Welcome to the newest episode of Music Business Worldwide's (MBW) monthly podcast, Talking Trends, where we delve deeper into the news items that affect the entertainment industry. Voly Music is a sponsor of Talking Trends.
Tim Ingham, founder of MBW, replies to a new set of figures revealed by Spotify on what musicians make from its platform this week on Talking Trends (listen here).
According to the figures, 16,500 artists earned more than $50,000 in royalties from Spotify in 2021, according to Spotify's Loud & Clear website.
However, Ingham claims that this isn't Spotify's most telling statistics.
Instead, he concentrates on a number near the bottom of the Loud & Clear website: Spotify has roughly 200,000 musicians on its platform, according to estimates.
According to Ingham, Spotify has determined this "professional artist" figure in part by asking two essential questions.
The first is this: How many of Spotify's 8 million artists have released fewer than ten tracks to date?
The figure may surprise you: 5.4 million, or little more than two-thirds of all artists on the platform.
Spotify has then calculated how many of the 2.6 million artists on its platform with more than 10 tracks are popular enough to also have more than 10,000 monthly listeners.
The answer?
Just 165,000 acts.
