Music is one of my passions. I love to play it, hear it, conduct it, and enjoy it. There are more than 70 posts about music here in the Attitude LLC blog. Take a look if you are interested. One of the things I have written about for many years is the demise of the music industry as it once was.

The numbers through 2015 present a mixed bag of news. CD sales declined from 143 million in 2014 to 123 million. Digital singles (track) sales were down from 1.2 billion to 1 billion. That is the bad news. The good news is subscription streaming revenues rose 52% to $1.2 billion. The Wall Street Journal said, “Things are looking up for the music industry.” I guess you could say that, but they be much better if the industry had not dragged its feet kicking and screaming and trying to stop digital music sharing for so long.

The streaming services are really good. I continue to like Pandora, but I also like Apple Music. Apple now has more than a billion devices out there. Imagine the revenue potential they have. If just 10% of those devices had a $10 subscription to Apple Music, it would generate one billion dollars per month for Apple. This one of the things the analysts are missing in their gloom about Apple stock. Another music streaming service I have gotten to like is Calm Radio. My Tesla has TuneIn and Slacker music services built in. Very nice. Rumor is they will soon be adding Spotify to the car.

See the Wall Street Journal story at: Recording Industry Reports Revenue Increase Due to Streaming – WSJ