82% of artists earn less than £200 a year from streaming

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82% of musicians earned less than £200 from streaming in 2019, according to a new poll by the UK’s independent body for music creators, The Ivors Academy and the Musicians’ Union. 

The survey also showed that even artists with “millions” of streams on services such as Spotify and Apple Music were low earners, and that half of all artists have experienced a decline in income from recorded music over the past 10 years. 43% of survey respondents reported that they were forced to get a job outside of music due to insufficient income from streaming. 

Graham Davies, CEO of The Ivors Academy, said: “Too much streaming money is going to the major labels, this is an outdated model and needs reform.”

Naomi Pohl, Deputy General Secretary of the Musicians’ Union, said: “We have to make the economics of streaming fairer; improved deals for artists, a bigger share of revenue for songwriters and an income stream for the first time for non-featured musicians.”

The UK government is undertaking a new enquiry to investigate the economics of music streaming, following urgent calls from music managers across the UK to change the financial imbalances caused by the streaming business model.

The survey findings come ahead of the second meeting of the government enquiry taking place today, where MPs will hear from Ivor Novello Award-winning songwriter and artist Nile Rodgers.

In a survey conducted by YouGov in October 2020 for #BrokenRecord, 77% of people said they believed that artists and songwriters are not paid enough by streaming platforms.