The Key Changes Rocking the Music Industry in 2025 Andrew WallensteinAugust 1, 2025 at 11:18 PM The music industry isn't exactly known for its stability. From MTV to Spotify, it's a business defined by paradigmshifting disruptions as much as it is by hit records and iconic artists.
- - The Key Changes Rocking the Music Industry in 2025
Andrew WallensteinAugust 1, 2025 at 11:18 PM
The music industry isn't exactly known for its stability. From MTV to Spotify, it's a business defined by paradigm-shifting disruptions as much as it is by hit records and iconic artists.
But in 2025, the industry faces several exceptional challenges — slowing streaming growth, all-time high concert ticket prices, and the rise of AI to name a few — that will require shifting the status quo to solve.
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The latest special report from Luminate Intelligence (formerly Variety Intelligence Platform), "The State of the Music Industry," offers a snapshot of the business at a crossroads as its main players find ways to restore the value that music lost in the digital age and protect it from diminishing further. The report's author, Luminate media analyst Robert Steiner, explains on the Variety podcast "Strictly Business" why 2025 is a turning point for the music industry.
Listen to the podcast here:
"The pandemic supercharged the growth that was happening from streaming, which started taking off around the mid 2010s," he explained. "That was all great, but 2024 across the board signaled a slowdown. If that continues [in 2025], it won't be bad necessarily, but it probably means that there will be flatlining, which obviously these companies don't want."
A wide range of solutions are being implemented across the industry to solve the slowdown dilemma, from enticing "Super Fans" to mass mergers and acquisitions. But Steiner stresses that while the music industry already brings in billions of dollars and aims to make even more, it must include everyday working artists in future plans.
"You look at these numbers and might think, oh, it's better than ever to be a musician," he said. "But it's a lot more complicated than that, unfortunately, in part because the royalties generated by streaming services are literally a fraction of a fraction of pennies. These solutions are a step in the right direction, but they will ultimately only do so much unless there is a larger shift in how artists make money in the streaming era."
"Strictly Business" is Variety's weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. (Please click here to subscribe to our free newsletter.) New episodes debut every Wednesday and can be downloaded at Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Google Play, SoundCloud and more.
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