The US recorded music industry grew by $500m on a wholesale basis in 2022. The US music publishing industry grew by nearly double that amount.

MBW’s Stat Of The Week is a series in which we highlight a data point that deserves the attention of the global music industry. Stats for the week powered by Music group Cinqa technology-based record label, distribution and rights management company.

2022 is an important year for music publishing companies (plus musicians… and their investors) in the United States.

Pubcos not only benefited from an increase in streaming activity in the US (the world’s largest music market), many of them also welcomed a significant increase in performance royalty income, thanks to enter reopening of public spaces in many international territories after the Covid lockdown.

In addition, of course, there were other pivotal moment: last summer, the US Copyright Commission (CRB) appeal denied from platforms like Spotify against a planned rate increase for publishers from streaming services in the United States.

The decision of CRB (end of proceedings ‘CRB III’) means that the percentage of mechanical royalties in title USD is paid to publishers by music streaming services in the years 2018- 2022 has been increased backwards up to one 15.1% share (see below) the annual revenue of those streaming services.

To put it much simpler: Digital services have been asked to transfer a lot of cash to music publishers to reuse their music over the five years from 2018-2022.

Then, in August of last year, there was more important news: National Music Publishers Association (NMPA)fighting on behalf of publishers and musicians in the CRB proceedings, announced that they have agree a deal with DSP for Next five years (2023-2027), during which a new royalty rate of 15.35% gradually developed during this period.

Speaking about the NMPA… last Wednesday (June 14), the US trade body, led by its President and CEO, David the Israelitehosted its 2023 Annual Meeting in New York, where it presented loads of interesting information (such as the slides below) to its music publisher members.

The said information includes a huge statistic for the music business: Total commercial revenue of US-based music publishers in 2022 stands at $5.605 billionupward 19.25% annually.

To put the recent growth of the music publishing industry in the United States into better context: That $5.605 billion the number is over double annual revenue size of the US publishing industry as of 2016 ($2.65 billion).

As David Israelite pointed out at last week’s NMPA meeting, the official U.S. dollar $5.605 billion the revenue figure for 2022 could actually be even bigger, as it doesn’t collect the remaining ‘CRB III’ unpaid that music publishers owe prosecution (for 2018-2022 ) by digital services.

Israelite confirmed that NMPA’s revenue numbers for 2022 are based on submissions from the NMPA’s membership itself, which he says are fabricated. 95.7% of all music publishing rights holders operating in the United States, “The highest representative of any industry for any trade association [operating] in Washington DC”

Where is that USD? $5.605 billion the sales figure becomes more interesting is when you compare it to what the US take note industry transfer in 2022, through data from the NMPA equivalent in terms of recorded music, RIAA.

Important: Revenue data reported by NMPA is wholesale data (i.e. trade turnover reported by its members).

So to compare like-for-like we have to compare it with wholesale numbers provided by the RIAA every year (i.e. the amount that goes to distributors, record labels and artists – as opposed to RIAA’s ‘retail’ figures, which reflect what consumers pay for streaming services, tape stores discs, etc.).

Here goes:

As you can see above, the $5.6 billion created by US music publishers in 2022 is significantly smaller than 10.3 billion USD created by the copyright holders of recorded music, as reported by the RIAA (to one decimal place).

A particularly interesting aspect here: how NMPA (i.e. publisher’s) numbers work ratio of the recording industry (ie of the RIAA).

In 2022, NMPA’s $5.6 billion number equivalent to 54.4% of the RIAA equivalent.

It was the first time that NMPA’s sales figures were higher 50% in RIAA wholesale figures as of 2020 ($4.1 billion vs.

But let’s see what happens when we compare actual currencies every year evolution in the annual wholesale sales of both the US record industry and the US publishing industry in 2022:

Here’s the shocker: when you factor in year-over-year wholesale sales growth, the US music publishing industry grew by a significantly larger amount last year than the US record industry. USA.

In fact, the growth rate of the publishing industry is almost double Size of the recording industry: +0.9 billion dollars ($900 million) to publish vs +0.5 billion dollars ($500 million) for the record.

(Look for the reversal in size of the blue and red bars above to see why 2022 is such an unusual year.)

What has driven the relatively good growth of the music publishing industry relative to the U.S. record industry in 2022?

It’s a CRB III boost, for one thing (lots of cash, remember?). Also taking into account the increase in post-Covid performance royalties.

Indeed, in 2020 and 2021, the top lights of the music publishing industry will naturally see their growth potential stifled by the Covid closures, and thus the lack of income from domestic gigs. and international from bars, clubs, restaurants, shops, etc.

In contrast, in 2022, we have seen year record for those who like ASCAP And body mass index – also, as David Israelite confirmed last week, a record number of years for private/for-profit PROs such as QUESTION and Universal Music Rights.

Interestingly, despite that PRO growth, for the first time in history, less 50% NMPA’s annual revenue figure comes from performance royalties in 2022; contributed items 48.25% about that $5.605 billion total revenue (see below).

In addition to the increase in mechanical royalties provided by CRB (20.28%), NMPA’s revenue in 2022 also saw significant year-over-year growth in sync revenue to more than a quarter of the music publishing industry’s annual wholesale revenue (26.07%).

In music publishing/NMPA terms, ‘sync’ revenue includes the use of music in movies, advertisements, games, etc., but it But also includes the use of music on many online platforms without sound including YouTube videos and TikTok.

“Much of the work that NMPA has done,” in legally forcing/encouraging new online platforms to license music publishing categories, “has generated revenue streams,” said David Israelite. new [in ‘sync’] that we are enjoying today.”Global Music Business