The Streaming Takeover

Thanks to continuing growth in streaming subscriptions, music industry revenues in the United States grew by 9 percent in 2020. According to the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) latest Year-End Music Industry Revenue report, 2020 marked the sixth consecutive year of growth for the music industry that had previously struggled with declining revenues for 15 years.

As our chart, based on RIAA data, illustrates, the music industry really has the rise of streaming to thank for its resurgence. While downloads were never quite able to fully offset the declines in CD sales in the early 2000s, streaming revenues have now been able to more than compensate for declining physical format and download revenues for six years.

In 2020, music streaming, both subscription-based and ad-supported, accounted for 83 percent of U.S. music revenues, up from just 7 percent in 2010.