Music streaming: Now more popular than video

Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Google Play, and others have combined to conquer major streaming site YouTube and Vevo. Before this year, video streaming sites have led audio platforms in terms of number of user streams.

But numbers during the first half of the year have shown there were 114 billion music streams, topping the 95 billion videos that were streamed. The number of audio streams more than doubled from the same time period in 2015, while video streams grew by just 23 percent.

Overall streaming increased by 58 percent from last year, continuing a surge in rate of growth.

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The increase in popularity in music streaming had been helped by Rihanna’s Work, which is the most played song so far this year. Drake’s Views, meanwhile, is the most requested album, having been streamed 1.5 billion times. This is followed closely by Justin Bieber’s Purpose at 1.3 billion and Rihanna’s Anti at 1.2 billion.

The shift toward music streaming is notable because YouTube has more than a billion users all over the world. Spotify, which is currently the largest streaming company, only has 89 million active users every month.

However, the rising lead of audio streaming over video would possibly empower the music industry in its negotiation with YouTube over new licensing deals. Music artists and record labels have long argued that the video stream empire has been “unfairly siphoning value away from musicians and songwriters.”

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In the UK, the British Phonographic Industry reports that the music industry was able to earn more than £146 million in 2015, while video streams netted them £24.4 million.

YouTube, in its defense, claims that it shelled out $3 billion to the industry and has been working collaboratively with the industry to provide the artists their due. The ascent, though, of audio streaming sites generally has boded well for the industry as it has contributed to the 6.5 percent growth of music consumption in the US, despite the decline in CD and digital album sales.