Media and Entertainment to Hit $47bil – Where does Radio fit?

Australia’s media and entertainment industry is on track to grow from $38 billion in 2015 to $47.4 billion by 2020.

It will have a compound annual growth rate of 4.1% each year, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Australian Media and Entertainment Outlook 2016-2020.

Consumer spending on entertainment and media products is tipped to grow at 3.7% each year from the current $24 billion to $28.7 billion in five years.

The demand for music in Australia will rise in this five-year period, the report says, but nowhere as much as for interactive games, which are set to be the fastest growing segment, growing 8.1% annually to 2020 and reaching $3.3 billion.

Globally, total music revenue will rise at 2.1% a year to US$47.7 billion (A$64.1 billion), fuelled by the rise of music streaming.

But the live music industry will grow at a faster rate, at 3%, as artists switch to making more money on the road than from recorded music. As a result, there’s been a blur of activities, with concert promoters moving into artist management and venue ownership, and record companies setting up touring arms.

The US music industry, the largest in the world, will grow at 3.5% a year to $18.04 billion (A$24.2 billion) by 2020 – a fairly steep rise from 2015’s $15.8 billion (A$21.2 billion). The rise is fuelled by streaming, which is predicted to grow impressively at 21.6% to be worth $4.27 billion (A$5.7 billion) by 2020. Also helping digital’s contribution to the music’s growth is how many people find new music on the internet (44%) and terrestrial radio (32%).

PwC estimates America’s live music to be worth $9.30 billion (A$12.5 billion) by that year after a growth of 4.7% p.a.

In Australia, the radio market should be worth $1.4 billion in 2020, and streaming video on demand (SVOD) is to account for 20% of the subscription TV market. Ad spend in media and advertising will be $18.7 billion, from the current $14.9 billion, reflecting an annual growth rate of 4.7%. Mobile advertising will account for 41% of the total internet advertising market by 2020.

Cinema had its most successful year in Australia in 2015. Of the $1.2 billion generated at he box office. $88 million came from Australian films. Mad Max: Fury Road alone grossed $21.7 million.

Megan Brownlow, editor of the report, warned of the lack of diversity of those working in entertainment and media.

Brownlow said, “The average employee in our media and entertainment sector is 27, male, Caucasian and lives in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs or the Inner West.

“Similar to the world we see depicted by media, entertainment and media businesses do not reflect an Australia that’s becoming more diverse by the day. It’s a case of chicken and egg and means the industry is not as well equipped for growth as it should be.”
Read more in The Music Network here.