Former Spotify exec Will Page has put his finger on one of the challenges the US music industry will be facing in 2021, based on data from this year.

The number of subscribers has been growing in the US, but “the number of total streams has remained the same” – around 17.5bn a week. “With some 55,000 new tracks being uploaded onto streaming services every day — up from the 40,000 reported in April 2019 — you have a dilemma: more songs (and more users) competing for a fixed number of streams,” he wrote in a guest article for Billboard.

The full piece is worth a read: it explores some of the causes of this which may be temporary – release schedules and the presidential election for example – but others which may be longer lasting. Competition with gaming and TikTok among younger people, and with podcasts for older listeners for example.

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Stuart Dredge

Music Ally's Head of Insight

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