Three Songs, Three Artists, Three Countries. How much does each artist earn?
In the age of digital music and free streaming using freemium platforms, the way artists and their record companies earn money has changed drastically. As someone who listens to music on a daily basis, I became curious about how much my streaming of music actually contributes financially to the artists and their companies. I looked on Spotify, the place where I listen to music the most, and viewed my profile to see what songs I’ve had on repeat. This post details how much the artist and record company of each song earns from me streaming their music.
First Song: Come See Me by Jill Scott
This song has a great deal of nostalgic value for me, and I literally play it on repeat while I do my work. It is sung by the brilliant R&B artist, Jill Scott, who is under Hidden Beach Recordings, an independent American record label known for their R&B artists; Jill Scott being one of their most famous. Hidden Beach Recordings uses Universal Music Distribution as their distributor and releases their artists’ music on streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music. As I listen to this song on Spotify, I’ll be calculating how much money is earned from streaming on Spotify.
On average, a single stream of song on Spotify generates approximately $0.00437 of royalties for the artist. This, however, does not go immediately to the artists. As stated above, Hidden Beach Recordings uses a music distributor, Universal Music Distribution, so the money will first go to them, where they will take anywhere between 10 to 15 percent of the money, and then it goes to Hidden Beach Recordings, who will then divide the remainder between the artist and the producer and songwriter. Generally, after all of this, the amount that goes to the artist is less than ten percent, and the amount that goes to the company is typically over fifty percent.
So summed up, I listen to this song for free, and I don’t pay for Spotify premium, Hidden Beach Records earns at least $0.002185 per stream and Jill Scott earns around $0.000437 per stream. This shows just how awful for artists streaming services are, because even if they are reaching a wider audience, they aren’t earning much money.
Jill Scott however, is someone who would be considered a successful artist. She has over a million listeners on Spotify every month, and her most listened to song, Golden, has over 40 million streams, which in total generates over $170,000. Unfortunately though, as the artist, Jill Scott is probably earning something around $17,000 for Golden, rather than $170,000.
Second Song: Lonely Boy by TXT or Tomorrow X Together
This post wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t include a kpop song in here, and Lonely Boy is in the list of my recently most played songs on Spotify. TXT, or Tomorrow by Together, is under Big Hit Music, a Korean entertainment company best known for their most successful artist, BTS. Big Hit Music is owned by HYBE Corporation, a corporation founded by the same person who founded Big Hit Music, Bang Si-Hyuk. This massive corporation is home to several different companies which each house many different artists. As of now, HYBE Corporation, and all of the companies within it, distributes music through separate contracts with different services, and from what I can gather, they do not have a music distributor at the moment. This means that the money earned from streams on Spotify, goes directly to Big Hit Music, rather than a music distributor company first.
While looking up how much money is earned per stream on Spotify, I found that between countries, there is a much different earning rate. To my surprise, South Korea actually has the highest pay per stream rate out of any country in the world, which is still only $0.0178. This means that from me listening to Lonely Boy one time, Big Hit Music earns at least $0.0089 and TXT earns about $0.00178, which would be split between the five of them.
However, as BTS’s little brother group, and artists from an incredibly successful company, and a unique discography, TXT has managed to generate quite the following of their own, and they have nearly eight million monthly listeners on spotify, and their most popular song, I Know I Love You, has over 150 million streams which, with South Korea’s pay per stream rate, totals to over $2,670,000. The song I have on repeat, Lonely Boy, has over 19 million streams, which totals to around $338,200.
Third Song: O Saathi Re by Shreya Ghoshal and Vishal Bhardwaj
This is one of my favorite Hindi songs, and it is sung by the incredible Shreya Ghoshal and Vishal Bhardwaj. Now, this is a very different situation from the other two songs, as neither Ghoshal or Bhardwaj are signed with a particular company, and on top of that, this song is from the soundtrack of a movie called Omkara, which is a film made by Vishal Bhardwaj. The soundtrack of this movie is listed in Spotify as being under Eros International Ltd., which is an Indian production and distribution company. For the purpose of this research, I’m treating Eros solely as a distribution company, which means that the money earned per stream will go to them first and then to Ghoshal and Bhardwaj’s respective companies.
The Spotify pay per stream rate for India is even less than America’s at approximately $0.0012. This means that both Shreya Ghoshal and Vishal Bhardwaj will earn around $0.00012 per stream. The song, O Saathy Re, has over a million streams on Spotify, which in total is only around $1500.
This is even for a superstar like Shreya Ghoshal, who has over eighteen million monthly listeners on Spotify, and most of her songs have at least 15 million streams, which only generates about $18,000 per song. Vishal Bhardwaj has over two million monthly listeners on Spotify, and is a very successful movie director, yet makes little to no money off streaming.
From the research I’ve done on these three songs, I can safely say that use of digital music services and the concept of free streaming has nearly completely undermined musician’s craft and has robbed them of money that would have come much more naturally in the past. Though I believe music should be free, as it is an art, and I believe all art should be shared with the world equally, it shouldn’t be done in a way that prevents the musician from making any major profit from streaming alone.
For bigger artists, their streaming revenue may not be as important, as concerts, album sales, merchandise, and many more ways of earning profit are quite successful for both them and their company. Shreya Ghoshal is a great example of this, it is estimated that Ghoshal earns around 25 million dollars a year, even though above I showed that Ghoshal certainly does not earn that much money from streaming. However, for smaller artists, ones that don’t have at least one million monthly listeners, and their most popular song only has a few thousand streams, they’re earning practically nothing from streaming, probably very little from other forms of profit, especially if they’re from a smaller company. Music, and art in general, should not be a field where the only options are be successful or starve, but with streaming services being one the most used forms of listening to music in this digital age, it certainly is that way.
