RIAA Report Shows Streaming And Vinyl On The Rise In US While Recording Industry Dips

The RIAA has released its official figures for 2014 assessing the music industry's value at $6.97 billion, a 0.47% decline from 2013 valuation of $7 billion. 

Despite the slight dip of the industry as a whole, growth was charted in specific areas. Digital music grew by $140 million to $4.5 billion, up 3.2% from $4.37 billion the prior year. Download sales decreased by 9.5% to $2.64 billion, but streaming revenue charted a 29% increase totaling $1.87 billion for 2014. Overall digital revenue rose 3.2% from $4.37 billion in 2013 coming in at $4.5 billion for 2014. 

Physical music sales declined 5.9% capping out at $2.13 billion, CD albums falling 12.3% to $1.85 billion. A slight upside to the continued decline of album sales was the increase of price per unit with the average CD list price rising from $12.33 to $12.87 in 2014. 

Going back to digital music, unsurprisingly, streaming revenue increased significantly in 2014. The 7.7 million paid subscribers upped their value to almost $800 million, a 25% increase from 2013's $639 million. Additionally, the RIAA report concluded that ad-supported streaming upped it's contribution to industry by 34%, accounting for $295 million in revenue. 

Vinyl sales saw the most growth across 2014, accounting for $320.8 million in revenue, up 50% from 2014. 

The revenue distribution continues to ebb and flow as streaming makes itself at home in the new music industry and physical music sales become less and less mainstream. A 50% increase in vinyl sales isn't going to put a dent in revitalizing the music industry, but continuing to work toward creating an maintaining a sustainable business model around digital music is a step in the right direction.