Have world tours stopped doing the "tour" part?; Apple Music had 2bn(!) fraudulent streams in 2025; Spotify pays out $11bn; and Bonnie Tyler speaks out!

0:02Bonnie Tyler:Hello and welcome to The Price of Music brought to you by Music Ally, the show that both looks at the finances of the music industry, but also brings you stories and comments from the past week in the pop business. I'm Steve Lemack, he's Stuart Dredge. If you want an easy guide to what's going on in the music industry and how it all works, then here we are.

0:21Steve:This week, fraudulent streams on Apple, business rate changes for venues could save arenas millions of pounds.

0:28Bonnie Tyler:and the amount of music we're watching on YouTube. But first, as is our way, one impressive figure that you can take away from this week's show, which is...

0:39Stu:Today's figure is$11 billion, and that is how much Spotify paid to the music industry in 2025, which it announced this week. And that is up from$10 billion the year before. So they've grown by 10%.

0:52Bonnie Tyler:Right, and obviously Spotify will be happy with this. What's the reaction been from the rest of the industry?

0:59Stu:Well, quite, because it announced this during all of the pre-Grammys hoo-ha last week, and all the labels were more focused on having their parties, I think. So no one's really been talking that much about it. But the interesting thing Spotify did was, it made a point of saying, yes, we grew 10 % last year in what we paid out, and that compared to 4 % for other industry sources, so its rivals. So it was kind of a big kind of saying, look, we're growing faster than the rivals, we're doing more paying out. But the other thing I wanted to throw at you was another stat they gave which i thought was really interesting um so this is a quote from charlie hellman the head of music who wrote this blog post about it saying there are now more artists generating over a hundred thousand dollars a year from spotify alone than we're getting stocked on record store shelves at the height of the cd era so that is their argument saying we are paying good money out to more people than were even in the shops in the in the 90s did they say which

1:51Bonnie Tyler:particular shop i mean there were some very big records it's is this shop down the end of the street um or is it you know the the mega stores back in the day i'm gonna say it's mega stores

2:05Stu:i think i think it would they wouldn't do the comparison if it wasn't the big what what are

2:08Bonnie Tyler:they saying how many do they actually give a figure then of how many um artists are receiving this amount of money over a hundred thousand pounds from them if they could put a stat on it or they just use this comparison so they don't have to.

2:23Stu:Yeah, so there is a number. It's something Spotify releases every year, and it's a thing called the Loud and Clear Report, which is due to be updated soon. The nearest I have last year is that in 2024, nearly 1 ,500 artists made over a million dollars in artists and Spotify. So, yeah, so they're kind of, it's interesting. And there was this phrase in the blog post about announcing all this, saying the rampant misinformation about streaming artists. So this is kind of their punchback of people saying, you don't pay out much. And them saying, actually, we're paying out more than the CD era.

2:55Bonnie Tyler:I mean, obviously, it's a hefty wedge of money. But I mean, the thing is, despite what they're saying about the spread of the money, when we know where most of it goes, and it all obviously goes to the most popular artists at the top end, you know, and I think that's Spotify's problem when it comes to their reputation. because, you know, if they think this is going to bring more people on side, then I think they might not be reading The Room properly because the majority of musicians, at least, won't necessarily be applauding the fact that they've paid out more money to the top tiers of your global pop stars.

3:30Bonnie Tyler:I mean, good luck to them, the birds. But basically saying, yeah, we've made the big labels and the big pop stars more money is not the sort of story that's going to help sway what a lot of people think of them, even if they are saying. But there's loads of other people who are also raking it in, unlike Hugh at the bottom level.

3:51Stu:Well, that's it. And I think that's what this annual Loud and Clear report is about, which should be coming. It normally comes in spring, I think. And that's where they start breaking out, here's how many people earn$10 ,000. So the other thing I thought was interesting about this was, so there's only really two streaming services that announce this kind of payout figure regularly. So Spotify does it every year. And YouTube Music is the other one. So last year, YouTube said it paid out$8 billion to the music industry in the previous year. So it's kind of interesting to me that every year, that's like$19 billion from Spotify and YouTube alone.

4:22Stu:If you go back 20 years to that CD era, you told someone, yeah, in 20 years' time, a streaming service will pay$19 billion. People would have been like, what? You would have had to explain what streaming was, obviously, first. but um so yeah so but like you say it is these big figures and it does if you're an artist sat in your bedroom with a small royalty check feeling really really sort of sad yeah almost the more big numbers that come out the worst you're going to feel because you're not seeing it how much uh profit do spotify themselves make um they they've they were unprofitable for a long time they've just started making profits recently because that's it that's the other that's the

5:02Bonnie Tyler:other thing is we we are paying out a lot of money we ourselves though are now in profits and also how much of our shares worth quite a lot of money so who's you know there are a lot of people making making money it's it's not a philanthropic business this spotify is still going to make a lot of money however much money they're paying out do you see what i mean yeah you know they are doing very well out of this as well um you know deflect it as much as you like say aren't we the good guys we've just paid out all this money and made more people you know put more people uh on a decent career footing and are bringing in a decent annual wage that's all fine but you know at the same point they're doing all right spotify well yeah so then in the third quarter

5:56Stu:last year alone, they made, I think it was 582 million euros of operating profit. But it was interesting. So there's this blog post, people couldn't go and look it up. If you look up Spotify for the record, which is their press website, most of this blog post was talking about, and we keep 30 % of the money we earn, and this is what we're spending on this year. And there's a lot of talk about the tools they're going to launch for artists, new features. And there was this phrase, new features that will help more artists turn listening into tangible support from their fans. So that was part of this argument as well.

6:25Stu:They were saying, yes, we do keep some of this money and this is what we're spending on for artists. And the other stat in this, actually, which I hadn't seen before, you know you can get tickets from Spotify. If you can, if you're an artist like this, say, here's any concerts, buy tickets. They reckon they've helped artists sell more than a billion dollars of tickets to that feature, which they've never announced before. So I think you're right. I think they're seeing these arguments and they're trying to come at them and say, look, this is what we're doing, this is how we're investing, and this is how we're helping artists but i mean like you say people will have different opinions but that ticketing figure made me think okay if you're an artist right now you need to have your concert dates on spotify and be trying to you know have it point people to tickets because that is clearly getting a little bit of traction that feature people are seeing it and buying tickets so you

7:12Bonnie Tyler:know yeah i mean alternatively i mean that but that's driving an artist to put their music on Spotify where their royalty rate will not bring them as much money as if they were selling direct to their fans or maybe on another service. What the ticketing thing is doing is giving them another reason. I mean, there are places where, this may surprise you, where you can buy gig tickets already and Spotify are basically taking part of that to bring more people to them. That's one say if I'm going to play devil's advocate, there is that side of the argument, isn't there?

7:52Stu:Well, I think in this sense, it's more they're pointing you towards those other ticketing places. They're not taking a cut of those sales. But yeah, you're right. I mean, it's part of the package, like be on here, you can do this. But it does make me think if you are going to be on there, and if you're an artist who hasn't connected up your concert dates with Spotify, that is worth doing. So that was one thing I took away from this thing, because they've had this feature a while and I was like, I wonder how many tickets are being actually sold because you can put your ticket on Spotify. But yeah, it is interesting because I think they give out the most information about the money they're paying out and what they're doing, but at the same time they get the most criticism.

8:31Stu:So it's a free-for-all whenever they put figures out. But that's good. Arguably, the more insight we have into what they're paying out, the more we can discuss where it's going and

8:42Bonnie Tyler:how fairly it's being shared so you know okay aside from that three of this week's big talking points or at least three which we thought you might be interested in starting with this talking of streaming services there's another big number actually this week uh from apple music and it's uh the number of fraudulent streams on apple in 2025 um which is as i say quite a big figure as well, isn't it?

9:09Stu:Well, it sounds like a big figure, and then the context for it maybe says not so much. But yeah, so fraudulent streams, I mean, just to catch up anyone who's not been following that, that's when there's songs on a streaming service and they're being played not by humans in a real way. So they're being played by bots or someone's got a warehouse of computers streaming around the clock. So that's what streaming fraud is. And yeah, last year, this is an interview with Oliver Schuster, who he used to be the boss of Apple's music business, and now he's more senior, but it's still under him. Yeah, up to 2 billion fraudulent streams last year on Apple Music alone.

9:43Stu:Right, okay. Which is interesting, because this sounds bad at first glance, doesn't it? But then his next thing was like, but we identified those. And basically, what he said was, we take the stream counts off, the fraudulent streams don't count, we take them out of the charts, and we take the money and put it back into the pool so it goes to honourable artists so it's kind of a it's a boast really he's saying two billion streams we spotted them and we took the money away from them going back to human artists so it's kind of a pitch there but it's all it's all

10:17Bonnie Tyler:big figures though this week isn't it um spotify with a big payout and apple being able to say how many streams fraudulent streams they've spotted and that brings us to story too which is the amount of music we're watching on YouTube.

10:33Steve:And again, that's quite a big figure.

10:35Stu:It is, yeah. So this is from a company called Omdia, which is one of those big research companies that digs into stats from all the big internet services. Yeah, music videos are 33 % of YouTube's total viewing time. So everything anyone watches on YouTube, from, well, the traditional cat videos, gaming videos, vlogging, but a third of everything is music videos, which is actually, it's grown. So five years ago, the then head of music at YouTube said that it was, music was 25 % of its watch time. So it was a quarter then, it's a third now. So music is getting more and more important to YouTube.

11:13Stu:It's the kind of, well, it's sort of positive news, like music's importance, because there's a lot of things it's competing with on there. But at the same time, it might be the spur for music labels to go, well, and you should be paying us much more because look how important we are to your business. So it could spark a few,

11:28Bonnie Tyler:a few arguments um uh yeah that's so uh in in a way good good news for for the industry

11:39Stu:yeah i think so i mean what they didn't break down and what i wanted to know was how much that is actual sort of music videos for adults and how much of it is wheels on the bus as we discussed before here you know popular kids videos but yeah i think so it's it's um i think one that one like the things that people in the music industry that keeps them awake a bit at night sometimes. There's all these other things they have to compete with nowadays. They're competing with games, they're competing with Netflix, they're competing with all these other things you can spend your time watching and listening to.

12:07Stu:And yet, people go to YouTube and what they want to do is play music and listen to music. I mean, the other stat that came out, this is a stat to quote in the pub, there are now more than 29 billion videos on YouTube. And most of those aren't getting watched, like like in streaming most songs i'm gonna listen to but it's just absurd really how many um but yeah no guys i think it's good news i think but i do think next time youtube is in a room with a label threshing out a licensing deal they will be pointed to saying i see how much more important we are to your whole business so we want more money so i have to kind of deal with that story

12:43Bonnie Tyler:three and i this is i've been banging on about this since before christmas the uh changes in rateable values for venues big and small uh while at the same time as we reported uh there were changes around business rate relief for venues uh in the government's last budget just before

12:59Steve:christmas uh and together uh these things well i mean the the threat was if if if if nothing changes two things one this would lead potentially to humongous rises in venues business rates which in turn, if the venues were then to pass on this increase to fans, may lead to a threatened £3 a ticket extra in the cost of going to see your favourite artist at an arena show. While all that's happening at the top end, then almost certainly amongst the grassroots venues at the other end of the scale, we'd see probably a raft of closures as soon as the new business rate kicked in in April. But good news this week, because you might have seen this story, but last week after, well, I think there were nearly 50 Labour MPs sent a letter to the Chancellor calling on her to act and in some way to help both venues and pubs, actually, as it goes.

14:03Steve:But when it came to venues, also there was a lot of lobbying of the Treasury from the live industry, and particularly, I have to say, from Live, the Live Music trade body, all of which eventually led to this government announcement last week that from April it'll be giving venues a 15 % discount on their business rates in 26-27, while also promising to freeze their rates in real terms for the following two years. And 15 % might not sound a lot, Whether it's enough for the grassroots scene, we're still sort of waiting to find out. But certainly I was told yesterday that even a 15 % worth of rate relief, that would help save one leading live music arena venue in the UK, somewhere in the region of£1.2 million in the next year.

15:02Steve:And that, of course, is a£1.2 million bill, which, as I say, could otherwise have been lightly passed on to fans through increased ticket prices. So that, as I say, is a win. I mean, we still need a proper review of venues' rateable values to take into account the margins they operate on and also how much they bring to local communities, both creatively but also financially, if you think about how much money a big arena venue generates with a string of concerts. How much money does that bring into the community? All these things are points which are constantly being made. But yes, the 15 % business rate relief, one bright spark from last week.

15:52Steve:Okay, any other business? Stuart?

15:55Stu:Yeah, well, I want to hark back to a story we covered last year. We talked about Bonnie Tyler's Spotify royalties, if you remember. And why would you not, obviously? There's been a follow-up. So there was a story, Total Eclipse of the Heart, her biggest hit, has just joined Spotify's billions club. So it's got more than 1 billion streams on that service. And BBC News did a little story about it and she interviewed Bonnie Tyler and she was very positive, she seems like a very positive person. But when they asked her how much she makes from streams of that song, she said basically, oh, it's nothing, just about nothing.

16:25Stu:Which then sparked this kind of follow-up where Spotify actually got in touch and told me how much it paid out for her music last year. So it paid out more than$1.4 million for a whole catalogue last year. And that follows on from the number we talked about last year, which was$1.3 million in 2024. So essentially, Spotify has paid out$2.7 million in the last two years for Bonnie Tyler's music. But she makes just about nothing from her biggest hit. And both of those things could be true, because what we're missing is all the middle stuff about what deal she has with the label at the time, how money is being paid through to her.

17:02Stu:We do know she didn't write the song. It was written by Jim Steinman of Meatloaf fame. So the publishing royalties were going to his estate. But yeah, it's one of those mysteries where the headlines were all about how Bonnie Tyler makes nothing from streaming. And yet streaming is paying out money for her stuff. And so it comes back to this age-old mystery of what happens in the middle of it being paid out and the artists sat at the end waiting for money to drop in account. But you know, a billion streams for that song, it's one of those things where you can very quickly get to a billion streams if you're the latest song from Drake or The Weeknd.

17:37Stu:But quite regularly on YouTube and Spotify, you get these 80s or 90s songs that suddenly have got to a billion. I think maybe like The Cure did one that got to a billion. And it always makes me kind of smile that it's not just about the new stuff that's reaching these big milestones. It's some classics

17:51Steve:to uh back on the subject of live music this is something which the bbc uh news website ran a piece on uh and it's all about well how major pop stars uh major artists are visiting less towns and cities so artists uh and this is a this is a trend which um is i don't know it's post obviously it's it's post lockdown but particularly i suppose over the last two or three years it's become more noticeable where somebody like harry styles who's just put on that sale uh a tour is it a tour though when you're basically spending a lot of time in three or four cities rather than actually traveling around the country so artists are traveling less which means fans are having to travel more and so the cost for the fan goes up but yes essentially less traveling cost for the artist more traveling and accompanying accommodation costs, possibly, for the fans.