Sales of Adele’s 25 slow decline in music sales enough for music spending to rise for the first time in at least a decade

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

UK revenue from music, TV shows, films and video games hit an all-time high of £6.1bn in 2015 thanks to the booming popularity of digital services offered by players including Netflix, Amazon, Spotify and Apple.

A surge in digital spending combined with the mega-selling new album by Adele hauled the total UK music market to its first growth in at least a decade, up 3.5% to £1.06bn. The UK music industry saw the number of streams almost double to 27m and physical sales, while flat, were greater than they have been for a decade.

Having sold 2.6m copies of 25 in just six weeks after its November launch, Adele even pipped big-seller Fifa 16 to become the biggest entertainment hit of the year, according to figures released on Tuesday. The football game sold 2.5m units between its release in September and the end of the year.

While overall sales of physical CDs, DVDs and video games continued their inexorable decline last year, the total UK entertainment market – sales and rentals of physical CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs as well as downloads, streams and subscriptions for TV, films, music and video games – grew in total by 5.6% to £6.1bn. The previous high of £6.04bn was achieved in 2004.

Spending on digital TV and films surged 30% to top £1bn for the first time in 2015.

“Ten years ago, the entertainment business was on the edge of a precipice,” said Kim Bayley, chief executive of the Entertainment Retailers Association. “Piracy was rampant and there were few legal alternatives. Thanks to huge investments from the likes of Apple and Steam and Netflix and Spotify there has been a significant turnaround.”

Video: the TV and film market

The rise in popularity of paying for TV content from the likes of Netflix, Apple’s iTunes, Sky Store and Amazon Prime fuelled a 30% surge in digital video revenues to top £1bn for the first time (£1.09bn).

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Spending on digital TV and films surged 30% to top £1bn for the first time in 2015. Photograph: Alamy

The digital boost countered a 15% fall in sales of DVD and Blu-ray on the high street to £1.07bn and a 28% decline in the physical rental market to £76.9m, as the overall video market crept up by 1.5% to £2.24bn.

This year will mark the point that digital video will surpass physical sales to account for more than 50% of total video revenues for the first time – but the disc is not on the verge of extinction just yet.

“Despite the much-suggested decline of discs, these latest figures show that the format continues to be popular with consumers who are buying more than 320,000 discs every day,” said Liz Bales, chief executive of the British Video Association. “There are still plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the success of both DVD and Blu-ray for years to come.”

The biggest-selling DVD/Blu-ray film of the year was Paddington, while the fourth season of Game of Thrones was the biggest-selling TV programme.

Music: ‘The Adele effect’

The digital revolution was also felt in the UK music industry where the number of streams rose a staggering 82% year-on-year to 26.8m.

The surge, which resulted in an estimated 50% rise in streaming revenues to £251m, hauled the total UK music sales market to its first growth in at least a decade, up 3.5% to £1.06bn.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Headsets hang in front of a screen displaying a Spotify logo on it. Photograph: Dado Ruvic/Reuters

While the streaming market goes from strength to strength, the popularity of downloads has continued to decline from its peak in 2013. Downloads of albums declined by 13% to 26m while singles purchased fell by 15% to 133m.

Total physical sales of albums and singles were essentially flat, with a fall of just 0.5% to £514m – mainly thanks to Adele’s mega-selling album 25. CD sales experienced the smallest rate of decline in a decade, down just 3.7%.

Vinyl continued its unlikely revival with sales at a 21-year high of 2.1m, up 65% to £42m.

“The soaring popularity of music streaming and the burgeoning vinyl revival mean that UK music consumption rose again in 2015,” said Geoff Taylor, chief executive of music industry body the BPI and the Brit awards. “Services such as Spotify and Apple Music are going mainstream as more people discover how wonderful it is to have all the music in the world to listen to, whenever and wherever you want. Millions of fans also continue to build treasured collections of favourite albums on vinyl, CD or downloads.”

Much of the improvement has been attributed to the record-breaking success of Adele, who sold more than 10m copies of latest album 25 in a matter of weeks and topped the album chart for 2015.

Six of the top 10 bestselling albums last year were by British artists.

However, the figures also show that chart-topping Adele failed to figure in the top 10 for most streamed song or artist lists for 2015 after refusing to release the bulk of her new album to streaming services such as Spotify.

Ed Sheeran tops the most streamed artist list, which boasts five British acts in the top 10 including One Direction and Sam Smith.

Sheeran is also the most popular British artist in the most streamed song list, ranking sixth with Thinking Out Loud.

“Much of the [overall music market] growth can be attributed to the Adele effect,” said Mark Mulligan, analyst at media consultancy Midia Research. “Physical revenue is still half of the market. Streaming doubled last year but the fact that Adele slowed the decline in sales so much enabled the streaming growth to actually grow the entire market.”

Video games market

The total UK games market saw sales rise by 10% to £2.8bn.

Digital sales from online and mobile services accounted for most of this growth, rising 17% to £1.9bn. Physical sales of games fell 2.2% to £927m.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Call of Duty: Black Ops III was one of 2015’s top-selling games titles.

Top sellers include Electronic Arts’ Fifa 16 and Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty: Black Ops III, which sold just under 4.5m copies combined last year.

