RIAA Midyear Report Hails Paid Subscriptions as New ‘Primary Revenue Driver’

Recording-industry shipment results for first-half 2016 “illustrate the emergence of paid subscriptions as a primary revenue driver” in the U.S., RIAA said Tuesday in its midyear report: For the first time, paid streaming subscriptions ($1.01 billion) were “virtually on par” with paid downloads ($1.02 billion) as the biggest single format revenue source. That’s because paid album downloads revenue fell 11.4 percent from a year earlier and paid singles downloads decreased 21.9 percent, but paid-subscription revenue soared by 111.7 percent, RIAA said. The total value of shipments in physical formats was $672 million, down 14 percent from first-half 2015, it said. CDs were two-thirds of total physical shipments by value, but were down 16.4 percent in revenue, 11.2 percent in units, from a year earlier, RIAA said.