Live // Event Coordinator (London Hybrid)

Horizon is CMU's new weekly newsletter - published each Friday - that brings you a hand-picked selection of early-stage career opportunities from across the music industry.

Whether you're looking for your first job in music or you're ready to take a step up, Horizon is here to help you find your dream job faster.

👉 Click through to see the current selection.

ONE LINERS

Zayn, Bon Jovi, MPG Awards + more

MEDIA 

NME is currently putting together the latest edition of its annual mixtape, this one called C24. Partnering with sister company BandLab, one user of the social music creation platform will be picked to appear on the compilation. Enter here now. 

AWARDS 

The shortlists have been announced for this year’s MPG Awards, with Catherine Marks, Steph Marziano, Lostboy and Kwes up for the top Producer Of The Year prize. The ceremony will take place at Troxy in London on 25 Apr. Find out more here. 

GIGS & FESTIVALS

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds have announced UK tour dates in November, including a performance at the O2 Arena in London on 8 Nov. Tickets go on general sale on 22 Mar.

Jamie Cullum has announced UK tour dates in November, including a show at London’s Royal Festival Hall on 22 Nov. Tickets go on general sale on 22 Mar. 

RELEASES

Zayn has released new single ‘What I Am’. His new album ‘Room Under The Stairs’ is out on 17 May. 

Bon Jovi have announced that they will release new album ‘Forever’ on 7 Jun. Out now is new single ‘Legendary’. 

Becky G has released new single ‘Boomerang’. 

PartyNextDoor has released new single ‘R e a l W o m a n’. 

X Ambassadors have released new single ‘Half-Life’. Their new album ‘Townie’ is out on 5 Apr.

Vampire Weekend have released new single ‘Classical’. 

BDB - aka Bicep and Benjamin Damage - have released new track ‘Chroma 002 LAVA’. 

Qrion has released new track ‘Miyanosawa’.

Spanish appeals court sides with Unison in SGAE dispute

The Appeals Board Of Barcelona has confirmed an earlier judgement in the dispute between Spanish collecting society SGAE and newer rights management organisation Unison, confirming that Unison is due damages as a result of SGAE's previous anti-competitive conduct. 

A statement from Unison explains, "The appeal judgement substantially dismisses the appeal filed by SGAE against the first-instance judgement and confirms that the [collecting society] prevented the mass exodus of clients [by] implementing a series of anti-competitive practices". 

"In this way", it goes on, "competition in the market for the management of intellectual property rights was severely distorted at a crucial and historic moment of 'liberalisation', preventing the entry and development of Unison as a new player. The Appeal Board Of Barcelona also acknowledges Unison's right to compensation for the damages caused by SGAE's anti-competitive practices". 

Unison launched as a competitor to SGAE in the Spanish market in 2017, capitalising on changes in European law that sought to bring about more competition into the collective licensing marketplace across Europe. It has since had various run-ins with the often controversial SGAE. 

This legal battle stemmed from an investigation by Spain’s competition regulator after SGAE was accused of putting in place barriers to stop songwriters and music publishers from moving their rights to Unison. 

At the time, SGAE was embroiled in various controversies about the society's governance and, more specifically, how it was distributing broadcast royalties. That resulted in SGAE being kicked out of global collecting society grouping CISAC for a time. All of which meant there was considerable interest among songwriters and publishers to move their rights to another society within Spain, but SGAE made doing so very difficult. 

The Spanish Competition Authority ruled against SGAE and fined it €2.95 million. Although the issues around moving rights out of SGAE have more or less been addressed since then, Unison sued over the damage caused during the period when the anti-competitive practices were in force. It won that case at first instance last year. SGAE appealed, but the appeals court has now basically upheld the original ruling. 

It's not the only dispute between Unison and SGAE that resulted in an investigation by Spain's competition regulator. A second investigation relates to SGAE's blanket licences for broadcasters, with allegations that they were not appropriately amended to comply with the changes in the laws governing collective licensing.

That investigation, and accompanying litigation pursued by Unison, is ongoing, although the competition regulator is expected to publish its findings in the next month or so.

Nine stream manipulation sites taken offline in Canada

The Canadian record industry, working with global trade group IFPI, has forced a number of Canada-based stream manipulation services offline, with the boss of Music Canada urging music industry groups elsewhere in the world to take similar action. 

Nine connected websites, the most popular operating at the domain MRINSTA.com, have been taken down after the IFPI and Music Canada together filed a formal complaint with the Canadian Competition Bureau. 

“Alongside IFPI, we’re committed to taking action against streaming manipulation sites and the bad actors who deliberately steal from artists and rightsholders”, Music Canada CEO Patrick Rogers says. “This is an important regulatory precedent that can be followed in other markets to protect rightsholders and the integrity of the streaming marketplace". 

Stream manipulation services allow companies and individuals to artificially boost the number of plays for any one track on the streaming platforms. Doing so makes the boosted track look more popular than it really is, and allows the owner of the rights in that track to pull extra royalties out of the digital music platforms. Various tactics are employed to manipulate streams, with entities both within and outside the music industry involved in the scamming. 

Tackling stream manipulation needs a multi-pronged approach, including targeting those stream manipulation operations that openly promote their services through public-facing websites, like MRINSTA.com. The legal arguments employed to force those websites offline will differ from country to country. IFPI has now been involved in action in multiple jurisdictions, including Germany and Brazil. 

Explaining the legal approach taken in Canada, the IFPI says that its complaint to the Canadian Competition Bureau "alleged that the group of sites contravened the Canadian Competition Act by, among other things, misleading Canadian consumers and distorting their impression of what content merits their attention, undermining the accuracy of the music industry charts and distracting from the effective functioning of streaming services by manipulating the algorithms on which they rely".

Welcoming the latest developments, Lauri Rechardt, Chief Legal Officer at IFPI, adds, “Streaming manipulation has no place in music. Perpetrators and enablers of streaming manipulation cannot be allowed to continue to divert revenue away from the artists who create the music. The activity also harms consumers and distorts the fan experience".

Setlist Podcast: Apple blames Spotify for €1.8 billion fine

On this week's show we discuss the €1.8 billion fine Apple has been ordered to pay by the EU following an investigation into claims of anti-competitive behaviour made by Spotify, and Live Nation's explanation of why everyone else in the music industry is to blame for rising ticket prices.

🎧 Click here to listen - or search for 'Setlist' wherever you normally listen

Spotify asks European Commission to force Apple to approve its app amends

Spotify has written to the European Commission urging it to put pressure on Apple to approve changes the streaming service has made to its iOS app following the recent ruling by the European Union's competition regulator. Spotify says Apple would normally review app submissions within 24 hours but it is still waiting after nine days, suggesting delaying tactics are being employed. 

The delays - Spotify says in a letter to the EC, seen by The Verge - are “yet another example of how Apple, if unchecked, will seek to circumvent and/or not comply with the Commission’s decision. Given Apple’s track record, Spotify is concerned that Apple’s delay is intentional and is aimed at delaying or avoiding compliance altogether". 

Spotify is possibly hoping that EC intervention will force Apple to approve its changes, after a similar intervention last week resulted in the tech giant backtracking on a decision that was stopping Fortnite maker Epic Games from making changes to its presence on iOS devices. 

In the Epic case, European regulators were forcing compliance with the now in force EU Digital Markets Act. Whereas the changes being made by Spotify are in response to the recent ruling by the EU competition regulator in relation to Apple's App Store rules. 

However, both Epic and Spotify basically have the same objective, exploiting recent developments in the EU to make changes to their respective iOS apps that were previously banned by one of Apple's App Store rules. That rule is the anti-steering provision, which restricts the ability of app developers to sign-post payment options outside of their iOS apps where they don't have to pay Apple a commission on transactions. 

After a lengthy investigation prompted by a complaint from Spotify, the EU regulator concluded that that rule was anti-competitive, fining Apple €1.8 billion and ordering it to allow in-app signposting to other payment options. The Digital Markets Act had already basically forced a change to that rule anyway, although Spotify and others have criticised how Apple plans to comply with the DMA. 

The day after the ruling from the EU competition regulator, on 5 Mar, Spotify submitted an update to its iOS app so that it now features information on its different subscription options, including pricing, with links to where users can sign up for a premium account on the Spotify website. 

“It’s been nine days now and we’re still waiting to hear from Apple about our app submission to show EU consumers pricing and a link to our website, which we are now authorised to do by the European Commission’s decision on the music streaming case”, a Spotify spokesperson told The Verge. 

“Apple’s delay directly conflicts with their claim that they turn around reviews on app submissions within 24 hours", they added, "and it also flies in the face of the timeline for adoption the Commission laid out". 

And Finally! Sugababes’ Mutya Buena apologises for popularising sugar

Sugababes vocalist Mutya Buena has apologised for her band’s part in increasing the amount of sugar in the diets of young people during their peak in the 1990s. “We made people think sugar is cool, but it really, really, really isn’t”, she says in a video on Instagram.

And if you don’t know what to make of that, well, Conservative politician Jacob Rees-Mogg has agreed that the Sugababes’ influence on the health of people who grew up in the 90s is shocking. So you should be shocked. Plus there are concerns that people could once again be put at risk as the group’s original line-up continues their resurgence.