The Australian music industry continues to be dominated by men across almost every level, and an earning gap between male and female APRA members has been revealed by Hack’s third annual women in music investigation.

However, some improvements toward gender equality were made in 2017, with a greater representation of women on some festival line-ups like Laneway; plus there were some increases in the number of women receiving certain award nominations, receiving music grants, and appearing in triple j’s Hottest 100.

Meanwhile, the state of the industry made its way into academia last year, with the University of Sydney’s Business School’s Skipping a Beat report. The authors claimed there is “chronic gender inequality” in the Australian music scene, and handed down five key recommendations to start mending the gender divide.

Earlier this year, Oprah Winfrey predicted that there is a "new day" is on the horizon for women in the film industry. Could there be one for the music industry too?

Let’s look at the numbers.

What radio sounds like

This year, Hack broadened our investigation to find out what radio stations all around Australia (not just triple j) sounded like.

Taking the last ten years' worth of data from Aircheck — a radio monitoring company that keeps track of songs played on Australian radio — Hack looked at the artists behind the top 100 most-played songs across 58 radio stations around the country. This analysis included data from commercial stations from the KIIS, Southern Cross Austereo and Nova networks, along with triple j and Sydney community radio station FBi.

The data over ten years is relatively consistent: male artists always make up the bulk, if not majority, of the top 100 most-played songs. Solo-female artists or all-female acts are severely underrepresented: on average, they tend to make up about 28 per cent of the most-played songs.

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Whatsapp Data supplied by Aircheck; analysed by Hack. The stations included are: 973, 2CH, 2GB, 2GO, 2HD, 2MMM, 2SM, 2UE, 3AW, 3MMM, 4BC, 4KQ, 4MMM, 5AA, 5MMM, 6IX, 6PR, 96FM, BAYFM, BEATS1, CRUISE, EDGE, FBi, FRESH, GOLD, GOLD 925, Hit101.9 FOX FM, Hit104.1 2DAYFM, Hit105, Hit106.9, Hit107, Hit92.9, Hot-Tomato, KIIS 101, KIIS1065, KOFM, KROCK, Magic 1278, Magic 882, MIX 102, MIX 94.5, MyMP, NEW FM, NOVA 100, NOVA 1069, NOVA 919, NOVA 937, NOVA 969, SEA Hit101.3, SEA Hit90.9, SEN, Sky Sports Radio, Smooth 91.5, Smooth 95.3, SPORT927, Star 104.5, triple j & WS-FM.

Interestingly, songs by acts made up of both men and women (for example, London Grammar) are rare: they have always been the smallest percentage of songs that make the top 100 most-played list.

The biggest change over ten years is the amount of songs by male artists featuring a female vocal (for example, Stranger, by the all-male act Peking Duk, featuring female singer Elliphant). In 2008, only three songs fit this description; in 2016, 25 songs did.

Overall though, the top 100 most-played songs across Australian radio stations are more diverse than the songs that made it into triple j’s Hottest 100.

Here’s what triple j’s Hottest 100’s looked like in the last ten years.

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2017’s Hottest 100 was the most diverse year in the ten-year analysis (Hack understands that it was the most gender-diverse Hottest 100 ever, however we’ve only analysed the last 10 years' worth of data here. The Hottest 100 has been running since 1993), with 51 songs in the countdown either by a female artist, an act with men and women, or an artist that features a female vocalist.

Women also took the lead in the voting process of triple j’s Hottest 100, making up 51 per cent of the voters.

triple j’s feature albums are becoming more diverse

While the results of the Hottest 100 aren’t decided by triple j, the triple j music teams do decide which artists get spun as triple j and double j’s weekly feature album (and in triple j Unearthed’s case, weekly feature artist).

Triple j Unearthed is consistently the most gender-diverse station at triple j in this respect. However, the diversity of artists behind triple j’s feature albums increased to a three-year high of 29 per cent in 2017.

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There’s equal gender representation among students, but not professionals

The idea that men are just inherently more interested in pursuing a musical career than women is false.

In Australian high schools last year, there were more female students studying a music-related subject in their final year than male students. At universities in 2017, the gender split was also almost equal, with women making up 47 per cent of undergraduate music students (this represents the exact same split as last year).

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Whatsapp Data supplied by the education department from each state and territory.

When it comes to entering the industry professionally, however, an enormous gender gap emerges: in the past three Australian censuses, women have only made up 29 per cent of people who listed “music professional” as their job.

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Whatsapp Data obtained through the ABS.

Men are making the decisions at the pointy end of the industry

For the third-year running, there were more men than women on public boards for music organisations, managing artists, and managing independent record labels.

There are no women on ARIAs public board.

And according to the Skipping a Beat report from the Sydney University Business school, women have only made up about a quarter of people listed in AMID’s annual Power 50 list — which details the most powerful people in the Australian music industry — since its inception in 2012.

Staff working in music-related positions at triple j, double j and triple j Unearthed remained relatively balanced in 2017, with women making up 47 per cent of these roles.

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Whatsapp Public boards included: Sounds Australia, ARIA,The Push, AIR, PPCA, Music ACT, WAM, Music NSW, Music NT, Community Music, Vic, Music SA, Music Australia, APRA, AMCOS, Music Victoria, AAM, Q music

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Whatsapp Data based on the membership of the Association of Artist Managers. Supplied.

Of the current AIR (Australian Independent Record Labels Association) members in Australia, 33 per cent of those indie record labels have women in senior leadership positions.

Festival line-ups are still overwhelmingly male

The national musical festival circuit is still dominated by male artists. None of Australia’s major touring festivals have reached gender parity on their lineups in three years, however Laneway remains Australia’s most gender-diverse festival, with female-identifying acts (or acts featuring both men and women) making up 44 per cent of its most recent line-up.

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Whatsapp The representation of female acts or acts who have at least one official female member on the national circuits of festival line-ups. Data analysed by Hack.

Music awards are overwhelmingly male, except for triple j’s J Award

The majority of musicians receiving nominations for their work in the Australian music industry are male - except in triple j’s J Award, where 55 per cent of acts have been female (or acts with at least one woman) for the past two years.

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As we reported last year, the majority of the ARIAs Hall of Fame is made up of men. As only one artist was inducted to the Hall of Fame last year, Daryl Braithwaite, this is still the case. Now 86 per cent of ARIAs Hall of Fame inductees are male - up from 85 per cent last year.

A gender balance is emerging for spend on music grants

In 2017, the gender split of music grant recipients from the Australia Council for the Arts was at its most balanced in three years, with women receiving 53 per cent of their spend on music grants.

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Female APRA members are severely underrepresented

APRA AMCOS is the body that distributes Australian songwriters with royalties when their songs are played commercially (on the radio, for example, or in an ad). Its songwriter members are overwhelmingly male, with women making up only 1 in 5 paid APRA members last year.

However, the representation of new female members is slowly increasing: in 2017, 26.7 per cent of new songwriters who joined APRA were female. Ten years ago, this figure was only 23.8 per cent.

When it comes to the amount of money distributed to APRA members, men received the vast majority of royalties. However, the divide has slightly narrowed over ten years.

In 2008, women only earned 10.5 per cent of the total royalty payments APRA made to its members. In 2017, this figure had risen to 16.6 per cent.

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Whatsapp Data supplied by APRA AMCOS

Female APRA members earn less, on average

Hack has also discovered a gender earning gap among male and female APRA members.

Importantly, this is not a gender wage gap - APRA pays male and female songwriters the same amount every time their song is played.

However, some plays of songs are more lucrative than others: if your song is played in a TV ad, for example, you’ll get a far larger royalty payment than if your song is played on a radio station.

For every dollar a male APRA member earned in 2017, a female APRA member earned, on average, only $0.77 (or, 23 per cent less).

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Whatsapp Data supplied by APRA AMCOS

However, this gender earning gap has nearly halved in ten years: in 2008, female APRA members were earning $0.50 for every dollar a male APRA member earned, on average.

What does this say about songwriters in Australia? The data could suggest that male songwriters are more likely to work in sectors of the industry that are more-highly paid (such as composing for film and TV); more likely to become hugely popular (and thus bring up the average payment figure); or more likely to write songs that end up on high rotation.

Closing the gap

While there’s a long way to go for gender equality in music, the air feels different around this year’s investigation.

This progress can’t be shown on a graph: in the last twelve months, there have been galvanising, circuit-breaker moments in this space.

There was #MeNoMore, the open letter from hundreds of women in the Australian music industry who powerfully put sexual entitlement, harassment and abuse on notice. There was Camp Cope’s scathing takedown of sexism in the music scene in their song The Opener - for which they scored #58 in triple j’s Hottest 100. There was APRA AMCOS, Australia’s music royalty collecting body, which announced sweeping changes to increase gender diversity among its members.

There was the removal of Kirin J Callinan from Laneway’s line-up, related to his flashing incident on the ARIAs red carpet. And just this week, a sound tech in Adelaide was swiftly put on blast after making a sexist comment to a member of Boat Show. There was The Plot, a Sydney festival which managed to book a perfectly gender-balanced line-up.

Rebecca Young, the Director and General Manager of boutique booking agency Collective Artists says she’s noticed a shift in the last 12 months too.

"I do think the music industry has a gender problem, but I think that’s changing. I think a lot of people especially in the last twelve months are a lot more conscious that there is gender equality when they’re hiring and when they’re having events and festivals," Rebecca told Hack.

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Rebecca says she’s also seen at least one high-profile female artist refuse a festival offer until its line-up had a greater gender balance.

"When she got this offer, it was her and one other female artist out of twelve acts - the rest were male.

"I went back to the festival with that feedback, and they agreed to add more women to the line-up. Then that artist agreed to do the show."

Rebecca says the onus for calling out gender imbalance in the industry often falls on women, but hopes that might change.

"Male acts should stand up too. I don’t know that we saw many male artists come to the table around the Falls festival argument with Camp Cope. I know that Julia Jacklin and Jen Cloher and Stella Donnelly all commented on it.

"I think if a lot of male fronted artists talked about it more, then they’re showing their support to female counterparts."

"The stats say it all"

Perth-based artist Stella Donnelly says she’s noticed a change in the music industry’s "gender problem" since she first started performing eight years ago.

"I think we definitely have a gender problem in the music industry, but I think it’s gotten so much better - for me anyway.

"The stats say it all and there is a problem there. But hopefully this is the year of people waking up to that.

"There still isn’t enough support for diversity there. For female artists of colour - it’s an even more dire situation."

Stella says she’s often experienced both "microaggressions" and "macroaggressions" of sexism in the music industry.

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Whatsapp Stella Donnelly performing at BIGSOUND 2017 at the triple j Unearthed showcase at Oh Hello

"Even last week at a festival I played at, I had this guy insist on giving me a hug and a kiss before I played and after I played. It’s like, were you not listening to my music just then?"

At the Oscars on Monday, Best Actress winner Frances McDormand advocated for film stars to insist on inclusion riders. An inclusion rider is basically a clause which is added to contracts to preference under-represented groups like women or people of colour to be hired.

Stella says she’s been pushing for inclusion riders at performances in Perth.

"I think it’s actually made it easier for people. even just the name inclusion rider, it’s very official. I think it just tells people - okay we’ve got to do this."

Stella says there’s still a long way to go on the gender gap in music, when part of the work is "proving there’s a problem".

"How do you get to the problem solving when you're still trying to prove that there’s an issue?

"We’re not doing it for fun. Do you think I put out ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ for a bit of a f***ing laugh? I don’t think so, it’s a scary thing for me to do."

To celebrate International Women's Day, triple j is playing music all day, with female presenters across the day. Find out more here.

Editor's Note

Hack has updated this article on Friday 8 March to correct an error in our statistics on festival line-ups. One artist which appeared at Falls, Splendour and Groovin’, The Smith Street Band, had been analysed as a "male" artist by Hack. Hack understood the band to officially be an all-male act until January 2018, but we now understand there was ambiguity around the band’s members last year. Considering this, we have now analysed the band as "mixed".

At Falls Festival, the band Jungle had previously been counted as an all-male act. We now understand the band has one female member, and should be classified as "mixed". The figure of "female artists, or acts with at least one woman" at Falls has now been updated to reflect Jungle and Smith Street Band - from 25 per cent to 31 per cent.

At Splendour in the Grass, Hack had incorrectly classified LCD Soundsystem as an all-male act. The band has one female member, and should be classified as "mixed". The figure of "female artists, or acts with at least one woman" at Splendour in the grass has now been updated to reflect LCD Soundsystem and Smith Street Band - from 29 per cent to 31 per cent.

The figure of "female artists, or acts with at least one woman" at Groovin’ The Moo has now been updated to reflect the Smith Street Band - from 26 per cent to 31 per cent.

Hack has also corrected an error in the line-up of Laneway 2016. Hack had previously included the triple j Unearthed winners in our analysis; however these should have been discounted from the analysis as they were not on the national line-up. Removing these artists from our analysis moves the “female artists, or acts with at least one woman” for Laneway’s line-up announcement in 2016 from 36 per cent to 30 per cent.

Hack would like to clarify our methodology for analysing artists on festival line-ups. To classify an act as "all male", "all female" or "mixed", we take into account the official members of the band. We acknowledge that bands sometimes introduce female touring members or guest vocalists on festival circuits and what the audience see on stage may vary. However, to fairly analyse the public-facing line-up bill, we analyse artists as a whole on their official band members at the time of announce (we apply this same analysis when we analyse feature albums on triple j). Hack would also like to clarify the date of festivals analysed. The year listed in the graph refers to the year the line-up was announced. For example, Laneway took place in January 2018, but its line-up was announced in 2017.