BuzzAngle unceremoniously released its first-quarter 2017 music industry consumption numbers today — and only the numbers, without comment or executive summary. No problem there, as the numbers tell a clear story.
Compared to Q1 2016, streaming jumped 61% to 84-billion streams. That’s the biggest number in the report … well, except for a 64% leap in cassette sales (yes, swallow your coffee, it’s cassettes). 11,000 music cassettes were sold, perhaps tagging along with the vinyl resurgence, which posted a 23% gain. (The comparison is problematic, as cassette tape doesn’t have any of the purported advantages of vinyl.)
Music consumption as a whole, which BuzzAngle frames with a proprietary metric called “Projects,” encompassing sales and streaming, grew 7%. (It’s worth noting that on the revenue side of the industry, as reported by the RIAA, 2016 earnings jumped 14% in 2016.)
Not unexpectedly, digital and physical sale units dropped according to BuzzAngle: minus 25% for digital and minus 9% for physical. Combined album sales were down 17%.