Pharell’s “Happy” on Pandora. Laughable Revenue despite 105 Million Streams
At this point, no one is surprised when it’s reported that a worldwide music anthem that gets millions of played gets a ridiculously low revenue from streaming services.
In this case, Pharell Williams received a measly $6,300 from Pandora for his 105 000 000 Streams. Of course that revenue number is what goes to the artist after the publisher (Sony in this case) takes their part of the pie.
Yes, it doesn’t shock anyone anymore but still I think it’s newsworthy and important to spread the word and get people thinking that if a song like Happy gets peanuts in return for a worldwide smash hit, then what do you think up and coming artists get for their couple thousand plays.
Pandora claims “its payments to artists — at $0.001 per play — are “very fair” and that it helps sell concert tickets”. It is a subject for another time, but in my opinion Streaming services have an even worse influence that illegal downloading. It’s important that listeners who subscribe to these services understand that they are in no way helping these artists out.
We suggest buying a physical copy, buying from Bandcamp when possible or even Itunes.
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“We suggest buying a physical copy, buying from Bandcamp when possible or even iTunes.” OR just attend to a gig or a concert 🙂
I don’t really agree with that…
I will first state that I am the user of a streaming service. I have been using Rdio for over a year now and may soon switch to Apple Music for the ease of blending my already existing music library with my virtual one.
While it is clear that there is not much money to be made by artists via these services, something I recognize and would like to see improve in the future, I question the extent of the damage that they cause to an artist’s revenue stream. Speaking with others, I have come to the conclusion that there is still a large portion of the music loving population that will only procure music via physical formats be it CD, vinyl, or MP3 (a format that I realize is not physical but comes with owner rights).
Streaming services are not for everyone and many people fear the dreaded DRM issue through which one is required to have an internet connection and to have payed their monthly fee for service access. Not only that, but through business negotiations albums can come and go on these services at the drop of a pin without a word of notice. I however, as someone who does not wish to accrue further physical goods, and who was not paying for my music beforehand, am content with using such a service. In turn it allows me to discover new artists who I may have never have heard of or listened to, whom I will go see in concert when they come to my city.
My argument here is that, if we consider streaming service subscribers as a portion of music consumers who were never paying for music in the first place, and if these services are not enticing physical media lovers to move away from these mediums to sign up for a service, then Rdio, Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, etc., should be viewed as an additional revenue stream to already existing streams stemming from physical sales, touring, advertising, and so on.
As a concluding remark, calling upon the article’s example of Pharell Williams and “Happy”, I would be very interested to see research performed to analyze the impact of streaming services on artist revenue; how it might impact physical sales, maybe reduce pirating, or increase concert ticket sales, etc. While Williams only made $6,300 from his 105 million streams, he is clearly making millions elsewhere. I know this is not the case for lesser known artists but my point is that streaming, at least currently, seems to be a small slice of a larger pie.