Longing for the day ...

Worrying trends in Australian music

What does this graph tell us?

It's taken from the APRA annual report and shows the 5-year trend of money coming into and out of Australia for music royalties. You'll note that the annual amount of money coming into Australia (the green line) is increasing at a much lower rate than the annual amount of money being sent overseas (the yellow line).

Coupled with other data from the annual report about where this money came from, it's brutally clear that overseas artists are making much more from being played in Australia than Australian artists are from being played overseas. I would bet that most of that music is American and that it's mostly powder pop - Hillary Duff, Britney Spears. This trend is being driven by marketing bucks providing access to airplay, not by quality material. In fact, it acts to exclude quality material in favour of mediocre material made by people with deep pockets.

Anyone who claims Australian music doesn't need protection from the forces driving the FTA needs only to look at this data ...