It's always a good idea to step back once in a while and take stock of the industry you work in. For the audio industry, it's mostly good news. Let's take a look.

According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), recorded music is a $26.2 billion worldwide industry, up 9% from 2021. That's nine straight years of growth after almost two decades of decline. Ironically, what's driving its growth today caused its decline 20 years ago: digital distribution. When downloading music became the norm, sales of CDs quickly hit bottom. Today, streaming services make up 67% of all music sales. Streaming is also democratizing music.  Warner Music Group's outgoing CEO Steve Cooper said that in 2012, WMG's top five superstars generated 15% of its revenue. In 2022, that number was just 5%. Why? Consumers no longer have to gamble on a complete package of music (CD album) from an unknown artist. Today's savvy listeners can sample new artists on Spotify or Apple Music. One interesting statistic from a study by Music Business Worldwide showed that top 10 hits were streamed a billion times less in 2022 than in 2019. That means that the love is getting spread around to more artists. This love has also translated to night clubs that are now booking almost double the amount of live shows because of broader artist familiarity.

Another interesting statistic is that last year in the U.S., vinyl records outsold CDs for the first time since 1987. In 2007 when Record Store Day began, just 1.3 million platters were sold. Vinyl record sales in 2022 climbed to 41 million versus 33 million CDs.

A really curious statistic that will have you scratching your head is that sales of cassettes are rising. According to Billboard, 440,000 cassettes were sold last year. That's way up from 81,000 in 2015. What's driving this madness to embrace a kitschy and clearly inferior product? Social media and the enterainment industry. Nostalgic television shows like Stranger Things have made it cool to play a cassette. Top selling artists are releasing music in many physical formats like CD and vinyl, but several have chosen to include cassettes. Take a look at this list of the top ten selling cassettes of 2022 and you'll see:

1. Arctic Monkeys – The Car
2. Harry Styles – Harry’s House
3. Florence And The Machine – Dance Fever
4. Muse – Will Of The People
5. Central Cee – 23
6. Robbie Williams – XXV
7. 5 Seconds Of Summer – 5SOS5
8. Blackpink – Born Pink
9. The 1975 – Being Funny In A Foreign Language
10. Machine Gun Kelly – Mainstream Sellout

Finding a cassette player to listen to these little plastic cartridges can be a challenge these days. There is only one cassette mechanism being manufactured currently, and it's a bare-bones plasticy unit doomed for early failure. Listeners will have to shop thrift stores and eBay to find units that are decent. I've noticed prices for cassette decks from the 1980s and 1990s increasing to near ridiculous prices, so it looks like a seller's market right now.

If you listen to podcasts, then you're one of 100 million in the U.S. that do. That's up from 82 million in 2021. There are 5 million podcasts with 70 million episodes available. That translates to about an estimated $4 billion in ad dollars next year. Americans download nearly 4 hours / 5.6 episodes of content each week. Wednesdays from 11 AM to 1 PM are the most popular times to listen, as is the month of October.

Audiobooks are seeing phenominal growth as well, 10% more last year. That's $1.8 billion in the American market. In fact, this is the 11th year of double-digit growth in the U.S. In a study by The Association of American Publishers, they found that 54% of American adults – 140 million people – have listened to an audiobook. Audiobooks make up a little over 10% of a typical publisher's revenue, while physical media (CDs primarily) make up only 0.2%.

For production of all these forms of audio, engineers and producers use a digital audio workstation, or DAW. This is also a growing business, a $3 billion industry that's expected to double by 2035. Audio interfaces (devices that convert analog audio into digital files on a computer) already have sales of more than $160 million in the U.S., with increases of 2-3% every year. Sales of DAWs and interfaces saw a growth spurt during the COVID pandemic while engineer and producers were forced to work at home. The added demand for more audio and video content during this time, coupled with the rise of streaming platforms drove sales, and no let up is in sight.

The only ding in all this good news is what's happening in the film and television industry. Although production numbers have been setting records for the last year or so, the current actors and writers strikes throw a big old monkey wrench into the equation. As long as the strikes don't linger for months and months, I'm sure that once they do end, the backlog of projects will eventually make up for most of the losses. Otherwise, it's a good time to be in the audio business.