The World's biggest market shows why streaming actually earn more than physicals, not the other way like we think

  • The title of this thread is weird. Streaming makes more money than physical only because people stopped buying physicals. If people stopped buying physicals than there is no profit. If people in US were buying physicals like for example Japan than physicals would be more profitable especially with no concerts.


    Also streaming is profitable for streaming platforms, label but not really for artist. Those platforms pay pathetic money to artist.

  • If 8% of that is Kpop physicals, then it's still a lot :wink:

    Well it is decent but everyone likes to bash streaming saying it doesnt earn money compared to physical albums and merch.

    The difference here is 9x, thats no joke, and thats only in the US

  • Physicals make more money than streaming especially when the artists don't contribute to the music.

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  • Well it is decent but everyone likes to bash streaming saying it doesnt earn money compared to physical albums and merch.

    The difference here is 9x, thats no joke, and thats only in the US

    But this is not Kpop, this is all music, right?


    And since only few people are doing physicals, 9% is still a lot. A lots more people need to stream to compensate for 1 person buying an album.

  • The title of this thread is weird. Streaming makes more money than physical only because people stopped buying physicals. If people stopped buying physicals than there is no profit. If people in US were buying physicals like for example Japan than physicals would be more profitable especially with no concerts.


    Also streaming is profitable for streaming platforms, label but not really for artist. Those platforms pay pathetic money to artist.

    Actually Japan is entering streaming age as well, just look at the amount of certifications for streaming rn compared to the past.


    US is definitely not small in terms of physical album buying. If way more people in Japan is buying albums yet they cant beat the US who is 83% streaming in revenue then it says something abt how profitable physicals really are


    And there are so much more in revenue for artists than just looking at pure streams paid by the platform esp ads. They just dont disclose to you the full amount

  • But this is not Kpop, this is all music, right?


    And since only few people are doing physicals, 9% is still a lot. A lots more people need to stream to compensate for 1 person buying an album.

    Few people are doing physicals? Not only kpop artists do physicals tho, most artist still do it

  • It doesn't really matter that 250 million people are streaming music unless they massively stream one song. Those 250 million are streaming that one song, but also golden oldies, foreign music, something their former baker put online, podcasts, foreign music including kpop, so it all scaters around.

    That still makes the revenue for a Kpop group with good physical sales much more delicious than a bunch of people streaming (unless it's a super hit)

  • but streaming pay peanuts to artist compare to physical..

    Thats what everyone think because of the figure we have on the numbers they give us, not the figures they dont disclose. But as we enter the streaming age, things can change

  • It doesn't really matter that 250 million people are streaming music unless they massively stream one song. Those 250 million are streaming that one song, but also golden oldies, foreign music, something their former baker put online, podcasts, foreign music including kpop, so it all scaters around.

    That still makes the revenue for a Kpop group with good physical sales much more delicious than a bunch of people streaming (unless it's a super hit)

    I think fanbase is super important no doubt, esp with those willing to pay money to go for concerts which shld be the highest paying part of the music market.


    i just dont think physicals are more important than streaming but ONLY in revenue but it is an indicator of fandom size which is super important. We also forget the way higher cost of manufacturing physical albums compared to digital ones


    Streaming is always ridiculed by kpoppies as the least important. Yet it makes up the base of everything for a music artist, exposure, charts, award shows and even revenue.

  • Yes there is still alot of people buying albums in the US? 28 million for half the year last year, which i do not know the final amount the whole year. Anyone has the Japanese numbers?

    I just looked online and saw it was over 900 million in 2000. So, it's indeed gone down a lot.

    https://www.statista.com/stati…usic-industry-since-1999/


    However, to those groups that sell a lot, they still make quite a lot of money. It seems to me that it's not even: it's not all groups selling only a small, similar percentage of before, but that it's quite skewed, with KPop fans buying way more than fans of most Western artists.


    What other groups apart from Kpop are having good sales in physicals? Adele?


    By the way, thanks for having a friendly discussion.

    I quite enjoy it :)

  • Thats what everyone think because of the figure we have on the numbers they give us, not the figures they dont disclose. But as we enter the streaming age, things can change

    So u mean they secretly pay so much money to the artist now in this streaming age?? proof?? youtube, spotify pay so little to the artist right now. Ppl dont buy physical mean that artist doesnt gain so much money compare to the past. They depend more on tour, live concert now rather than physical, digital, streaming combine lol.

  • Since almost nobody buys albums, yes, digitals will be the main revenue.


    But you have to remember your 10$ subscription is split between all the artists people listen to (yes, not you, everyone, at least on Spotify). So, yes, physicals make more money 'per buyer'.


    Some were asking how much goes to the artist, usually 60-70% of the revenue goes to the holders of the master recording. This value is then split among the publisher, writers, composers, performers, etc.

  • So u mean they secretly pay so much money to the artist now in this streaming age?? proof?? youtube, spotify pay so little to the artist right now. Ppl dont buy physical mean that artist doesnt gain so much money compare to the past. They depend more on tour, live concert now rather than physical, digital, streaming combine lol.

    Asking for proof of a breakdown of artist's earnings means u have to know the amt earn from physicals as well.

    But u and I dont have that number because they dont disclose it.

    They dont disclose physical sales revenue as well but everyone thinks its the bigger than streams? So it doesnt really make sense to say that no physicals means no money for artists and it definitely pays more than streaming, the only data we have is that streaming as a whole generates way more income than physicals

  • Well it is decent but everyone likes to bash streaming saying it doesnt earn money compared to physical albums and merch.

    The difference here is 9x, thats no joke, and thats only in the US

    It’s because here in the US, people rarely buy physical album. But if you sell a million physical albums and your album is streamed a million times, guess which will give the artist more money? Yup - physicals. No comprison in terms of payback. This is why a lot of artists are trying (or wanting) to revive physical album sales, cranking out different versions that the fans will, hopefully, buy.

  • Since almost nobody buys albums, yes, digitals will be the main revenue.


    But you have to remember your 10$ subscription is split between all the artists people listen to (yes, not you, everyone, at least on Spotify). So, yes, physicals make more money 'per buyer'.


    Some were asking how much goes to the artist, usually 60-70% of the revenue goes to the holders of the master recording. This value is then split among the publisher, writers, composers, performers, etc.

    Interesting. Yes, and spotify (or whoever) will of course get their share too.


    Some people stream all the time almost: at work, commuting and at home. Some listen to thousands of songs so that bit of money will be split amongst a lot of groups.

  • Kpop fans buy more than western artists, sure, but not in the US itself, from other countries.

    we just have to see BTS, BP, NCT sales in the US which are some of the highest for a kpop groups last year and their percentage of sales coming from the US

    Only BTS is actually more than 10 percent. The bulk of their album sales still come from Asia.


    900million in 2000 is alot, which is even more shocking that US revenue for music was at a 10 year high last year. It shows that despite physicals dropping and no concert, the revenue is still increasing

    Edited once, last by z1 ().

  • Since almost nobody buys albums, yes, digitals will be the main revenue.


    But you have to remember your 10$ subscription is split between all the artists people listen to (yes, not you, everyone, at least on Spotify). So, yes, physicals make more money 'per buyer'.


    Some were asking how much goes to the artist, usually 60-70% of the revenue goes to the holders of the master recording. This value is then split among the publisher, writers, composers, performers, etc.

    We could say the same abt physicals tho, same complication, delivery, transport from country to country, immigration, manufacturer, recorders, photographers.

  • Spotify payed around $0.0037 per stream in 2019. So you can do your calculations to see if your idols won more through album sales or through Spotify streaming.

    ads + promos actually pay more than streams if you get a lot of engagement. + many other non disclosed factors. Its like asking us to calculate the raw profit of physical sales without taking into account the transport fee, manufacturing fee, production fee etc

  • There r American artists who can still sell pure copies. There is no denying that the streaming era has decreased the sales. Smash albums aren't able to reach or will take more time to get diamond certification.

    But artists who can get streams do generate good revenue. The world has moved on to streaming. It's the future pretty much. I'll never understand why kpop fans r kinda against it. Lol

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    Edited once, last by atropos ().

  • ads + promos actually pay more than streams if you get a lot of engagement. + many other non disclosed factors. Its like asking us to calculate the raw profit of physical sales without taking into account the transport fee, manufacturing fee, production fee etc

    Where did you get this info from? The only thing I can find is that the Spotify payout formula per song is: <Total Revenue> * <Song Streams> / <Total Spotify Streams>. I.e., you are payed the ratio you contributed to the total Spotify streams. And, just to clarify, it is calculated per country. So each country has its own pay per stream based on the total revenue and total streams of the said country.

  • Kpop fans buy more than western artists, sure, but not in the US itself, from other countries.

    we just have to see BTS, BP, NCT sales in the US which are some of the highest for a kpop groups last year and their percentage of sales coming from the US

    Only BTS is actually more than 10 percent. The bulk of their album sales still come from Asia.


    900million in 2000 is alot, which is even more shocking that US revenue for music was at a 10 year high last year. It shows that despite physicals dropping and no concert, the revenue is still increasing


    It doesn't really matter if the bulk of BTS sales are from Asia.


    It matters how much they make from digitals compared to streaming in the US. I read it's over half a million CDs sold. Let's round it down to 500k and say it's 25 dollars for a CD, then it's 12.5 million dollar just from physicals. They will need a lot of streams to make the same amount. So, at least for BTS, physicals make a large part of their revenue. Same for the others, likely. They might sell fewer physicals than BTS, but will also have fewer streams to set it off against.


    2000 is 21 years ago. Is that corrected for inflation?

    (900 million is amount of albums shipped, not the amount of dollars)

  • 12.5million dollars compared to the revenue BTS makes is actually peanuts. Not even taking into account the production and shipping cost of the album. U can google this one up i think on their profits idk if bighit shares it or not.


    All chartdata said was that the revenue is at its highest in a decade. With so less concerts last year. I'd say its proof enough how strong streaming actually is

  • For those wondering Melon and Genie take a 35% cut of the revenue, so it's comparable to Spotify and Apple Music. I couldn't find their pay per stream, only that the MelOn revenue was $94.6M in 2019. But I don't have the total number of streams.

  • Where did you get this info from? The only thing I can find is that the Spotify payout formula per song is: <Total Revenue> * <Song Streams> / <Total Spotify Streams>. I.e., you are payed the ratio you contributed to the total Spotify streams. And, just to clarify, it is calculated per country. So each country has its own pay per stream based on the total revenue and total streams of the said country.

    Many youtubers have shared how they actually earn money. U can google ads payout if u want for yt, im not sure abt spotify but spotify without premium does have ads as well im sure that plays apart somehow as ads are a main part of streaming platforms

    Edited once, last by z1 ().

  • There r American artists who can still sell pure copies. There is no denying that the streaming era has decreased the sales. Smash albums aren't able to reach or will take more time to get diamond certification.

    But artists who can get streams do generate good revenue. The world has moved on to streaming. It's the future pretty much. I'll never understand why kpop fans r kinda against it. Lol

    I can see why some kpop fans are against it. They spend way more effort and money to support their artist.


    However, it must be said that only a small amt of people support their kpop artist by paying for merch. Most people cant do it and its not that they do not want, they are just not capable to do so.


    Instead they spend time and effort to support their artist by streaming their songs in this day and age. Which doesnt make them less of a fan

  • Mariah Carey herself said streaming barely pays up. And she is an artiste who existed during the physicals era so she can clearly feel the difference in profits

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  • I can see why some kpop fans are against it. They spend way more effort and money to support their artist.


    However, it must be said that only a small amt of people support their kpop artist by paying for merch. Most people cant do it and its not that they do not want, they are just not capable to do so.


    Instead they spend time and effort to support their artist by streaming their songs in this day and age. Which doesnt make them less of a fan

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    see how little streaming platform pay to artist -.-

  • Kpop fans buy more than western artists, sure, but not in the US itself, from other countries.

    we just have to see BTS, BP, NCT sales in the US which are some of the highest for a kpop groups last year and their percentage of sales coming from the US

    Only BTS is actually more than 10 percent. The bulk of their album sales still come from Asia.


    900million in 2000 is alot, which is even more shocking that US revenue for music was at a 10 year high last year. It shows that despite physicals dropping and no concert, the revenue is still increasing

    No offense but the only reason why the music market is just getting bigger is because of the increasing population and the fact that more people are getting easy access to music due to the normalization of technology in every parts of the world. It was bound to happen unless something unimaginable befell the music market

  • Many youtubers have shared how they actually earn money. U can google ads payout if u want for yt, im not sure abt spotify but spotify without premium does have ads as well im sure that plays apart somehow

    From what I can find, YouTube and Spotify have different payout models. YouTube uses a more complex, individual performance payout model, while Spotify uses a more simple, general payout model. Spotify just gathers the total revenue from payed subscriptions and adds and distributes them to everyone.

  • pasted-from-clipboard.png

    see how little streaming platform pay to artist -.-

    I know pay per stream is that amt. But its the raw amount. The real amount is way more complicated than that.


    The analogy is this. What we are calculating on albums is basically the shipped and printed albums u paid multiplied by the amt sold.


    It might seem a lot compared to streams. But we are forgetting everything that cost money along the way from making, printing, deliverying the album.


    The manufacturing cost of a physical album is way higher than a digital one. So the actual profit is way less than its raw value

  • man, u are delusional.. so many ppl explaining but u still dont get it, i give up

  • No offense but the only reason why the music market is just getting bigger is because of the increasing population and the fact that more people are getting easy access to music due to the normalization of technology in every parts of the world. It was bound to happen unless something unimaginable befell the music market

    One of the reasons, Im sure it is.


    physicals has been dropping since the early 2010s tho?

    And if the growth of streaming can outgrow physicals, what does that really tell us.

    Keep in mind 2020 doesnt even have concert revenues to make it worst

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