Streaming Artist Payouts

[The Computer Audiophile]

This is really interesting. A couple labels describe what a millions streams payout to artists after the story of Gary Numan and Beggars clearing up how much he makes from a million streams. More than most people think.

 

 

https://musically.com/2021/03/25/beggars-group-gary-numan-streaming-payouts/

 

[firedog]

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

This is really interesting. A couple labels describe what a millions streams payout to artists after the story of Gary Numan and Beggars clearing up how much he makes from a million streams. More than most people think.

 

 

https://musically.com/2021/03/25/beggars-group-gary-numan-streaming-payouts/

 

It's a pittance. Only the few artists with a truly massive number of streams are going to make a living from that. A million streams is the equivalent of about 100K in CD or LP sales, which used to net the artist about $100K. So we are talking about a factor of 35-70 times less.  Maybe some have a bit better contract and are getting on 30 times less.

[dmackta]

 Hi - where did this come from? 

 

"A million streams is the equivalent of about 100K in CD or LP sales"

 

For USA chart purposes, 1250 streams counts as an album: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album-equivalent_unit

 

So a million streams is more like 800 albums, that's about only about 8K gross. 

 

[firedog]

2 hours ago, dmackta said:

 Hi - where did this come from? 

 

"A million streams is the equivalent of about 100K in CD or LP sales"

 

For USA chart purposes, 1250 streams counts as an album: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album-equivalent_unit

 

So a million streams is more like 800 albums, that's about only about 8K gross. 

 

Not what I meant. I wasn't talking about charting. Charting is a different calculation and it doesn't matter here. 

I was trying to illustrate the different scale artist for artist payments now. I meant buying a CD meant buying an average of 10 songs. 10 X 100,000 = 1,000,000 songs bought vs a million streams. I understand it's not a perfect comparison. It was just meant to give an idea of the different scale of payment artists get now vs what they once got. 100K CD sales was good but not something outladish back in the day and you could make a living at it. 

 

Anyway, do the calculation by your own figures how many streams an artist needs to make $100K, and check how many artists get to that number of streams. Very few. BTW, on youtube a million streams for a typical artist gets you only about 3K, not $8K.

[dmackta]

2 minutes ago, firedog said:

Not what I meant. I wasn't talking about charting. Charting is a different calculation and it doesn't matter here. 

I was trying to illustrate the different scale artist for artist payments now. I meant buying a CD meant buying an average of 10 songs. 10 X 100,000 = 1,000,000 songs bought vs a million streams. I understand it's not a perfect comparison. It was just meant to give an idea of the different scale of payment artists get now vs what they once got. 100K CD sales was good but not something outladish back in the day and you could make a living at it. 

 

Anyway, do the calculation by your own figures how many streams an artist needs to make $100K, and check how many artists get to that number of streams. Very few. BTW, on youtube a million streams for a typical artist gets you only about 3K, not $8K.

I am not saying streaming was good for the economics of being a musical artist, but your comparison is not really the right one to make. If you sold 100k cds back in the CD era, you were most likely on a major label, with a low royalty rate, and chances are you never got a penny over your recoupable advance (out of which all your recording costs etc were already deducted).  Almost anybody can get a million streams today if you are making a certain kind of music and little bit lucky, with no label involvement. I'd posit an artist can end up with more in their pocket in this scenario. 

[firedog]

7 hours ago, dmackta said:

Almost anybody can get a million streams today if you are making a certain kind of music and little bit lucky, with no label involvement. I'd posit an artist can end up with more in their pocket in this scenario

This is so far off the mark that it's amazing you even wrote it. As if getting a million steams means you are making a living. And I suggest you check the stats on how many artists get millions of streams.