Italian industry body FIMI has put out its figures for 2016, reporting that recorded-music revenues grew by 0.4% to €149m (around $161m) last year.
That’s a big bump back down to earth after the 25.1% increase in revenues in 2015: a year in which the Italian market saw its physical music sales grow by 16.8%.
That spike is one reason for the slump in growth in 2016, although Italy saw streaming subscriptions increase by 39.4% to €35.2m last year, accounting for 51% of the digital music market there.
Download income fell by 23.9%, reflecting global trends, while ad-supported video streaming revenues grew by 4.3%.
Cue more discussion of the ‘value gap’ from FIMI boss Enzo Mazza, who cited the “big difference between the revenues from streaming audio and video”, calling out YouTube in particular as a platform on which “89% of Italians” are listening to music.
Mazza suggested that revenues from video music streams could double if the upcoming EU copyright reform goes the way labels are hoping on safe harbours for services like YouTube.
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