UK Music stats show partial recovery for music sector in 2021, but more government support needed

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By Chris Cooke | Revealed on Thursday 22 September 2022

Cross sector trade team Uk Audio has posted its annual report on the financial impression of the British audio market. As anticipated, the stats display that when the audio sector commenced to get well in 2021 soon after the COVID-brought on slump in 2020, it was only a partial recovery, with the dwell sector in specific nevertheless afflicted by the pandemic through last calendar year.

So while the so called gross value additional for the Uk music business was up 26% year-on-12 months in 2021, mounting from £3.1 billion to £4 billion, that is continue to 31% down on the pre-pandemic GVA of £5.8 billion in 2019. In the same way, although the variety of people doing work in new music in 2021 was up 14% on 2020, achieving 145,000, that is nevertheless down 26% on the pre-COVID workforce of 197,000.

A identical sample is witnessed in the worth of British isles music exports. These rose in 2021 to £2.5 billion – up 10% on the £2.3 billion determine in 2020 – but continue to down 15% on the £2.9 billion noticed in 2019.

Of study course, it is no key that it was the reside aspect of the business that endured the most from the COVID-19 pandemic. The recorded songs sector continued to grow in the course of on the back again of the ongoing streaming boom, and whilst songwriters and publishers have been hit by their songs not staying carried out throughout the lockdowns, increasing electronic revenues reduced the unfavorable influence on the new music publishing aspect to an extent.

But on the are living aspect, although 2021 wasn’t as terrible as 2020, the pandemic even now experienced a significant effect on the sector. Various lockdowns in the course of the yr intended venues ended up shut and festivals cancelled for many months, and even the moment limits commenced to raise around the British isles through the summer time, factors could not get thoroughly again to usual.

Very first, global journey limits nevertheless used, creating it more challenging for British artists to tour abroad and for international acts to enjoy in the Uk. And reveals had been often cancelled because artists and/or crew members experienced tested positive for COVID.

Plus quite a few customers have been not prepared to return to gigs and functions, and by the close of the calendar year, as the omicron variant spiked, the United kingdom federal government was in essence telling men and women to remain at home even even though technically venues could open up and shows could go in advance.

Many of those troubles have slowly long gone away this calendar year, so you’d be expecting the economic influence figures for 2022 to clearly show additional growth on 2021. Nevertheless, of course, new difficulties have popped up alongside the way.

A two year backlog of shows resulted in a tremendous saturated marketplace about the summer season, when not all individuals are always attending shows and situations at 2019 amounts however, partly simply because of ongoing COVID issues, and partly simply because of the price tag of dwelling disaster.

In the meantime, venues and promoters are dealing with surging working fees and usually having difficulties to find sufficient crew to operate the displays, though artists touring in Europe are having to tackle tons of new article-Brexit forms.

So, from a Uk Songs viewpoint, whilst the 2021 figures are much more beneficial than the stats for 2020 – and the economic effect of the sector this calendar year will absolutely be more powerful nevertheless – the new music neighborhood continue to demands additional assistance from the federal government. And it’s Uk Music’s job to ask for support, of program.

Suggests United kingdom Music manager Jamie Njoku-Goodwin: “The Uk audio field is doing work difficult to get well following the catastrophic affect of COVID-19, but there is still some way to go to restore the employment and progress dropped for the duration of the pandemic. Our sector however faces a critical threat from the economic storm that could blow our fragile restoration off program devoid of urgent governing administration support”.

“It’s essential that federal government acts to shield and aid a sector that produces positions, contributes to the economy and matters to hundreds of thousands of folks throughout our country”, he goes on.

With a new Key Minister in position and an crisis funds assertion owing from the government on Friday, Njoku-Goodwin has plenty of ideas regarding what help the sector could and really should now receive.

“The new Primary Minister has reported she wishes to minimize taxes to promote growth”, he notes. “If she is really serious about this, then she should use the crisis finances to minimize the tax stress on the tunes marketplace, for occasion, by extending the hugely effective artistic field tax reliefs to the new music industry”.

“This would incentivise expense and boost exports of British audio, which are at threat owing to growing worldwide competition and problems adhering to the UK’s exit from the European Union”, he goes on.

In latest months, of system, a prime priority for the Uk music neighborhood in terms of federal government guidance was some variety of plan to mitigate the affect of surging electricity expenditures. These a plan has been introduced because Liz Truss turned PM, with a cap currently being launched on vitality price ranges for organization consumers for the first time, extra particulars of which ended up revealed previously this 7 days.

“We welcome the government’s announcement to overcome the influence of soaring electricity charges, which will give new music organizations some urgently desired support”, Njoku-Goodwin states.

But, like reps for the night time-time and dwell sectors, whilst that scheme is welcome, the British isles New music boss stresses that it is only at present in area for six months, and that it only tackles one of the fiscal difficulties venues, golf equipment, studios and other tunes firms confront.

With that in brain, he provides: “We will need clarity about what happens following that help is withdrawn right after 6 months. And we even now have to have to see more guidance to safe our sector’s long-term restoration, together with a sizeable cut in VAT from its present charge of 20% – a thing the authorities did in the pandemic to help the songs sector”.

In addition to all that, Njoku-Goodwin also has a copyright request to insert to British isles Music’s polite and punchy would like checklist – or big bucket of requires if you desire. And that relates to the the latest assertion from the Uk govt regarding copyright reform in relation to the growth of synthetic intelligence.

“It is also necessary that governing administration recognises the worth of copyright to the artistic sector and will take ways to guard intellectual residence rights”, he continues. “Proposals by the prior governing administration to enable AI companies a copyright exception for textual content and data mining are an existential threat to our sector and ought to be stopped. These strategies constitute a eco-friendly gentle to tunes laundering and the entire sector is united in urging the government to scrap them”.

Concluding, Njoku-Goodwin reminds Truss and her new team that pre-pandemic the Uk had a major audio sector in international terms, and that the British isles govt invested quite a great deal of money supporting tunes corporations throughout the pandemic, which was excellent. But, he reckons, even further support is now crucial for the Uk tunes sector to return to its previous glory and to make sure a good return on the government’s mid-pandemic investments.

“We have a audio marketplace in the British isles that is the envy of the planet and a talent pipeline that continues to make world wide stars and an military of really competent professionals”, he says. “It is critical that the governing administration will work with us to shield and nurture the tunes business from the economic turbulence we confront so we can pull by and make the careers and investment to make it even more robust than it was right before the pandemic”.

You can obtain United kingdom Music’s new report – called ‘This Is Audio 2022’ – proper about right here.