Promusicae has published its first great report on the music industry in 2024 in Spain, which included the list of best -selling records of the year in our country for 2024, headed by ‘The tortured poet’s department’ by Taylor Swift; and the list of more successful songs of 2024, headed by ‘If I had known you’ by Karol G.
But there were also other interesting data. Data that only confirm the trends we have seen in recent years: the streaming consumption rises, massively, but not enough to compensate for what has been lost in terms of physical support sales.
Streaming already represents in 2024 90% of music consumption in Spain. There have been more than 98.5 billion listening on digital audio platforms, 13% more than the previous year. Digital consumption would be equivalent to a total of 30 million albums sold (in physical or digital format), a figure that is still far from the 57 million albums sold in 2002. It is in fact a little more than half in a completely different world.
Vinyl uploads, but not enough
With this domain of streaming, we insist, 90% of total consumption, there is only 10% for other supports. The sale of vinyl continues to rise and has increased 9% in the last year. But this data is not used to compensate for what has been lost in CD. The physical format together falls, in fact, 2% compared to 2023.
Payment subscriptions are not firing
In Spain a lot of music is consumed, and according to the report of the IFPI “Mizchging With Music”, in our country the consumption of music is above the average: 22.1 hours a week. However, the big problem that arises from the industry is that the subscriptions of payment to streaming services are not firing. This year they rise by 11% and already suppose 57% of total streaming consumption. But this percentage is very far from 80% that they handle in France or the United Kingdom. That is, in these countries 8 out of 10 people pay for their streaming service, but in Spain less than 6 out of 10. And that produces that the income of the Spanish industry is lower. Since the time of piracy, Spain has stopped appearing among the 10 most important musical industries in the world. It is as if we were not willing to pay for something we can get for free: many prefer to listen to the ads.
Absence of Spanish multiplinos
Another factor that does not point promusice but that could have some relationship is the absence of superstars in Spain that have published disc along 2024. Some arrived only at the end of the year (Quevedo, Dani Martín), not in time to save the figures annual. Promusicae highlights the love for music in Spanish, and in fact 94 of the 100 most popular songs in Spain during 2024 are in Spanish, but only in 37 of them there is a Spanish artist. It is striking that neither the artist who sold the most albums or the one that produced the most reproductions of a song is Spanish. In a few countries this occurs. The absence of multiplatinos from our own country, in the style of Quevedo, Rosalía or C. Tangana during the previous years, has not had to do great favor to global figures. In Anglo -Saxon countries, Adele or Taylor Swift diamond discs serve to inflate data (and income).
Absence of tax incentives
Finally, the president of Promusicae, Antonio Guisasola, asks for tax incentives for recorded music to public authorities. Appeals to «the need to decide the production and investment made by Spanish record labels, so that the works of Spanish artists have the greatest options for promotion and competitiveness in the current music ecosystem in Spanish, where there are as many opportunities as challenges to face. It makes no sense that, today, the fiscal benefits of those who enjoy the rest of cultural industries to recorded music have not been extended ».
