Vienna (OTS) – After two years of Corona, the year 2022 was characterized by a gradual return of the domestic music market to normality with a significant increase of 13%. Music fans in Austria spent a total of 215.2 million euros on digital and physical music formats in 2022. Streaming once again proved to be a growth engine (+ 22.5%) and already accounts for 80% of all domestic music sales. Vinyl records are establishing themselves as a stable market segment with a renewed increase of 4.3%. The CD and downloads continue to lose importance with -17% and -18% respectively. The license income of the collecting society LSG benefited from the end of the Corona measures and rose to 31 million euros (+ 13%). A further approximately 3.5 million euros came from merchandising sales and the licensing of music for films, series or (synch rights).
Dietmar LienbacherManaging Director Sony Music Austria and President of Association of the Austrian Music Industry: “The Austrian music market has experienced an impressive upswing in recent years and will continue to grow dynamically in 2022 – the largest growth driver, streaming, already accounts for 80% of the entire music market. With a variety of established artists and the growing number of new talents, we are optimistic about the future and continue to focus on growth and the promotion of young talents.”
Cornelius BallinGeneral Manager Universal Music Austria and Vice President of Association of the Austrian Music Industry: “More music was streamed in 2022 than ever before, while vinyl continued to gain traction as a physical collectible. It is very pleasing that the bottom line is that there is a clear plus for the Austrian music market. We continue to see the promotion of Austrian artists at home and abroad as an important task.”
Franz PleterskiGeneral Manager Warner Music Austria and board member of the Vbands of the Austrian music industry: “As a long-standing member of the IFPI board, I see many positive developments over the years, despite crises and adverse conditions, which have sometimes been supported by IFPI measures in the market. Furthermore, it is our great concern to promote diversity, to make talent (more) visible and to create an environment in which Austrian music can develop accordingly in the “streaming age” and record sales growth”.
Hannes TschürtzManaging Director Ink Music and board member of Association of the Austrian Music Industry: “While there has been a positive perception of Austrian music over the past 10 years, the challenges for the future remain high. It’s no longer enough to rely on the sudden emergence of talent. The still rapidly changing market requires a significantly higher level of professionalism and a lot of support. I’m sure: Austria’s artists will return the trust they have invested in them in the form of great music with a lasting character.”
Streaming boom continues
The streaming boom will continue in 2022 with increasing user and sales figures. With a significant increase in sales of 22.5% to 143.8 million euros and a share of almost 80% in the core area of Recorded Music Streaming has long since become the most popular music format in Austria. 14.8 billion songs streamed in Austria again mark a record (previous year: 12.7 billion). 88% of all streaming sales are made through the premium subscriptions of Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon unlimited or Deezer 9% comes from ad-supported audio and video streaming services, including the world’s largest music streaming platform YouTube. There is also growth potential for the future in this segment in particular.
Sales of vinyl records rise to 10.6 million euros
Demand for records continued to rise in 2022 (+4.3%) and has already generated sales of EUR 10.6 million. Similarly high values were last achieved in the 1990s. This means that the classic physical product has a considerable market share of almost 6% in the digital age and has developed from the initial “cult product” for analogue listening pleasure into a stable and reliable market segment.
CD down, but still relevant with 1.5 million units sold
The music CD may also lose ground in 2022, but with 1.5 million units sold and sales of 20.4 million euros (-17%) it is still the second largest market segment in Austria. The CD continues to enjoy great popularity among music fans, especially in the classic and pop genres, but also pop/rock. The current New Year’s concert Wiener Philharmoniker with Franz Welser-Möst on the podium, reached number 1 in the cross-genre official album sales charts in Austria – certainly a special feature of the domestic music market. However, the reduction in shelf space in retail and the concentration on best-of products are making CDs less attractive. The e-commerce share of CD sales has recently increased to 60%.
Austrian music productions: decline in singles, increase in albums
The progressive shift of music distribution to digital and global streaming platforms, which align their algorithms to a world market, poses enormous challenges for artists from smaller markets like Austria.
This development is reflected above all in domestic songs: in 2022, 3.6% of the streamed songs came from domestic production. In 2021 it was still 4.7%. The situation is better for the albums. The share of Austrian productions here is almost a quarter of the total market – this also means an increase compared to 2021, where this share was 18%. Local repertoire is disproportionately well represented in stationary trade and in physical products, and in 2022 there was a catching-up process compared to the “Corona” year 2021 with trade closures.
LSG revenues increase by 13% to 31 million euros
Die LSG is the joint collecting society for music producers and performers and represents around 5,000 labels and 20,000 artists. As a trustee, she takes care of copyright remuneration claims, for example for the broadcast, public reproduction, private copying or the use of music recordings in teaching and teaching. The LSG was able to benefit from the end of the corona restrictions and increase its income to 31 million euros. This reached the LSG roughly the level of earnings before Corona. The largest proportion of LSG-Income comes from the broadcasting fee (45%), followed by public reproduction in restaurants, hotels and retail (29%) and private copying fees (19%). With its annual bonus payment, the LSG an important contribution to the income of Austrian labels and musicians. Against the background of growing challenges in the global digital market, the LSG in funding activities for the Austrian music industry by supporting local productions, acts and labels with a funding amount of around one million euros per year. With its funding, the LSG aims to stabilize the structures of the domestic music industry in the long term, to intensify production activities and – most recently – to create incentives in the direction of gender and diversity.
“Artificial intelligence” as a new challenge in copyright law
is and will remain the livelihood of all creative industries. The greatest challenge of the future is the copyright classification of all developments summarized under the term “artificial intelligence”. This involves legal questions both about the input of protected content or data into AI systems for the purpose of training the AI software and about answering the question of who owns the output from the AI systems. The major copyright amendment 2021 has already been completed and entered into force EU directive implemented in Austria. The EU passed the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in 2022, thereby creating new rules of the game, especially for the large online platforms. DSA and DMA are considered EU-Regulations in Austria immediately.
Rammstein’s “Zeit” tops the album sales charts
At the top of the 2022 album sales chart is “Zeit”, the eighth album by the German rock legends Rammsteinfollowed by Harry Styles with “Harry’s House” and Taylor Swift with “Midnights”. Raf Camora does it with “Future” and “Plastic Palm Trees 3” (shared with Bonez MC) twice in the top 10. With “unheard of solid” by Pizzera & Jaus and “Glück” by Melissa Naschenweng made it into the top 10 of the annual ranking for a total of four domestic albums.
Glass Animal’s “Heat Waves” most successful song
The British Band Glass Animals delivers the most successful song in Austria in 2022 with “Heat Waves”, followed by the US musician Gayle with their hit “ABCDEFU” and “As It Was” by Harry Styles, which makes it into the top 3 for both albums and singles. The most successful domestic songs in 2022 are “Blaues Licht” by Raf Camora & Bonez MC“Expresso & Tschianti” by Josh., “2CB” from Raf Camora & Luciano and Austria’s Song Contest entry “Halo” by Lum!x feat. Pia Maria.
Graphic Music Market 2022
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Link:
IFPI Austria – Association of the Austrian Music Industry