Latest / The Price of Music / Los Campesinos! share their streaming money data (and it's... sobering); Could a new budget policy be "the death knell for small venues"?; And what are Steve & Stu's Spotify Wrapped 'listening ages'?

Transcript

Los Campesinos! share their streaming money data (and it's... sobering); Could a new budget policy be "the death knell for small venues"?; And what are Steve & Stu's Spotify Wrapped 'listening ages'? · The Price of Music

0:03
Hello and welcome to The Price of Music, brought to you by
0:06
Music Ally, the show that both looks at the finances of the
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music industry while also bringing you stories and
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comments about the past week in the pop business.
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I'm Steve Lamac Heath, Stuart Dredge, If you want an easy
0:17
guide to what's going on in the music biz and how it all works,
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then here we are this week coming up.
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Well, there there are some very important subjects I have to say
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to tackle this week. There's quite a lot about live
0:29
music, including one story about the recent budget outlining how
0:34
the government's business rate policy may prove to have a
0:37
devastating effect on venues. I can't stress that enough.
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Also, the realities of the streaming economy laid bare by
0:46
the band Los Campesinos. And more reasons to fear that
0:49
the music industry is simply not prepared for how to properly
0:53
deal with AI. But first, Stu's big number.
0:57
What's the eye-catching figure that you've come across this
1:00
week, Mr. Dredge? I've gone for a big round Number
1:03
this week, 200 million, and that is to go back to something about
1:09
last week. That is how many people checked
1:11
out their Spotify Wrapped within the first day last week,
1:15
breaking the previous record. Is that that's globally?
1:18
Is it globally? That is which I would look at.
1:20
So Spotify has got 713 million users, so it's only it's less
1:25
than kind of a third of them, so in the first day.
1:27
So a lot of them are still going.
1:28
I wonder who my top artist is this year.
1:29
How can I find out? But she's big and I had more
1:33
than 500 million shares to our discussion about this is going
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to be taking over social media. Yeah, 500 million shares of
1:40
people's stories, which I don't know if you saw this, but one of
1:43
the big features this year was it gave you a listening age.
1:45
Have you seen this floating around?
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Yeah. People going hang on a minute,
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I'm not 85 or you know, it was, it was calculated rate sharing
1:53
of people who said I'm not as old as it thinks I am.
1:56
Yes, we should. We should come back to that in
1:58
the lock in. I think if you want to know
2:00
what's 25 wrapped guests were our respective musical ages,
2:05
that's later. They'll be very happy with this
2:08
though. Although I mean, it is obviously
2:10
it's logical they've broken the record because they have more
2:12
subscribers than they ever had. So it makes sense more people
2:16
will be looking at. It does and they really push
2:18
about this year, like I was saying last week, because they
2:20
wanted to make a big hit. I mean, the other, the other
2:22
point that came out of it was the biggest artist of the year
2:24
on Spotify was Bad Buddy. This could have been the big
2:26
#19.8 billion streams on Spotify this year for Bad Bunny, which
2:32
plays in, I mean, in the US, you know, he's playing the Super
2:34
Bowl halftime show in February. And it's been a few from the
2:38
right wing of, of politics, been a few like who's Bad Bunny?
2:40
Why is he playing the Super Bowl?
2:41
We're not happy about this. Well, my friends, he's the
2:45
biggest artist in the world by streams.
2:46
And that's kind of the that's that's the reason he's playing
2:50
the Super Bowl. This week's three big news
2:53
stories, starting with this one, which again might come as a
2:56
warning to all artists out there, as more musicians have
2:59
been complaining about AI music projects that they think are,
3:03
well, 1-2 inspired by their own work, or even, in worst case
3:08
scenario, even pretending to be them.
3:11
So how, how did this happen? Tell us that there was one
3:15
particular story which we're hanging this around.
3:18
Yeah, so this is about a band called Architects, who are a
3:20
British metal core band who are really, well, I think I've had
3:23
11 albums out, just finished a big arenas tour last time going
3:28
in February, and they're kind of basically taking taking the
3:30
weight off their feet now after doing this big tour.
3:33
And then the new song dropped and fans like, well, hey, a new
3:36
song from Architects, except it wasn't by them.
3:38
It was an AI generated song that somehow came out on their
3:41
profile on Spotify. The good news here being that
3:45
the fanbase mobilized and got it taken down.
3:48
They basically, you know, protests were loud enough saying
3:51
this is not architects, this is a random AI slop and it got
3:55
removed. So I mean, in the story I read
3:57
then it, I mean it implied that, you know, the, the the other
4:00
architects, the imposters were deliberately attempting to
4:05
infiltrate the real architects profile.
4:08
This was, you know, this, it works well.
4:11
If we we put our track up here, it's going to get a, it might
4:14
get a load attraction. But could it, you know, just
4:17
plain devil's advocate? Could it be coincidence?
4:20
Because I may know I often see bands with the same name where
4:22
the tracks have been mixed up. Well, I don't know what your
4:26
take on this is. Yeah, I mean, it has happened by
4:29
accident in the past. So for example, I used to love a
4:31
band called Ira IRAH, who affirm, I think from Norway.
4:36
And they were very sort of, what do you call it, Sonic Cathedral
4:39
of soundy, kind of. And then there was a British
4:42
rapper who turned up with the same name and his music kept
4:44
appearing on their profile, vice versa.
4:47
So this has happened in the past with the same name.
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That's kind of by the way. So it does feel like it's.
4:53
Yeah, it was intentional. Yeah, and the style of it being
4:56
similar to theirs, it felt like intentional.
4:59
And then just today actually, like this morning, I've been
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writing about a very similar story.
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So do you remember? I've got to get it right again.
5:06
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, is it right?
5:10
They they came off Spotify earlier this year in protest
5:13
about the CEO's armed investments.
5:15
But then this week it's emerged there was a band called King
5:18
Lizard Wizard who had the same song titles, the same lyrics,
5:22
but just the music was AI made. So someone had basically put
5:25
their lyrics into an AI music generator and and then if you
5:29
search for King Gizzard on Spotify, because who wants to
5:33
type all that in? Frankly.
5:35
This this artists were coming up and again, it was on there for a
5:38
few weeks. It was a ported and it only had
5:40
a few 10,000 streams which is kind of small but it's now been
5:44
taken down as well. So I mean the thing here is how,
5:48
how easy is it then? I mean, if we, if I don't want
5:52
to suggest that, I don't want to make plain the fact that I think
5:58
the this, the imposter architects say the imposter
6:02
architects set out to get onto the real architects stream.
6:07
The worrying thing surely is the fact that they were able to do
6:10
that. How do you wheedle your way onto
6:12
another artist's stream and what are the measures in place to
6:17
stop this? What can Spotify do?
6:20
Is there a protocol which? Because surely there should be?
6:24
Do you think so? And I think this is one of those
6:26
areas where it's slightly mysterious, but they don't want
6:28
to let people who are trying to do this again know exactly how
6:31
they detect it and spot it. But yeah, I mean, so this is the
6:35
difficulty. So there could be another human
6:37
band called Architects who could upload music.
6:39
And so there should be a system. There is a system there whereby
6:43
you may have the same name, but you're not in each other's
6:46
profiles. And that seems to be something
6:47
they've got sorted out normally. And the other thing I think this
6:52
comes from is people are starting to say, OK, who who is
6:56
responsible for this? Is this how much of this is
6:58
Spotify or streaming service and how much of is it distributor?
7:01
So whoever, whoever put the song on the so whoever uploaded it,
7:05
should they have checks and balances?
7:06
They say, hang on a minute, you're not the band architects.
7:09
We're going to check this. I mean, we've talked about
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numbers before that how much being like, I think it's like
7:14
100 and 1000 and 20,000 tracks every day.
7:17
So it is a mountain of stuff that there's no way a human
7:22
could go through it and say, hang on a minute, I recognize
7:24
that's a metal core pad in the UK.
7:26
Are you really them? So it is going to have to come
7:28
down to some nose ultimatism. So OK, well, who is this?
7:32
How has it got there? So it isn't.
7:34
And I think it's it comes down to something I say every so
7:37
often, which is like, this is not really a eyes fault.
7:42
It's some humans being bad. Like it's some humans are gone.
7:45
I know I'm going to put some fake king King Gizzard luck
7:48
tracks up and try and get some money.
7:50
You know, it's like humans using the technology to do bad things.
7:53
Yeah, but that's why. But, but that's why you have
7:55
some rules. That's why, that's why it's a
7:57
justice system. You have to, you have to try and
8:00
prevent people or the bad guys from from winning.
8:04
So, so it does come back. It does come back to Spotify or
8:08
whoever. Someone's, someone's got to put
8:10
in place a thing that says, right, don't do this.
8:12
We're going to stop you doing this.
8:15
And to some extent I think they do.
8:16
And so part of it is they have to be told if they don't spot it
8:20
themselves. So when, for example, fans raise
8:23
a rat and say this is not architects, the key then is do
8:25
they move quickly to take it down?
8:28
And something Spotify do do is they will take, they will not
8:30
pay the royalties out. If you spot it before they've
8:32
been paid out, they'll say, no, we're not paying that.
8:34
And that's what's happened with several of these booths.
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People said, right, we've taken it down.
8:39
They will not get the royalties. This has not worked.
8:40
So in that sense, maybe the fact that it gets through is not the
8:44
biggest worry. It's whether it gets caught and
8:47
then taken down quickly. And that seems to be happening.
8:49
But then in the US, there was some stuff this week.
8:51
So we talked about this ban, this ban called a virtual AI
8:55
artist ban called Breaking Rust, who are country music and
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they're the ones have been going appearing in the charts and
9:02
there was some quite fun stuff. So an artist called Blanco
9:05
Brown, who's like a popular human country artist.
9:07
And it's kind of this breaking wristband sound a bit like him,
9:11
sounds like his vocals. He's quite a kind of gritty
9:14
Raspberry vocal tone. And he kind of instead of just
9:17
saying, I don't like this, it sounds like me.
9:20
He covered their song as a way of kind of pointing attention to
9:23
the fact that, you know, if they're going to move my son,
9:25
I'm going to cover their song. And that's an example where it's
9:29
not someone spoofing music or putting on his profile.
9:32
But it is another thing we've talked about, which is artists
9:35
going, hang on a minute, this AI artist has got a million
9:37
listeners, sounds a lot like me. It sounds like they've based it
9:40
on me. And that is, I mean, in this
9:43
case, he was kind of quite humorous in his response.
9:46
But that's causing artists equal, I think amount of well,
9:48
not worried. But like, what is it?
9:50
I suppose you call it creeping anxiety, isn't it?
9:52
Where does all this lead? And what's going to happen to us
9:54
if it's not stopped? It feels like that's rising
9:57
towards the end of the year. And these are just examples of
9:59
stories. Yeah, we were, we were talking
10:01
off air last week. We must do something more in
10:05
depth about AII know we come back to AIA lot on this program,
10:09
but the the possibilities and the implications of some of the
10:12
things which may happen next year are really quite huge.
10:16
And our fear, I think is that the music industry is still
10:20
coming to terms with AI and times is still playing catch up.
10:25
Anyway, Story 2 this week. And this went a little under the
10:27
radar of this story. Unless you were directly a part
10:30
of it, you may not have heard about this, but the Department
10:33
of Business and Trade last week announced a major inquiry into,
10:39
well, what amounts to the whole way the live music industry
10:42
operates in the UK. It's a huge brief.
10:46
They're asking for written submissions now.
10:48
But this, I mean, I mean came, I mean, from my perspective, and
10:52
I'm someone who's involved in live music, this came this
10:55
really came out of the blue. This do you want to explain
10:58
more? It's it's ACMA thing, isn't it's
11:00
competition market. So authority I think.
11:03
Well, it's, it's, it's a business and trade committee of
11:05
Parliament. So one of these punching
11:07
committees and, and yeah, it's, they announced it on the 4th of
11:09
December and they want written evidence by the 18th of
11:12
December. So anyone in the live music
11:14
industry who's like, right, December's time for lunches and
11:16
Bailey's? Christmas shopping, you'll be
11:19
glad, you'll be glad, you'll be glad to know that live the the
11:22
live music trade body pushed back on this.
11:25
I think the deadline, fingers crossed, is being extended to
11:29
January the 9th or something. So you may be able to kick this
11:33
one past Christmas live industry and then send in your answers
11:37
after you're back from the festive period.
11:39
But yes, it was it was a ridiculously short deadline.
11:44
But anyway, sorry I interrupted. Yes, it's a business and trade
11:47
committee. So they are, this is the
11:48
committee of parliamentarians who look at all kinds of aspects
11:51
of business and competition and consumer rights and all that
11:55
stuff. And they did have a couple of
11:56
hearings earlier this year that I sort of remember that they
11:59
touched on ticketing as part of them.
12:00
They had Ticketmaster speak at a couple of their kind of evidence
12:03
sessions. But yeah, so this inquiry, it's
12:05
basically asking about trends in the UK live music industry that
12:09
may, and the quote is adversely impact market competition or
12:13
market functioning. So like the competition,
12:17
obviously, is it a fair market if you want to compete in it.
12:20
And I guess market functioning is how well it works not just
12:22
for the companies in it, but also for ticket buyers,
12:25
concertgoers. And yeah, I mean, it was, it was
12:28
interesting one of those ones where they sort of say, OK, call
12:30
for evidence. And here is a bunch of questions
12:32
we'd like to answer. And I think, as is often the
12:34
case, that the questions they're asking kind of give you a good
12:37
hint about what they're investigating and who's in the
12:40
crosshairs, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely.
12:42
That was what I was going to ask.
12:43
Who do you what? But what do you think their
12:46
objective is, and can you tell from the way they've worded the
12:50
questions? Yeah.
12:52
So some of the questions were things like, OK, what barriers
12:54
affect new or smaller promoters, venues or ticketing firms from
12:57
competing on equal terms? That's the first question.
13:00
And obviously on equal terms with who is your immediate
13:03
question with that? Are there exclusive deals or
13:05
other similar practices that limit fair access to artisan
13:08
venues? And are any major firms or
13:11
vertically integrated groups using their market power to
13:14
limit competition? Which and I'm bet hazing, but
13:17
vertically integrated means you are you're in several areas from
13:20
ticketing to promotion, for example, to venues.
13:23
So it all to my mind seemed to be pointing at Live Nation and
13:28
Ticketmaster because we've been having this whole year in the
13:31
US, especially of people looking at them and saying are they too
13:33
big? Is them being together causing
13:36
issues as is how they do business problem?
13:39
And this feels like the UK politicians getting on and say,
13:42
well, if they can do that in the States, we're going to do it
13:43
here. And it does feel a bit like, I
13:46
mean, I maybe I'm being oversimplifying it.
13:48
You can tell me if I'm wrong. It does feel like all the
13:50
questions are saying a Live Nation Ticketmaster Rutters,
13:53
tell us how they're rutters, and then we'll do something about
13:55
it, maybe. Yeah, I mean, you could, I mean,
13:57
I don't know. I mean, yes, we could be
13:59
breathing too much into this. I mean, they could just
14:02
genuinely want to know more about how they, how the industry
14:05
works. I mean, we know government has
14:07
shown loads more interest in the live music scene over the past
14:12
year, partly because they've identified live music as one of
14:15
the areas that could provide growth.
14:18
But also I think because a bunch of MPs didn't get Oasis tickets
14:21
now and they wanted to find out why they didn't get Oasis
14:24
tickets and why. And obviously there was
14:25
everything that was all stuff about dynamic pricing and
14:28
everything. So I think there are questions
14:30
to be asked and maybe they, you know, they want to know more to
14:33
help inform future decisions when it comes to live music
14:36
policy. But at the same time, and
14:38
obviously have to be quite careful here with my position as
14:41
chair of live. But it does feel like that they,
14:44
they, they are here possibly reacting to criticisms that
14:47
they've heard of Live Nation and now they want to know more about
14:52
that. I, I mean, I don't know, it may
14:56
even be, it may even be something partly to do with the
14:59
fallout from the budget, which is something another story,
15:02
which we'll get to in a second, but we shall see.
15:05
But it's very comprehensive. You can find it on the, on the
15:10
government websites. And if I if you want to fill in,
15:13
if you want to send them your own written submissions about
15:16
what's you believe is right and wrong about live music, answer
15:20
their questions. Let them know, get your answers
15:23
in as soon as possible. After your Christmas party.
15:26
After your Christmas. Go home, get on the computer.
15:28
That's that's never ends badly, does it?
15:30
Story 3 There's a new report from the charity Youth Music
15:33
which has exposed some of the dangers that young people face
15:37
in the music industry, but it does also have a positive trend
15:41
involving Ray. Yeah, it does.
15:44
So youth music is a really interesting, we've talked about
15:46
before, they do a lot of really good work around the country
15:48
with youth groups, music education, just getting young
15:52
people into music and also into the industry.
15:55
And yeah, this poll is kind of, it's a lot of sort of sad,
15:58
worrying things. So I think 72% of people they
16:00
interviewed, so they have felt unsafe in a music industry work
16:03
environment, 90% they were being paid unfairly for their work and
16:09
75% have considered giving up their kind of their aspirations
16:12
in the industry or music because of these unsafe or unfair
16:15
conditions. And it's all these quotes.
16:19
One person who says I was basically doing full time hours
16:22
and being paid for seven hours a week.
16:23
There was someone else who said it's quite normal to be gripped
16:26
by men in the workplace. So it's kind of setting out just
16:30
stuff that young people in music have to deal with, which would
16:34
be a really bleak report. But yeah, they mentioned Ray
16:37
said, you know how Ray has talked out what about all kinds
16:40
of things, hasn't she? Like, she's talked out about
16:41
songwriters royalties. She wrote a really powerful song
16:45
about her experience of abuse within the industry hands of
16:48
producer. And it turns out that people
16:51
feel inspired by that, and they feel encouraged to speak out.
16:56
And they feel like, OK, if Ray can speak out about this stuff,
16:59
I can push back if I encounter unsafe things or unfair.
17:03
So it's kind of, you know, the, the this is the problem, but
17:07
this is kind of the pathway out of this is the these inspiring
17:10
artists who talk about it will it with encouraging people to
17:12
not part up with this rubbish. That's what we're looking for
17:15
though, isn't it? It's a new set of role models.
17:19
I think that's what we, you know, if you look back to when,
17:22
when I was a lad, you know, you were always looking for a, for a
17:25
role model who somehow spoke up for what you believed in.
17:30
And that's what Ray is doing for obviously a lot of these people.
17:34
And it talks about some of the changes in law, that there's
17:36
some new workplace rights coming in law coming in the UK.
17:39
And it says that will be a good thing, that will help some
17:41
people, but that's not enough. And I think that was a messages
17:44
report saying by setting out the problems, we need to kind of as
17:48
an industry, also change the culture.
17:50
I guess that's one of the quotes from youth music.
17:52
It was like laws alone cannot reshape culture.
17:55
The music industry has to read this and then act on it.
17:59
Any other business. So we start with the streaming
18:03
economics because last week, I mean, some of you might have
18:06
seen this already, but the band Los Camposinos revealed just how
18:11
much they made from streaming income.
18:14
And I mean, it made for a really interesting insight, I think as
18:17
to what artists make from streaming, but also the the
18:19
within that the differences in payment that they get from
18:22
different streaming services. You've been through all the the
18:26
stats, which one what's because it basically shows you a whole
18:30
year's worth of income and how you know it drops off when the
18:36
new album comes out and it lands well, but then of course it
18:40
drops off. But it gives you gives you
18:42
everything they made from Spotify.
18:44
Yeah, well, everything, every streaming service.
18:46
So yeah, this is for one album, All Hell, which came out in
18:49
2024. And the key part of that is it's
18:52
their first album. I think they released it through
18:54
their own label, so they have all the rights, they get all the
18:58
royalties in the distributor, so they pay a subscription every
19:00
year for music Up and so they get 100% of their revenue.
19:02
So it's a really good, like best case scenario for an artist.
19:06
And so this album came out in 2024.
19:08
It was streamed 9.3 million times in its first year and that
19:12
made the band nearly £32,000 in royalties from streaming.
19:17
Bear in mind they're a seven piece band, which is where you
19:21
start to go hang on a minute 32,000 and go far when you're
19:24
splitting it between 7 people. But yeah, so it's an average of
19:27
like naughty point about 1/3 of a penny per stream, or as they
19:31
put it, it's a quid for every 24 lessons to the album.
19:35
That's across everything. But like you say, the
19:37
interesting part is when they break down each streaming
19:40
service, how many streams they had and what payment they got
19:42
and what the effective per stream payment is.
19:45
Which suppose it's good to say again, that's not how streaming
19:48
services payout. They didn't pay you this much
19:50
per stream. They pay you your share of all
19:53
their royalties and then you can calculate with those per stream.
19:55
But anyway. So I think Spotify was nearly
19:58
3/4 of the streams and just sounded like 2/3 of their
20:01
royalties. So about 20,000 lbs.
20:04
But that meant it had the lowest post stream figure.
20:06
So they got around 0.29 pence for every Spotify stream,
20:11
whereas in Tidal they got 0.75 pence.
20:15
It's a. Big difference, yeah.
20:17
Well, yeah, and the point was if everyone had used Tidal, we
20:19
would have received an extra 31 new 32,000 lbs, so doubling
20:24
their royalties. But this is the weird thing.
20:27
And this is actually, I think it's a really good moment.
20:28
And here's why. I'm really, it's a really good
20:29
blog post to put this out there and really, you know, really
20:32
appreciate them doing it because you think, OK, if you're a fan
20:35
going well, why don't you just take the music off Spotify, You
20:37
know, tell everyone to go to Tidal, You'll make loads more
20:39
money. But actually, if you if you take
20:42
the music off Spotify, you're instantly saying goodbye to 2/3
20:45
of your streaming royalties because while it's per stream
20:48
rate is much lower, it's got so many more people that I mean,
20:52
for example, for Los Campesinos, it was, what was it 2/3 of their
20:57
revenue from streaming was from Spotify.
20:59
So that's what you're saying goodbye to.
21:00
If you say, well, I'll go over here where the per stream rate
21:02
is higher. Follow me fans.
21:04
And what you'll find is a lot of, you know, not many fans do
21:06
that. Changing streaming services is
21:08
quite hard unless you're really cross about something.
21:11
Yeah. So, yeah.
21:13
So it's it's that thing. I think per stream rates do tell
21:16
a certain story of, of what you get per stream, but they, they,
21:20
the important thing is, well, how much money you're getting,
21:23
what's your biggest source of thing?
21:25
And the other thing, I think Spotify's argument always been
21:27
that it's per stream rate is lower because its users listen
21:30
to lots of music, they're more engaged.
21:33
So the royalties there are split between many more streams.
21:37
So you get more money but you get less per stream.
21:39
One of the other things which is really good about this place
21:42
was, as you say, this is best case scenario where they own all
21:47
the rights. So all monies come to them.
21:50
And it felt like they were they're self managed as well.
21:53
So they weren't giving up X amount of money to a manager.
21:56
And this is something which I know you're always very quick to
21:59
point this out when we mentioned top line streaming income.
22:02
You know, most artists however assigned to a label and do have
22:06
a manager and of course they will all take a cut.
22:09
And I mean, I think it might surprise some people just how
22:12
much the label takes and what's left for the artist.
22:16
So they went through that as well, didn't they saying well we
22:19
get £32,000 obviously, as you say, split between seven of us,
22:25
but we get £32,000. Had they been signed to a label,
22:29
they would have got, I think, what do they say, 20% of that?
22:34
I think it is, yeah, so high and a high end royalty rate would be
22:36
20%, so they would have got £6400 just under of the 32,000.
22:42
And then and then if you have a manager, then from that money,
22:48
from the money you've received, then you then you give 20% of
22:51
that to a manager which must bring you down to about £5000.
22:56
That's it. So, and this is bear in mind,
22:58
one album. So, you know, they have they
23:00
have more albums. But yeah, it makes you realize
23:04
how for a lot of bands, especially at this level, I
23:07
think the kind of established acts, but not the biggest
23:11
streaming players, that their money really does come from
23:15
everything, not just streaming, touring, merchandise, every way
23:19
they can make money. This kind of band, you have to,
23:22
you have to basically, I'm trying to think of the right
23:24
word for it. You have to hustle, which when
23:27
you're also trying to be creative, is, is is, you know, a
23:30
challenge. But yeah, so it's a really, it's
23:32
a really good post for anyone who wants to know about what
23:35
what these numbers actually mean for a working band.
23:39
And also just how much and we, but we're quite often reporting
23:42
on record labels and their record profits.
23:46
But it just that that wedge of money, the proportion of money
23:50
that goes to the label from this is incredible, isn't it?
23:54
And that's something else which we've mentioned how this may
23:57
change in the future with artists going, no, no, I want
24:00
to, I'm going to keep more of my own rights.
24:04
You can absolutely see why when if you're assigned to a label,
24:08
you've made 32 grand and you end up with five grand, people are
24:10
thinking, hang on a second, should we, should we try and do
24:13
some more of this ourselves? Because, you know, we're walking
24:16
away with a small proportion of what our money's actually
24:19
earned. Well, so yeah, and it makes you,
24:22
I think artists are getting more chooses the wrong word.
24:27
They're getting more aware of like, OK, for example, a
24:29
manager, so a manager takes 20% of your income typically.
24:31
So that's in the post. So a good manager should be
24:35
making you more money, should be helping you make more money to
24:38
cover that cut and more. And if your manager isn't
24:41
helping you make more money, then it's a drain, isn't it?
24:43
And so I think that's, that's one of the things people are
24:45
just looking at saying, OK, well, who am I giving money to?
24:48
Are they doing a job that's helping us sustain ourselves?
24:52
And if not, we're happy, Whether it's a label, whether it's a
24:53
manager, I think it does. It focuses the mind, doesn't it
24:56
on, hang on a minute, I'm giving this cut to them.
24:59
What are they doing for us? And I think the other thing
25:01
we've covered, I mean, there are loads of great people at labels.
25:03
We covered last week dealing with that report about indie
25:05
labels and how much they give to artists, how they make their
25:08
money. Yeah.
25:10
A growing number of labels. When you talk to people who work
25:12
there, they're like, yeah, we're we're we're completely.
25:15
We're feeling stressed. We're so busy.
25:16
We've got so many marketing campaigns to work on, so much
25:19
going on. Some people within the labour
25:21
world talk about how they feel like they can't give the artists
25:24
enough attention as they'd like to.
25:27
And that comes into this too. If you're on a, on a bigger
25:29
label and you feel like they're not really marketing you that
25:31
much because they've got other priorities, again, your decision
25:35
over who to sign with next time and when your Contra ends will
25:38
maybe be covered. So I think these, This is why
25:40
this is where like, I don't know, a lot of musicians maybe
25:42
don't like to think about money if they can avoid it or don't
25:46
don't want to think of themselves as business people.
25:49
But I think in the modern world, you kind of have to be a right,
25:52
this is the money coming in, this is who it's going out to.
25:56
Are they are they giving me the return on investment I want?
25:58
And that's a very financial phrase in it, return on
26:00
investment. But I think this post made me
26:02
think this is the sort of thing that artists should be talking
26:04
to each other about. It's a really, it's a really
26:06
good piece, very measured, very pragmatic, but at the same time,
26:09
obviously clearly makes the point that it's, it's not a
26:11
lucrative business at their level.
26:13
If there is a Los Camposinos Christmas party, it is not going
26:17
to be at the Ritz this year. But hats off to them for for
26:21
just being so transparent. That's the thing.
26:23
And that's what we'd like more of in the music industry, isn't
26:25
it? So thank you very much for
26:28
sharing, sharing the stats. You know, talking of
26:30
transparency or lack of it, here's here's a story which I
26:34
mean has had very little uptake, I think at the point of
26:37
recording this. We're recording Tuesday
26:39
lunchtime. And it's something, well, it's
26:42
something I did briefly allude to in passing last week when we
26:45
were answering the question about matinee gigs.
26:49
But I didn't go into it any further then because it would
26:51
have complicated matters. But I think it is worth stopping
26:54
for a second to take in the implications of the recent
26:59
budget when it comes to music and especially live music.
27:02
But there was nothing really for the music industry in the budget
27:07
the other week. First, nothing but.
27:09
But worse than that, there were some changes announced which but
27:14
haven't, this hasn't blown up as a story yet, but there were
27:18
changes in within the budget concerning business rates, which
27:23
and I don't want, I don't want to sound like I'm a scaremonger,
27:27
but it could be the final death knell for for loads of venues.
27:32
And this is the one. Let me give you the background
27:34
for starters, because you might remember there was some talk,
27:36
wasn't there ages ago about the government bringing in a digital
27:40
tax as one of the ways that they could make people like, I don't
27:44
know, your major retailers, certainly one of them beginning
27:49
with a, who'd sell just about everything, getting them to pay
27:54
more tax in this country. And then I don't know why, but
27:57
that seemed to go away. And instead there was a lot of
27:59
talk about this idea of what was essentially a warehouse tax.
28:03
The thinking being, well, if we can't get taxed out of them any
28:06
other way, we'll take it through taxing their warehouses and
28:10
we'll do that through a adjusting the levels of business
28:13
rates that they play. So, so, so somebody goes off and
28:18
works out a new formula for business rates with which has,
28:22
and it's quite complicated, but there's there'll be OK,
28:25
different tiers of business rates and various multipliers.
28:29
And all this will mean we can take some money from the top and
28:33
help the people at the bottom. So we can take the money from
28:36
the big where online retail warehouses and give some of it
28:40
back to the High Street. Unfortunately, and I mean, I
28:44
think this is partly down to the way government is laid out with
28:47
various different departments and random independent agencies
28:51
all doing their own thing. And I don't think they they
28:53
properly communicate along the way.
28:56
So what this budget actually managed to do though was firstly
29:00
not pull off the warehouse tax on major online retailers
29:03
properly, but it's also now dragged in all our larger music
29:09
venues to this new top 10 year of business rates.
29:13
To the point where one of our best known arena venues, which I
29:17
shan't known for now, but you can probably guess it's in
29:20
London, their business rates under the new rates under the
29:24
new regs, their business rate could go up by around 80%.
29:29
That's 80% and 80% increase in business rate for a, for a major
29:35
live arena venue, which I mean, in turn could and quite possibly
29:41
very well might lead to your ticket prices having to go up by
29:46
two or three pounds a ticket. That's what people are saying, 2
29:50
or 3 lbs per ticket to help cover the increase in the
29:55
business rate. And I mean, I know everyone
29:57
thinks, you know, big arenas are raking it in and the promoters
29:59
are having a field day with all these big top end gigs.
30:02
But there, there are still shows at that level which are kind of
30:05
on a financial knife edge. And I, I don't think, you know,
30:09
there's already talk that some, some of these gigs, they just
30:12
won't happen now because the costs are too high.
30:14
Because if you think the business rate has gone up, if
30:17
you're an outside promoter coming in, then the arena is
30:20
going to have to charge you more to cover their costs.
30:23
So the promoter will take on more, you know, it's more debt
30:27
if you like, they will have to how how they're going to get it,
30:31
how they're going to get this money back because the higher of
30:34
the venue is much more expensive.
30:35
But it's going to be passed on, isn't it?
30:37
It's going to be passed on to, to the audience.
30:40
And I mean, I sympathize obviously with these, with the
30:46
big venues, but it's just it's inside, right?
30:49
We're going to tax or should we just say we're going to tax
30:51
Amazon? We've accidentally taxed the big
30:55
venues, the big arena venues. But The thing is, so I mean, at
30:59
this, I will say, you know, venue, venues like this at the
31:03
top end, you know, they're flexible enough to be able to,
31:07
you know, probably swallow the increase.
31:09
I mean, they won't want to who wants an increase of 80% in your
31:12
tax bill? But they will probably survive,
31:16
even if it's us who helps, you know, that helps pay to keep
31:19
them afloat. But the the other end of the
31:23
scale, and this is where it becomes an absolute disaster
31:27
because I mean, we can't entirely put all the blame at
31:31
government door for this. Because alongside the new tiers
31:35
of business rates, there was a restructuring of business rates,
31:39
which was done by the Valuation Office agency, who I'd never
31:44
come across till last week, the VOA, they're independent of
31:48
government, but they have come up with a complete re evaluation
31:53
of business rates for properties across the country.
31:57
And this has thrown everything up in the air because rather
32:00
rather than doing what, you know, we hoped government would
32:04
do or this policy would do, which would be to reduce
32:08
business rates for small businesses, you know, including
32:11
grassroots venues. The re evaluations have
32:14
effectively, according to figures from the Music Venue
32:17
Trust, have it effectively means that business rate relief for
32:21
small venues we after you, you take into account all the
32:25
multipliers and everything, the rate relief is going to be
32:29
around 12% and that's down from 40%.
32:33
And it was hard enough struggling along when you got
32:37
business rate relief of 40%. Now it's down to 12.
32:41
But, and this is what really fried my mind when it was
32:44
explained to me, the VOA work out a business rate value for a
32:49
building from the Max amount, the maximum amount of money that
32:53
they think that building could make.
32:56
So for, for example, you own #4 the High Street, you run a venue
33:01
there, you put on local bands, you know, and support the
33:03
community. You make a minimal amount of
33:06
profit, but you are enriching your town's cultural experience.
33:09
I mean you're doubtless on the breadline because let's you
33:12
know, not forget from a report earlier this year, a huge
33:16
percentage of grassroots venues are operating on a point nought
33:20
5% profit margin. It's act so precarious and the
33:25
average annual profit for a grass roots venue last year was
33:29
just over 3000 lbs but just over £3000 a year that is.
33:36
But of course, but instead of this, I mean this isn't
33:39
obviously a factor for the VOA. Instead, as I say, the VOA look
33:43
at the building and the potential value of it, and then
33:47
they rate it according to what they think the maximum amount of
33:51
money could be made out using those premises out of those
33:55
premises just to remain. So what they're saying is
33:59
they're not setting the business right for a creative hub.
34:04
They stand outside #4 they look at the building and think, well,
34:08
if this was a Poundland, this would make X amount of money.
34:12
Or imagine this was a successful pizza take away business.
34:16
OK, they'd be. But be, you know, they'd be,
34:19
they'd be delivering money to the bank in truckloads.
34:23
And that's the amount of money. It's the profit that they think
34:27
the building can make, not necessarily what you're actually
34:30
doing or the profit that you are making.
34:32
And that's how they calculate how much a building's business
34:37
rate is. Which I mean, it sounds like
34:41
madness to me, but that's the way 2 industry experts explained
34:45
it to me. Two very frustrated industry
34:48
experts explained it to me earlier in the week.
34:50
And if anyone has more knowledge and wants to chip in, we are all
34:54
ears. But as it stands, because of the
34:56
new rates, that's how they've the racing valuations.
35:02
Because of this and because these places aren't pizza
35:05
restaurants, they're grassroots, more than 100 grassroots music
35:11
venues are now looking at increases in April when the
35:16
rates change of more than 50%. That's a 50% increase in your
35:21
business rates, a reduction in rate relief.
35:24
There's, there are a few venues which apparently their rates
35:28
will go up by over 100% and it's just, it's the straw that breaks
35:32
the camels back. This.
35:33
And I know some people will say, Oh God, you're always saying
35:37
this, Lemay, you're always banging on about how how many
35:41
venues are going to close and not make not that many venues
35:44
closed last year, you know, particularly compared to
35:47
previous years and, and to them. And also you're right, But, but
35:53
can I also point out that more than 200 venues needed emergency
35:57
support just to stay afloat this year.
36:01
And others are scraping by simply because the people who
36:04
run them aren't paying themselves anymore.
36:07
Look, they got, they made it through COVID.
36:09
They've soldiered on through rent rises and sky high energy
36:12
prices. And now I'm very sad to say
36:15
unless someone has a rethink then honestly, scores of venues
36:20
could be closed by this cock up starting in when the when the
36:24
changes come around in April. Unless something, something is
36:29
done about this because you know, the government who cares,
36:32
claims to care about the arts have just got themselves into
36:35
this almighty mess with this. I don't even think they
36:39
understood what they were doing or what the outcome was going to
36:43
be. But I can tell you what the live
36:44
music industry is saying. 1 executive said to me this week,
36:48
and I quote, this policy is a quote, total disaster.
36:53
And it is just a mess, as I say, caused partly by the split
36:57
between different agencies. Because on the one hand you have
37:00
DCMS, the culture department who've been really supportive of
37:03
music and venues and are doing things to make the fans
37:06
experience better. But then on the other hand, of
37:09
course, you have the Treasury, which always seems to have, you
37:13
know, a lot of power and the treasury obviously is more than
37:18
is interested in money and balancing the books more than
37:21
anything else. And then you add into this the
37:25
loose cannon of the VOA, which is working to its own brief and
37:28
hypersto something with good intentions ends up being an
37:32
absolute fiasco really, because the out, I mean, the outcome of
37:36
all this is a complete contradiction of everything that
37:38
the government's been saying about nurturing growth and
37:41
identifying music and live music, particularly as an area
37:44
of growth supporting creative industry.
37:47
All it's it's the opposite of that.
37:49
And one of the reasons this is most annoying, although
37:53
obviously this is now very timely, we have a board meeting
37:56
of Live, the live music industry trade body tomorrow.
37:59
So when when you're listening to this episode, I'll be in a
38:03
meeting with some of the key players in the live music
38:05
industry. And it was at last, but only
38:07
about 10 days ago. I was thinking it should be, it
38:10
should be quite a nice meeting, I think if things seem to be
38:12
going in the right direction. We've made some real progress
38:15
this year on green issues and diversity.
38:19
We've launched the Live Trust providing funding for
38:22
grassroots, you know, hard year. Yeah, but it's been it's been a
38:25
really good year. You know, past the mince pies.
38:28
Let's have a glass of alcohol free mulled wine, please.
38:32
Now it's going to be a room full of very respected people from
38:35
the live industry all calling out a government policy that
38:39
puts, you know, the precarious lives of venues and musicians
38:43
even more risk of hardship. And it's right from top to
38:47
bottom. So that and the Department of
38:50
Business and Trades new inquiry into live music.
38:53
I imagine it's going to to make for quite a tense meeting as
38:58
regards to the business rates. That will be, I imagine, one of
39:02
the big discussions. So that will inform the response
39:07
of the live industry. I think we'll know more after
39:11
the meeting and then we'll see what happens in the coming weeks
39:14
and days. But I don't know if you've got
39:17
anything to add, Stuart, but thank you for letting me get
39:19
that off my chest. You can, you can probably hear
39:22
how exasperated I am because it's just, it's, it's just makes
39:29
me want to weep. It really does.
39:30
Well, I was going to say I might orders you some strong alcoholic
39:33
while buying for your meeting because you might need it.
39:35
Do you know this like this whole story was in my mind this
39:39
morning. I was writing about a different
39:41
thing. So I was writing about, you
39:42
know, Polestar, the big live industry publication.
39:46
They that that their table of like the top touring artists of
39:49
the Millennium and top of it is Coldplay who sold 24.8 million
39:53
tickets and made nearly 2.5 billion of gross sales.
39:58
And 3rd is Ed Sheeran who's done 19.6 million tickets and like
40:02
1.7 billion of gross sales. Like both of those acts who
40:06
themselves have said it would be not here if it wasn't for the
40:10
grassroots venues who are being hit by these rates like 2 of the
40:14
three biggest grossing live artists of the last 25 years.
40:18
Cut their teeth in those venues that are going to be there in
40:20
April going we don't know what to do.
40:22
And it just kind of hits home the craziness of this, even if
40:26
you're the, the economic, even if you're the, the, the Treasury
40:30
whose job is money, like you say, and growth, that's growth.
40:34
The. Platform and that's the that's
40:37
the insane unjoined upness of this that that you just need to
40:40
look ahead. Who are the artists of the next
40:42
25 years who are going to make a load of money for Britain's
40:45
economy? Yeah, invest, invest in, invest
40:49
in the grassroots. It's your, it's your future.
40:51
But there's a short termism at play here, isn't there?
40:54
There's a panic around balancing the books and stuff, which has
40:57
meant we're not doing that. But I mean, and I think I think
41:03
music deserves some kind of tax relief in exactly the same way
41:08
that the film industry does and sport, sporting stadiums I don't
41:11
think are are affected and the film industry gets a 40% rate
41:16
relief. So you know what's what are what
41:19
are you going to do for for music while I calm down?
41:23
Do you want to do the and finally for this week and and
41:26
finally, late, late Christmas presents for heritage rock music
41:31
fans. What's What have you got?
41:35
Well, I've got this press release might cheer you up.
41:37
I've got some press release from a company called Why Now Music
41:39
could do music match and make really nice music match, really
41:41
good high quality stuff. And I say that so I can now
41:43
likely take the piss out of some of the latest stuff.
41:46
But it was Mick Jagger and The Kinks, the latest clients.
41:50
So Mick Jagger you can buy knitted Mick Jagger socks, a
41:54
cotton cap, some fine art prints, hand poured metal dice
41:58
and best of all, a lucky in love deck of playing cards.
42:02
Lucky in Love being the 1985 solo Mick Jagger single that I'm
42:05
sure everyone has fond memory. So yeah.
42:09
That Belsa, Remember that. Yeah, so the second one I like
42:12
the second one. You might the Kinks tea.
42:14
So which is actually, it's not a ridiculous tie in because they
42:18
had this song in 1971 called have a cup of tea.
42:22
They've been a song literally all about having tea and it's
42:25
got all day and all of the night tea, which is decaf.
42:29
See what they did there with the title Waterloo Sunset loose leaf
42:34
tea. And it looks like it looks
42:35
really nice, like, you know, nice done, nice packaging.
42:38
And the best thing, the Kinks tea is like 7 to £10 each.
42:41
So perfect timing for the Secret Santa.
42:44
If you've got someone who's over the age Mick Jagger socks,
42:47
£11.00, you know, that's a good, good price.
42:50
So if you've got a rock fan of a certain age in your household or
42:52
in Secret Santa, but this is do you know what makes it is I've
42:58
been we should do something maybe next week on Christmas
43:00
merch. I've seen a few artists come out
43:02
with Christmas merch like limited time jumpers hats, like
43:07
it's clearly, it's clearly a time of year when artists have
43:10
to think like retailers. Yeah, well, it comes back to
43:14
your point of making the most of every revenue stream available,
43:17
doesn't it? Socks is the answer.
43:21
Thank you very much for listening.
43:22
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43:25
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43:50
It'll be about 15 this week I think.
43:53
Chatting about music and money this week.
43:58
We'll do as mentioned. What age does Spotify think we
44:01
are, our smartphones ruining the dance floor and what can be done
44:06
about it? And possibly a couple of other
44:08
matters? Whatever springs to minds, join
44:11
us by becoming a super fan of the show at patreon.com/the
44:15
Price of Music. Welcome, Stacy, who's our newest
44:19
super fan, a very timely Christmas present.
44:22
Thank you, Stacey for supporting us.
44:25
Alternatively, if you'd just like to get in touch with us,
44:27
you can drop us an e-mail. Anything you don't understand
44:31
about how the how the industry works.
44:34
I mean, there are weeks as, as you can tell, where we don't
44:37
understand how the industry or politics works either.
44:39
But anything you think we might be able to make sense of, Drop
44:43
usalinethepriceofmusicpodcast@gmail.com for your questions or comments
44:49
or reactions to anything in today's program.
44:53
Join us next week. I think it's the pop quiz.
44:55
Is it the pop quiz next week? It might be, yeah.
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We'll be facing questions set by by super fans and producer Joe.
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I'm not sure which. I'm more scared of super fan
45:10
questions, possibly. Anyway, have a listen.
45:12
It could be very embarrassing. We'll be back next Wednesday.
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For now, Tara. None.