Is anyone still left working in the music industry purely for the profit? If there is, then it might be time for them to shore up that CV.
New market statistics show that the video games industry, music’s brother in bringing entertainment joy to the masses, is now worth £3.94bn in the UK, up 13% year-on-year – that’s across game sales, console sales, toys and more.
It subsequently appears likely that the games industry – which climbed up from a £3.48bn haul in 2013 – overtook the UK music industry’s total revenue in 2014.
The last comparable annual figures available for the UK music industry – including ticket, merch and record sales – come from trade body UK Music’s Measuring Music report, which estimates the trade’s contribution to the British economy in 2013 was £3.8bn.
That’s 9% up on 2012, but still £140m behind the UK video games industry’s tally last year.
We’re yet to receive confirmed stats for UK ticket sales for 2014, but according to the BPI, the UK recorded music industry dropped slightly in 2014 to £1.03bn last year.
Meanwhile, the ‘filmed entertainment industry’ – including box office sales plus DVD, Blu-Ray and digital services – was steady at £4bn in the UK in 2013, according to the BFI.
Its revenues are being propped up by the continued growth in subscription movie services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, while it spawned the biggest-selling entertainment product of 2014 – Disney’s Frozen.
Worldwide, the news is even less cheerful for the music industry in competition with its big brothers.
According to Gartner Research, the video games industry – inclusive of PC, console and mobile games – should have generated around $100bn in 2014.
Meanwhile, according to PWC, the ‘filmed entertainment’ industry’s revenue was expected to hit $90.9bn in 2014.
But IFPI stats for 2013 puts recorded music’s total worth at $15bn – a figure that looks likely to dip in 2014 with revenues dropping in key markets such as the UK, Japan and the US.
We expect to see an in-depth like-for-like comparison between recorded music, video games software and movie sales in the UK market next week when the territory’s Entertainment Retailers Association publishes its annual yearbook.
[Pictured: The best-selling video game of 2014 in the UK, FIFA 15]Music Business Worldwide
