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Charted: 50 Years of Music Industry Revenues, by Format

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charting music industry revenues by format.

Charted: 50 Years of Music Industry Revenues, by Format

In the ever-changing world of music, 2022 marked yet another milestone.

For the seventh year in a row, recorded music revenues in the United States rose, hitting a record high of $15.9 billion.

The graphic above uses data from the Recording Industry Association of America to chart the music industry’s evolution over the last 50 years.

The Analog Era: Vinyl to Cassettes to CDs

From the 1970s to the 1990s, the music industry experienced a remarkable transformation in physical formats.

The 1970s emerged as a golden age for vinyl records, giving rise to timeless classics such as Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” (1973), Led Zeppelin’s “IV” (1971), and Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” (1977) that continue to captivate collectors and music enthusiasts today.

Vinyl was soon followed by the portable convenience of cassette tapes in the 1980s. Those who had their teenage years during the ’80s will remember how the Walkman became one of their best friends. Cassette players were also standard equipment in cars.

It was the 1990s, however, that saw the arrival of the biggest game-changer of the 20th century: digital music and compact discs.

The Music Industry’s Digital Revolution

Because of the significant jump in capacity and audio quality compared to cassettes, the compact disc (CD) quickly became the leader in sales, peaking in 2000 with global sales estimated at around 2.5 billion.

CDs would stick around well into the 2000s. But by this time, the first MP3 players were already making their mark, making the idea of strolling around with a disc containing just 10 or 12 tracks feel outdated.

Amid the growth of digital music, ringtone and ringback revenues also reached an impressive $1.1 billion in 2007, constituting 10% of the music industry’s earnings for that year. At the same time, digital music allowed consumers to purchase cheaper individual songs instead of full albums, and made piracy easier and more widespread, cutting into sales.

Today, this once-lucrative market has dwindled significantly. A mere 4.5 million ringtones and ringbacks were purchased in 2022, generating a modest $11 million in revenue and representing only 0.1% of the year’s music industry earnings.

Changing the Sound of Music

Over the last 20 years, streaming took over the music industry.

Digital music revenues comprised 89% of the U.S. music industry’s revenue in 2022. Streaming services like Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music made up 84% of the total industry revenue.

The number of paid subscriptions to on-demand music services surged past 92 million, showcasing the continued appetite for music.

This RIAA chart shows the music industry's paid subscriptions

For the third consecutive year, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny was the most-streamed artist (18.5 billion streams), followed by Taylor Swift, Drake, The Weeknd, and BTS.

As the Wall Street Journal pointed out in a recent article, the success of streaming services is not just transforming the music business but also changing the music.

That’s because companies compensate artists based on the number of monthly plays, but only count them if a user listens to a song beyond the initial 30 seconds.

To minimize the “skip rate,” musical artists strategically relocate a song’s hook or chorus after the initial 30-second window. In addition, there’s a growing trend of shorter songs, allowing artists to have more tracks streamed simultaneously.

The Vinyl Renaissance

While digital music is continuing to ascend, that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of physical format. Vinyl sales, for example, also grew in 2022.

In fact, last year, vinyls outsold CDs in terms of units for the first time since 1987.

Contrary to expectations that nostalgic Baby Boomers or Gen Xers are fueling the vinyl revival, surveys reveal that millennial consumers are actually propelling the sales.

The reasons for this trend vary, including factors such as the superior audio quality of vinyl, the perception of vinyl as collector’s items, and even the appeal of having a beautiful record player in the living room.

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Politics

How Much Do Americans Trust the Media?

Media trust among Americans has reached its lowest point since Trump won the 2016 presidential election.

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How Much Do Americans Trust the Media?

Media trust among Americans has reached its lowest point in six years.

Gallup began its survey on media trust in 1972, repeating it in 1974 and 1976. After a long period, the public opinion firm restarted the polls in 1997 and has asked Americans about their confidence level in the mass media—newspapers, TV, and radio—almost every year since then.

The above graphic illustrates Gallup’s latest poll results, conducted in September 2023.

Americans’ Trust in Mass Media, 1972-2023

Americans’ confidence in the mass media has sharply declined over the last few decades.

Trust in the mass media% Great deal/Fair amount% Not very much% None at all
197268246
197469218
197672224
1997533115
199855359
1999553411
2000513712
2001533314
2002543511
2003543511
2004443916
2005503712
2007473517
2008433521
2009453718
2010433621
2011443619
2012403921
2013443322
2014403624
2015403624
2016324127
2017412929
2018453024
2019413028
2020402733
2021362934
2022342838
2023322939

In 2016, the number of respondents trusting media outlets fell below the tally of those who didn’t trust the media at all. This is the first time that has happened in the poll’s history.

That year was marked by sharp criticism of the media from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

In 2017, the use of the term ‘fake news’ rose by 365% on social media, and the term was named the word of the year by dictionary publisher Collins.

The Lack of Faith in Institutions and Social Media

Although there’s no single reason to explain the decline of trust in the traditional media, some studies point to potential drivers.

According to Michael Schudson, a sociologist and historian of the news media and a professor at the Columbia Journalism School, in the 1970s, faith in institutions like the White House or Congress began to decline, consequently impacting confidence in the media.

“That may have been a necessary corrective to a sense of complacency that had been creeping in—among the public and the news media—that allowed perhaps too much trust: we accepted President Eisenhower’s lies about the U-2 spy plane, President Kennedy’s lies about the ‘missile gap,’ President Johnson’s lies about the war in Vietnam, President Nixon’s lies about Watergate,”
Michael Schudson – Columbia Journalism School

More recently, the internet and social media have significantly changed how people consume media. The rise of platforms such as X/Twitter and Facebook have also disrupted the traditional media status quo.

Partisans’ Trust in Mass Media

Historically, Democrats have expressed more confidence in the media than Republicans.

Democrats’ trust, however, has fallen 12 points over the past year to 58%, compared with 11% among Republicans and 29% among independents.

How-Much-Do-Americans-Trust-the-Media

According to Gallup, Republicans’ low confidence in the media has little room to worsen, but Democrat confidence could still deteriorate and bring the overall national reading down further.

The poll also shows that young Democrats have less confidence in the media than older Democrats, while Republicans are less varied in their views by age group.

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