Streaming doubles and vinyl sales reach 20-year high as listeners adopt a “multi-channel” approach to music

The popularity of music streaming continues to soar as it is revealed that the number of plays doubled last year.

A report by the BPI, the trade body which represents the nation’s record labels, found that 14.8 billion songs were played on streaming services in 2014, while 73 tracks were played more than 10 million times – compared to just 7 in 2013.

Almost 3 million different songs were streamed at least once last year, and the average weekly play count for a track at Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart was 1.5 million.

Data from Kantar Worldpanel showed that over a quarter of adults (26.8%) used a dedicated music streaming service such as Spotify, Deezer, Google Play or Rdio at some point in 2014, with around 1 in 16 adults using the paid tier of one for at least part of the year.

The BPI’s report also revealed a slow-down in the rate of decline of CD album sales and vinyl sales reaching a 20-year high at 1.3 million sales in 2014, as listeners adopt a "multi-channel" digital/physical approach to music consumption.

The Official Top 40 most-streamed songs of 2015 so far revealed

BPI Chief Executive, Geoff Taylor, said: "Streaming has the potential to drive significant growth in industry revenues in the coming years provided the right balance is found between advertising-funded free streaming, which presently generates only modest revenues on its own, and migration to full-featured, premium subscription services. 

"If this is achieved it should be good news not just for music fans, who will benefit from even more choice in high-quality digital music services, but for future investment by record labels in new music."

Photo: Cultura/Rex