However despite this legacy of success, troubling warning lights are flashing – and have been for some time. In this article I contend we need to acknowledge the evidence that UK artists are struggling to be heard at home and begin to explore solutions to address the challenge.

In 2025, only 15 of the UK’s Top 40 albums were made with the involvement of a UK artist. And only five of those (by Ed Sheeran, Sam Fender, Olivia Dean, Charli XCX and Central Cee) would be considered frontline releases. The other ten were catalogue albums from Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, Fleetwood Mac, Queen and Elton John.

If anything, the 2025 Top 40 singles appears bleaker still, with only 10 tracks featuring UK acts. The UK Top 100 is even starker with only around 20% of tracks performed by British artists. The majority of our charts has been dominated by US artists.

This is a recent phenomenon. Just 10 years ago, UK artists accounted for 1 in 7 albums streamed or sold globally with exports soaring in North America, Germany, France, Australia and Canada, and reports of impressive growth in Asia, Turkey, India and South America.

Similarly, UK artists dominated the UK charts. A scan of the Official Charts Company’s Biggest Artist Albums of ten years ago reveals that 28 out of 40 were released by homegrown acts. In comparison, 17 of 2015’s Top 40 singles had involvement from a UK artist.

“So what?” you might think. The public gets what the public wants.

“We’re all operating in a global market and national charts don’t matter anyway, right?”

Admittedly, these assessments draw on the top of the commercial pyramid and are focussed purely on recorded data. This, you could argue, is not necessarily reflective of artists who operate in very different genres, with businesses focussed on live shows, merchandise and physical sales.

That’s all true. To a point. But we cannot ignore that a shifting of music’s tectonic plates is long underway. Or that it is becoming increasingly hard for UK artists to achieve both domestic breakthrough and global traction.

This trend seems to be driven by a shift to passive listening. A 2025 report by MIDiA suggests that 75% of music streamers usually listen in passive ways), today, for many listeners, the “search” bar is rarely used, they simply open the app and let the platform play. Combine that with the super-release-cycles of US megastars like Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Bruno Mars, UK artists currently find themselves at a distinct structural disadvantage as streaming services suggest to ’play next’ what is most popular in the pool of English language pop.

According to global research by DataPulse Research, British artists accounted for only 29% of Spotify UK’s Top 200 tracks over a period of 59 weeks. American artists, by comparison, occupied 55% of the total. Out of 73 countries monitored, the UK ranked 39th for its support of domestic talent, which is surprising for a country with such a strong musical legacy.

This situation seems reversed in non-English speaking countries where language is often synonymous with nationality. In Italy, for instance, Italian artists occupied 83% of Spotify’s Top 200 spots over the research period. In Denmark, it was 67%. In France, 60%. In Sweden, 53%. In Germany 48%.

Given the UK’s amazing musical heritage, the true picture is even more skewed for new UK artists. At the time of writing, for example, Spotify UK’s Top 200 includes multiple 10+ year-old tracks by Coldplay, Amy Winehouse, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, Keane, Snow Patrol, The Kooks, Florence + The Machine, Franz Ferdinand, Radiohead, Kate Bush, Tears For Fears, Stereophonics, The Verve, Gorillaz, The Cure, The Police and Fleetwood Mac.

This is “glocalisation” in stark effect. Music economist, Will Page, summarised this situation perfectly in a recent opinion piece when he wrote:

“My current definition of glocalisation is that, if you’re a non-English speaking country with a strong identity, it’s a force for good. However, if you are English-speaking and non-American, you’re absolutely screwed. That means the UK, Canada and Australia are seeing the local presence of their own artists in their local markets fall off a cliff.”

The dilemma is particularly pronounced in Australia, where recorded revenues increased by 25% between 2021 and 2024, but the share of that revenue going to local artists decreased by almost a third. The fall in Australian artists being streamed has been equally drastic. In 2021, they accounted for 932 of every 10,000 artists being played on DSPs. By 2024, that number had dwindled to 773.

Without addressing these trends, there are growing fears that the UK may be soon in the same position as Australia – with $9 out of every $10 that Australians pay for music subscriptions flowing immediately out of the country

Other common language markets seem to be experiencing similar dynamics. Mexico, for example, is the world’s largest Spanish-speaking country. As a result, Música Mexicana is surging in other Spanish speaking countries as algorithms pick up and recommend the most popular songs in each genre. Spotify’s chart in Spain ranks alongside the UK in its absence of local talent, despite Spain producing stand out global talent Rosalía, whose performance at the Brits with Bjork completely blew me away.

Compounded by stresses elsewhere in the UK’s music business – for example, the huge rise in AI slop flooding platforms making it difficult to cut through, challenges for UK artists accessing finance; increased costs of performing live, uncertainty over funding of the BBC – the future success of British music looks far less assured.

So how should we, as an industry, respond and adapt to these changing tides?

For a start, we may do well to explore some of the solutions being proposed Down Under. The recent paper published by The Australia Institute (co-authored by Will Page), recommended two interventions: firstly, to encourage deeper collaborations between DSPs and public broadcasters that drive local, human-led curation; and secondly, to develop more proactive and coordinated export and funding strategies for music.

The UK is already taking several leaves from this book – notably with the launch of the LIVE Trust and adoption of an in-built ticket contribution at UK arena and stadium shows to support UK grassroots music including through the UK Artist Touring Fund. YouTube streaming the Brits, alongside the ITV broadcast, helps showcase UK talent to both national and international audiences, and the BBC in-depth coverage of Glastonbury (on hiatus this year) is similarly important.

However, there is much more we could be doing.

While I suspect many in the UK would squirm at the idea of quotas, despite their use in markets like Canada and France, there is a clear need to engage more deeply with streaming platforms and ensure they are consistently spotlighting the full depth and diversity of British talent – rather than outsourcing curation to a global algorithm.

Most of the grassroots gigs I go to have older audiences (often double the age of the musicians onstage!), whereas stadiums and arenas attract a younger crowd. This is partly due to demographics with younger listeners listening through music platforms, rather than broadcast radio, and being passively pushed international music before local. Getting national discovery working again would help fill out those venues and bring a younger audience to see young bands.

We should also be exploring ideas like the Irish Homegrown chart supported by RTE which has coincided with a purple patch for Irish music by shining a light on talent that otherwise wouldn’t feature in Ireland’s domestic Top 40.

This is not a time for complacency letting the market or the algorithm determine our musical fate. We cannot rest on our laurels. To ensure domestic and international success, we need a clear, comprehensive and concerted strategy for the next ten years.

That means political involvement too. The UK Government is currently working on a British music strategy. This should acknowledge the difficulties British artists face domestically and target strategic interventions including through the £ 30m Music Growth package to reverse the decline. In fact as Patrick Clifton notes in his latest substack there is a potentially huge payday of tens of millions of pounds that could return to the domestic value chain if we can get UK listeners listening to UK artists again. Now I’m sure that would be of interest to the Exchequer..

Music managers are the industry’s indispensable entrepreneurs – the front-footed investors, strategists, and talent developers. Yet, the financial models designed to compensate managers are rooted firmly in the past, creating an unsustainable dichotomy between the enormous value managers generate and the long-term security they can access.

This isn’t a theory; it’s a gap laid bare by two key MMF data reports.

The Value We Create: The ROI of a Manager

Last month, at the MMF’s Manager Summit, we unveiled a first-of-its-kind report by RMR Research, Jem Associates, and The Hub, which attempted to put a demonstrable value on the services and expertise managers provide. The conclusions are a powerful validation of our sector:

The work of music managers generates an estimated £714 million in value for the wider UK music industry.

To put it simply: For every £1 invested in a manager, an additional £8 is generated across the music business.

This value is not just financial; it’s structural. The report highlighted that as other parts of the business have retrenched and consolidated, it is typically managers who step up, acting as business builders and developing overall strategy for their clients. This work generates a positive ripple effect across labels, publishers, agents, and more – accounting for 88% of the total value in increased earnings, productivity, and well-being for the artists, songwriters, and producers we represent.

The Fragility We Face: The Price of Innovation

Despite this proof of our essential role, the findings from our annual MMF membership survey reveal a sector still operating from a place of chronic fragility. The majority of our members are freelance, self-employed, or run their own management business, facing a reality where the demands of talent development increase exponentially while their own business security is minimal.

The risk is inherent and systemic:

The Commission Trap: Around half of managers who responded charge a “conventional” 20% commission. Yet, even this traditional model offers poor protection. After a year of work, only 60% have a formal management agreement in place and as it takes such a long time to develop new artists to become financially sustainable there probably isn’t much income to commission on any way at this stage.

The Sunset Clause Failure: Even more worryingly, about half of respondents confirm having a post-term commission provision (or “sunset clause”) in writing. Of those who try to exercise that clause this year 58% told us they have been unsuccessful in claiming the post-term earnings they are owed and this has got worse compared to previous years.

This is the dichotomy in sharp relief: managers are striving to help their clients build sustainable livelihoods, but are often sacrificing their own financial security in the process. This situation is not long-term sustainable for our sector or for the future of British talent.

The MMF’s Solution: Professionalising the Future

The MMF is committed to resolving these fundamental dynamics and dilemmas head-on. Our core mission is to change mindsets and secure the acknowledgement that if managers are to serve their clients to the best of their abilities, they need sustainable, professional businesses too.

We are seeing organic change, with almost 20% of respondents breaking free of conventional protocols, opting for alternative payment models like retainers, consultancy fees, or joint ventures on recordings or publishing. Interestingly an increasing number of UK managers who responded, nearly 20%, are now charging gross rather than net on live (as is the norm with US managers).

This evolution, outlined in our Management Deals Guide, is exactly the kind of innovation we must accelerate to make management more sustainable as a career.

This is why we have dramatically increased and evolved our professional development services:

The Manager Certification Programme

We have recently launched the MMF’s new Manager Certification Programme, developed in partnership with experts from Prager Metis, SRLV, BAND Advisory Group, CMU, and Simkins LLP.

The Goal: Not to teach managers how to “suck eggs,” but to create a widely understood, industry-recognized benchmark that validates the professionalism, knowledge, and standards of our members.

The Impact: This rigorous program, built around a testing two-hour exam, will elevate our entire profession. We aim to announce our first tranche of certified managers shortly, establishing this as a cornerstone of the MMF’s work.

Training, Resources and Finance

Alongside Certification, we will continue to deliver programmes designed to equip managers for the realities of the modern industry:

Essentials, Live & Touring and Deals courses: launching a revitalised range of in person training courses designed to support those starting in management and looking to specialise.

Mental Health support & peer groups with Music Minds Matter

Exclusive Guides: Publishing essential resources like our ‘Guide To Alternative Finance’ to empower managers to explore new business models.

Professional Tier: Offering exclusive educational sessions and networking opportunities, encouraging managers to formalise their business structure and knowledge.

The future of the UK music business depends on a robust, professional, and financially secure management sector. The MMF will continue to drive this change, providing the tools and the accreditation necessary to ensure that the managers of creators who generate £714 million in value for the wider industry are fully compensated and protected for their indispensable work.

It’s been amazing to have the backing of all 3 majors, FAC and AIM for manager certification – they all recognise that competent, professional managers make their lives far easier. We also need others in the industry, especially music lawyers, to show similar spirit and support managers who are looking to break conventions + moulds. It’s in everyone’s interest, especially artists, to have qualified professional managers who are able to sustain careers.

What is the single biggest change you believe is needed to secure the long-term future of music management?

As many of the MMF’s membership will tell you, third-party funding has become an essential part of creative development — especially as more and more artists and songwriters choose to operate as self-sustaining businesses, and as label and publisher advances are spread more thinly.

Managers are increasingly using their ingenuity to source and tap into new sources of finance, and, in many instances, are becoming early-stage investors themselves.

PRS Foundation has exemplified this emerging model. Under the forward-thinking stewardship of former CEO Vanessa Reed, and now under Joe Frankland, the range of support they offer has become a crucial part of our ecosystem — whether that’s helping plug the “investment gap” with programmes like Momentum or the International Showcase Fund, or pushing forward with trailblazing initiatives like Women Make Music, Keychange and Power Up.

Rather than just talk about diversity and inclusivity, the Foundation has made a tangible difference to our landscape. They have shown real leadership and the charity has now funded around 8,000 new music initiatives since March 2000, enabling songwriters, composers and artists from every conceivable genre to take the next step in their career, both creatively and commercially.

In a climate of increased touring costs and slow ticket sales, exacerbated by the cost of living crisis, early stage support is vital for the future of British Music. A potential solution to talent funding was raised by the MMF and FAC back in 2020 in our joint submission to the DCMS Committee inquiry on the economics of streaming.

In this document, we proposed a change to how PRS treated ‘unallocated’ or ‘unmatched’ digital song royalties revenues — more commonly referred to as “black box” collections.

At present, this ‘unclaimed’ revenue from streaming, where the copyright owner cannot be recognised or traced due to missing data or thresholds, is eventually re-distributed pro-rata by market share. In practice, this means a substantial sum is passed through to the major publishers and PRS member writers. As an alternative, we suggested it should be used to fund “data, educational or grassroots initiatives’’ — a proposal supported by The Ivors Academy, as well as the Select Committee itself, who eventually made a recommendation that the Government should:

“Work with industry to end the practice of distributing black boxes pro rata and, instead, place obligations on collecting societies that mean that this revenue is reinvested in the industry, such as to support creative talent and or develop solutions to revenue distribution issues. The Government should concurrently commission an exploratory audit of black boxes to achieve greater clarity as to what is genuinely impossible to allocate and what is mis- or un-allocated due to a lack of will.”

The MMF would warmly welcome such an audit, and the redistribution of “unmatched” royalties in this way until the wider industry data issues are resolved. In fact, given that a large slice of this money is likely to belong to emerging songwriters and composers anyway — ie those who don’t have the expertise of a publisher to ensure their songwriting metadata was correctly uploaded and tracked — it seems perfectly reasonable to make this adjustment.

More than that, it could also bring the UK into parity with other European collecting societies, who are already spending substantially more on cultural and social initiatives.

For instance, PRS’s £2.75m donation to the Foundation in 2020 (approximately 0.34% of 2019’s collections) was dwarfed by the €9.6m committed by the Danish society, KODA, to its Kultur fund. In France, SACEM spent €32.4m supporting cultural and artistic projects, while GEMA invested approximately 10% of performance and broadcasting collections towards social and cultural purposes.

As detailed in our recently-published $ong Royalties Manifesto, we would also urge greater transparency from PRS about the size and scale of these “unmatched” revenues, where they are coming from, why they’re not being claimed and the efforts being made to find their rightful owners. We also have a proposal for how in the longer term connecting song and recording data at the point of release would help reduce the size of this black box and ensure the money is going back to the songwriters who actually wrote the songs. However in the meantime this and much money should be used for better purposes than topping up revenues of the publishers or big PRS member writers.

I know PRS has been forced onto the back foot by this mounting criticism, but it’s not too late to retrieve this situation. According to the just published 2021 Transparency Report, £2.2m is held up on ‘data issues’, £1.1m on ‘policy issues’ and £6.8m ‘residuals’, a total of £10m in delayed distributions on top of the £114m invoices but not yet attributed ‘works in progress’ which may eventually be matched — or may not — and eventually dished out on market share.

PRS Members’ Council has the power to “direct” whether non-distributable revenues are used for supporting social and cultural objectives. I would urge those publisher and writer members of the Council to do just that, and commit a substantial increase in their funding of grassroots and talent development.

Considering what the Foundation has achieved on fairly modest means, just imagine what such an injection could secure for the future of British music.

Following the new year BPI statistics about the successful growth of recorded music throughout the pandemic, I was interested to read a piece last week by Lord Vaizey, a former Minister of State for culture and the digital economy for The Times about the state of the UK record business.

Despite a strong headline (“A dated understanding of the music industry is holding us back”) the piece actually came across as directed at a small interest group of public policy experts, trade bodies and commentators rather than the newspaper’s general readership.

Effectively, it makes the following points: as a result of streaming, the UK’s record business now exists within a complex online global marketplace; the control of major record labels has diminished accordingly (43.1% of the market being controlled by independent labels and other “service providers”); and that the increase in competition has resulted in a fundamental challenges to the previously unrivaled dominance of UK talent.

Because of this combination of factors, regulators at the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) should therefore tread carefully in their upcoming investigation of the UK’s recorded music market. 2020, Lord Vaizey notes sagely, was the first year in history that a British act failed to appear among the IFPI’s top ten best-selling acts in the world.

In truth, these stats are unlikely to be indicative of global trends, but simply a reflection that neither Adele or Ed Sheeran released new albums in 2020, and no major catalogue projects were announced by The Beatles or Queen. The situation is likely to be rectified in 2021 following the successes of “30”, “=” and “Get Back”.

Anyway, the clear inference being made is that regulators should not interfere or rock the boat. Coincidentally, this is also a view shared by lobbyists for the record industry.

What’s conspicuously absent from the narrative is 2021’s elephant in the room: the ongoing and egregious failures of the music industry to properly share the growth in streaming with artists.

Following a year of extensive investigation by the DCMS Select Select Committee, I think all people involved in this debate agree that streaming is a wonderful thing. They also acknowledge that the globalised dynamics of online music distribution have opened up all manner of opportunities to artists (especially artists from outside the UK) and that those artists now have many more routes to market than when Lord Vaizey held ministerial office.

However, what many do have an issue with are outdated licensing and contractual frameworks that favour and overcompensate major labels at the expense of artists, songwriters, producers and musicians – the vast majority of whom are not sharing equitably in the ongoing streaming boom.

In fact, when considered alongside recently published analysis from MIDiA, that found a substantial proportion of the labels surge in 2021 online revenues could be attributed to “large one-off payments [and licensing income] from the likes of Bytedance, Twitch and Facebook”, these market dysfunctions currently look even more acute.

Despite the recorded market share of the three major labels falling to 56.9%, when it comes to licensing negotiations it appears they continue to extract unfeasibly large slices of licensing revenues in the form of these upfront unattributable payments – typically with little transparency about the sums involved, and how or if any of the revenues will be allocated to artists. With so much of the “digital pie” consumed as part of label negotiations, the artists signed to those labels – not to mention those entities who represent the other 43.1% of the recorded market – are left competing over crumbs.

Such practices might reflect the world as it was ten years ago, when major record labels wielded greater influence and artists had fewer options in distributing and financing their music – however, they do not reflect the world now. The majors can not continue having their cake and eating it.

As the MMF have consistently advocated in our Dissecting The Digital Dollar publications, and in submission after submission to Government with the Featured Artists Coalition, it’s now high time for significant changes in how streaming services are licensed and how artist contracts are constructed. While we welcome and encourage progressive changes from within the music industry, such as Sony Music’s decision to disregard unrecouped balances for artists signed before 2000, it increasingly feels that legislation will be required to ensure the necessary changes are delivered. With around 70% of current music consumption, and therefore value, coming from catalogue, the deals those artists were signed to are material in assessing the fairness of streaming. The existence of a more competitive market for new signings does not negate this.

Lord Vaizey is absolutely right that the CMA must acknowledge recent evolutions in the market, the impact of emerging digital services and the globalised dynamics of streaming. But it is even more vital that they and the UK Government which is currently investigating the issues with the market, can understand the litany of outdated practices that have not kept pace with these changes. This will need to be rectified if the UK music business has aspirations to be the best in the world.

Further reading

BPI latest stats Jan 2022

https://www.bpi.co.uk/news-analysis/2021-in-music-more-artists-succeed-as-streaming-drives-music-growth-fuelled-by-record-label-investment/

Ed Vaizey piece in the Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-dated-understanding-of-the-music-industry-is-holding-us-back-m0l2vn93l

Midia piece on lump sum payments

https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/major-label-revenue-surged-in-2021-but-what-does-that-mean

Dissecting the Digital Dollar reports explaining music streaming licensing and the issues this creates

https://www.theMMF.net/digtaldollar

MMF/FAC White Paper on Streaming

https://thefac.org/news-directory/fac-mmf-white-paper

ERA on Consumer Spending on Music increasing

https://musically.com/2022/01/13/consumer-spending-on-music-uk-grew-2021/

DCMS select cttee report

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmcumeds/50/5002.htm

Government response

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5802/cmselect/cmcumeds/719/71902.htm

If the DCMS Select Committee placed a microscope over artists and songwriter earnings in the streaming age in 2021, developments since then have arguably gone even further. The UK Government’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) have now initiated roundtable discussions and more detailed research that aims to delve into the real world impacts of streaming on the mechanics of our industry, and establish if reforms of those mechanisms might lead to better outcomes for artists, songwriters, producers and musicians.

These are all questions the MMF has been asking since starting our Dissecting The Digital Dollar initiative in 2014. Back then, according to IFPI data, “digital music” was finally providing equal revenues to recorded industry coffers as physical formats – with streaming and subscription services accounting for approximately one quarter of digital’s total. An estimated 41m people worldwide were paying for a monthly music subscription, and, for recorded industry trade bodies, the most pressing public policy issue was “the value gap”.

Fast forward to the most recent IFPI figures and, not only did global recorded revenues grow by 7.3% over the course of a pandemic that decimated the livelihoods of many artists and music makers, but subscription and ad-supported streaming now accounts for almost two-thirds of all recorded income.

It’s been an incredible shift.

In the space of seven years, the tectonic plates of recorded music have moved seismically from a commercial model based on unit sales and retail, to one dependent on monthly subscriptions, data and social media marketing. Where commentators once talked about a mythical “Fifty-Quid Bloke” (so named, because ‘he’ would spend that much each Friday evening at the local record shop) the value of “music consumers” is now measured by ARPU.

It’s no wonder that contracts and mechanisms designed for a pre-streaming era have struggled to keep up, or that, in a highly consolidated market, a growing chorus of creators, policy makers and commentators believe that the rules of engagement and distribution are stacked unfairly against artists, composers and other music makers.

This slightly subjective concept of “fairness” is already a major discussion point at an upcoming pan-industry contact group meeting organised by the IPO on Wednesday 1st December.

But what do we mean by “fairness”?

From an MMF perspective, we believe that the term should simply relate to an acknowledgement of the facts above – that the recorded music business has changed irrevocably, and that this needs to be better reflected in the industry’s power structures and contractual arrangements.

It is hardly unprecedented for markets to accept regulation that constrains the notion of ‘freedom to contract’. Governments regularly intervene in other sectors where it is believed that imbalance in negotiating power prevents ‘fairness’.

State intervention is evident in areas as diverse as UK employment laws – protecting workers with, for instance, safeguards for a minimum wage or statutory maternity pay – or price caps on energy prices, or a whole string of consumer protection legislation. More recently, we’ve had changes to property laws with a right to buy freeholds introduced in 2018, alongside huge challenges to the so-called “gig economy” and the liabilities of companies such as Uber, Deliveroo or Purplebricks.

All these changes have been resisted. Yet all have been enacted to encourage markets to function better, and to address power balances that have tilted into areas of obvious unfairness. The sky hasn’t fallen in.

In the current environment, it’s easy to see why similar interventions might also be pertinent to music.

One the one hand, a new artist today, navigating the online world, has far greater choice in how they take their music to market. Certainly compared to an artist from 20 years ago, who would’ve been constrained by a narrow range of gatekeepers, media, playlists and shelf space. Many genres were bypassed entirely. In the words of Sony Music UK CEO & Chair Jason Iley, speaking to MPs at the DCMS Committee in January, “There is more competition in the music industry now than in my 30 years of doing this job.”

This is undeniably true.

However, it is also a relatively recent scenario. Before digital innovation afforded greater opportunities to artists, it would be a bit of stretch to suggest they enjoyed ‘freedom to contract’. The reality of the pre-streaming era was more akin to Hobson’s Choice, most artists, who frequently signed as teenagers, had to accept the standard deal of life-of-copyright contract. The vast majority would never recoup; royalty statements locked forever in the red – even if their recordings became “profitable”. Only those with leverage could renegotiate and the rest were stuck on out-dated physical royalties often with ridiculous deductions.

Such imbalances still permeate the streaming economy.

In a market where three major corporations control the lion’s share of recorded and publishing rights, it’s also certain that those corporations will enjoy key structural advantages and, because of a fiduciary duty to their shareholders, be resistant to ceding these benefits.

While discussions about “fixing” the streaming market focus predominantly on streaming rates and equitable remuneration, there’s arguably been too little emphasis on the large advance payments from digital services to the three major labels (and Merlin) that typically act as a prerequisite to licensing negotiations, as well as other contractual conditions related to marketing or playlisting.

Arguing about hundredths of a penny per stream becomes a slightly moot point when music corporations are reportedly receiving upwards of hundreds of millions of pounds in lump sum payments from licensing or relicensing services. Whether it’s “fair” for repertoire to be used as leverage in this way, without a commitment that artists and songwriters will benefit materially, becomes the far more pertinent question. In some cases (such as the sale of equity) labels have committed to share lump sums but this is mostly on a case-by-case basis not a policy applied to all new deals.

Equally, the fairness test should also apply to historic contracts between artists and record labels. How can it be feasible that contracts agreed on terms of unit-based sales in a pre-streaming era, are now interpreted through the lens of consumption on Spotify, YouTube or Apple Music? Or that those rights were signed away in perpetuity on fixed (low) royalites that made economic sense at the time but now which seem massively unfair and outdated?

This is why the MMF has consistently argued for updates to UK copyright law, adding a contract adjustment mechanism and rights reversion to the artist after a certain period of time. This, we believe, would inject greater fairness into the market; boosting competition for copyrights. This arguably would benefit record labels and music publishers who could then potentially bid for seasoned evergreen repertoire of proven value.

Music should be no different to other sectors of the economy. It is not peculiar. The intention of political intervention is not to “stifle investment”, as certain voices would have us believe, but to unleash it. And on a fairer and more sustainable basis.

Partnerships between artists and their managers have always been crucial to navigating success in the music business – and never more so than today, in a globalised market where over 60,000 tracks are uploaded each day to streaming services, where routes to market are multiplying and audiences are served an unceasing torrent of music, video, podcasts, books, games, messages, links and photos.

There’s a lot of competition for attention!

For better or worse, a manager’s job is to comprehend and traverse this ever-shifting landscape – providing professional and personal guidance for their clients to help them reach their creative and commercial goals.

And while our 24/7 “always-on” social media culture has undoubtedly changed the music business forever, and presented enormous opportunities to reach truly global audiences, it’s also had profound effects elsewhere – not least by encouraging more people to make music, and more people to take on the role of managers to support them.

The growth in the MMF’s membership, which recently surpassed 1,200 – more than doubling our representation from a few years ago – is clear evidence of this change. What was once perceived (or stereotyped) as a “man’s job”, is also in the process of diversification. These days, music managers are just as likely to be female, people of colour, and of all ages and classes. There are incredible role models from every conceivable background – from those starting out managing friends or relatives, through to established managers of global superstars. And, as shown by the Accelerator Programme we run with YouTube Music, a seemingly unstoppable range of talent continues to come through. These are hugely exciting times.

Our landmark 2019 report, Managing Expectations, illustrates just how diverse the profession has become, with music management encompassing both long-established global businesses and a small army of freelancers who juggle a multitude of jobs. The majority are investing finance as well as time in their artists’ businesses, as part of a development process that might take years to reach fruition.

It’s an incredibly tough, dedicated and precarious job, and one where there is little security. Most managers still work on a commission basis and, in an often volatile industry, the rug can be pulled from underfoot at any moment.

Indeed, 20% of those we surveyed back in 2019 saw zero earnings from the time they spent on artist management. Of those who do make money, 55% earn under £10k, 7.5% earn between £10-£20k, 9.5% earn between £30-£50k, 15% earn £50-£100k and 5% earn £100k+.

Over the past 18 months, the pandemic has made a tough job even tougher. Most managers have kept working for their artists even though the income has dried up.

Added to this are the pressures of increasing workloads, of a demanding digital culture, and the resulting impacts on mental health. Artists can be incredibly vulnerable, while management can be incredibly isolating. And that’s before we even touch on societal problems such as sexism, racism or homophobia – all as plainly evident in the music business as they are in other walks of life. As well as representing their clients’ commercial interests, the vast majority of managers take their responsibilities around duty of care incredibly seriously.

These issues have also been on the radar of politicians and Government for some time – whether that’s a focus on online bullying and harassment in the upcoming Online Harms Bill, the Leveson Inquiry around media intrusion and phone hacking, or the DCMS Committee inquiry on reality TV and the impact on participants of shows such as Jeremy Kyle, Benefits Street or Love Island.

Quite rightly, music is not immune from these conversations. Along with other members of UK Music and the MMF’s Chair, Paul Craig, I have participated in a string of high-level meetings focussed on artist and performer welfare. The role played by trade bodies in promoting higher professional standards is something we take incredibly seriously at the MMF. It’s an area where we constantly engage with our members and why we have updated both our Mental Health Guide for Managers and the Code of Practice that all who join the MMF are required to be aware of and adhere to.

In turn, these conversations feed into even bigger debates concerning the shifting dynamics of the music industry, much of it played out via the DCMS Select Committee and their inquiry into the economics of streaming. Leaving very few stones unturned, this process has involved all constituents in the business and is effectively looking to recalibrate a wide variety of outdated practices.

The power balance between artist and managers is very much part of this, as we examine whether traditional ways of working remain fit for purpose and strive to establish new standards and clarity about everything from how managers are paid and what they commission on, through to sunset clauses after a business relationship ends. When relationships do break down, as occurs in many walks of life, many managers struggle to find the resources to enforce their rights to be retrospectively compensated for the time they invested in their clients careers.

From an MMF perspective, our aim is to raise standards across the board and construct a sustainable music business built on mutual respect, good communications and trust.

Developed in consultation with artists and legal experts, our Code of Practice is an incredibly important aspect of this process – promoting transparency, clarity, financial probity and ethics, as well as specific sections on sexual harassment and abiding by legal frameworks that govern working with minors such as attaining DBS checks, and anti-discrimination laws such as the 2010 UK Equalities Act.

Complementing rights in contractual, commercial or criminal law, we believe our Code offers an effective approach to champion improving standards and professionalising the role of music management, while ensuring we can influence and impact the widest pool of people coming into management roles.

One suggestion to try to prevent poor conduct that has been mooted is a form of upfront licensing. Such systems do operate in other UK sectors – for instance, with football agents – albeit, in that instance, the licensing regime is self-regulatory and overseen by the Football Association not government.

Although certainly worth exploring, whether such a system is appropriate to music, whether it should be limited solely to managers and agents is debatable – and that’s before you broach thornier issues such as the scope of regulation (conduct, contractual) and who would issue the licence.

For instance, could a quasi-judicial body cover freelance as well as employee managers? Would it also cover the behaviour of established artists, who may hold dominance in the partnership with their manager? And should it cover the wider industry? An industry that’s becoming ever harder to define and stretches way beyond the core businesses of recording, publishing and live into digital, brands, fashion, media and a host of other areas.

Also, in the most serious of situations, would any allegations need to first be proven in a court of law (for example bullying or harassment) before a regulator could act, and if not, would any decision they rule on be open to legal challenge?

There are also potential implications that an upfront cost of licencing for managers alone would take place could act as a barrier to entry in the sector for early stage managers and inhibit skills development (managers helping out friends making music is often the entry route into the profession). Research carried out on manager licensing introduced in the state of Victoria, Australia, concluded that the administrative and bureaucratic requirements were especially prohibitive for new managers, resulting in larger, more established management companies holding on to their already robust competitive advantage when seeking to partner with artists. Young people and those without pre-existing contacts in the music industry could be disadvantaged further by prohibitive licensing structures. Our sector has become increasingly diverse in the past decade and introducing upfront licencing costs could make it more elite and narrow.

As part of a review of the whole creative sector led by the Creative Industries Federation that reports into DCMS, MMF is currently working with UK Music, the BPI and Musicians Union to explore how we raise standards across the whole music industry and put in support mechanisms with Help Musicians for those who need them.

Similarly, Film and TV are increasingly looking at setting standards with the BFI – recently producing guidance to help employers tackle bullying and harassment and they are part of the same process looking at how we support all freelancers across the creative industries.

As a result of these conversations, there’s already collective discussions around the creation of a possible cross-sector Independent Standards Agency (or ISA) that could help make the entire creative industries more accountable and provide a safe space for all individuals to find professional advice concerning current or historic harassment, discrimination, sexual discrimination or assault. This could potentially bring in sanctions for those breaching agreed standards but doesn’t assume (as upfront licencing would) that all creative professionals are going to commit offenses.

More work needs to be done on this but it feels that combined with initiatives like our Code of Practice, such an independent body could provide a step forward.

The MMF now represents most management companies in the UK (with 1200 members), and the specifics of our Code already go way beyond the governance or articles of association of most other trade bodies. All artists, labels, lawyers and accountants should be ensuring that the managers they work with are signed up to it. Building respect, trust and good communication between all who work in the dream industries should be a shared goal.

In a creative business where there will always be tension and division, and where struggle will always outweigh success, I maintain that our goal should always be to educate, to raise standards, to provide support and strive to make things work better tomorrow than they do today.

For obvious reasons, the Artists and Manager Awards – celebrating achievements in 2020 across the FAC and MMF’s community – did not take place at the Bloomsbury Big Top last year. Instead, we have “reimagined” the ceremony as a short 30m documentary, exploring the work and partnerships between our five incredible winners.

The resulting film will premiere tonight on YouTube at 7pm.

To say the experience has been an unpredictable and somewhat turbulent journey would be something of an understatement! However, it has also been a joyous experiment, full of adventure, resulting in what we think is a beautiful and insightful documentary that explores some of the unique dynamics in Artist-Manager relationships. Those being recognised have all generously opened up their worlds to a skeletal film crew, led by the brilliant director Raja Virdi, to reflect on the challenges and successes of the past twelve months. While the ever-changing lockdown restrictions and no-nonsense covid safety precautions presented their fair share of challenges, everyone involved came together to ensure the project was completed safely and successfully.

Among the FAC and MMF membership, the Artist and Manager Awards has always been seen as the ‘fun’ award ceremony. It is a rare occasion when artists and managers (who frequently run a mile from personal recognition or accolades!) are celebrated for their determination, creativity, and most importantly, their teamwork. In the absence of an event where we can all come together, the film is a love letter to the strange alchemy that creates a long, committed artist and manager relationship and we feel privileged to have the chance to share this with our own communities, our industry peers, as well as future artists and aspiring managers.

But first, a quick rundown of that star-filled cast!

Our Leading Artist and Manager Award, sponsored by YouTube Music goes to the impeccable Michael Kiwanuka and Starwood Management, who last year should have been enjoying the full fruits of success from Michael’s Mercury-winning and Grammy-nominated third album, KIWANUKA. This astonishing record won fulsome critical acclaim, but also epitomises the word “teamwork”.

Starwood’s Rob Swerdlow, who appears alongside Michael, describes the artist/manager partnership as a “marriage”, and uses the film to reflect on the early days of their 11-year relationship, their approach to work, the importance of their live crew and long-time support from David Joseph at record label Polydor. As Michael says in his closing words: “Get yourself a good team!” Sound advice for any aspiring artist.

Despite the Prime Minister’s announcement on Monday and the presentation of a ‘road map’, we certainly wanted to recognise the importance of teamwork and all those ‘behind the scenes’ workers who’ve been so devastatingly impacted by the pandemic. It’s important for us to recognise the myriad of skills and contributions from everyone involved in making a beautiful record or delivering a triumphant campaign.

As uncertainty continues, and as we endeavor to piece together information and guidance on when artists might return to playing live shows again, it’s important that the industry continues working collaboratively. Through our participation in UK Music, the newly established live music umbrella body LIVE, the FAC and MMF are fully engaged in discussions with the Government on returning to live music safely. Until this time we must do all we can to protect those most at risk, and those who will not be able to return to work for over a year, including crew. There are also multiple ongoing discussions on how to mitigate potential bureaucratic costs resulting from Brexit when European touring does return as the vaccine rolls out. We believe there are solutions to be found, but these will require generous and dedicated collaboration across the music business.

Building a team has also been key to the mounting successes of Michael Adex and Northern Quarterz, who receives our Entrepreneur Award (sponsored by Songtrust). As well as supporting the rise of Aitch, Adex is opening up a Northern Quarterz HQ in Manchester this month – a high-spec creative hub that will provide office space, alongside music and photographic studio facilities. Adex’s ambitions are as global as they are local, and entrepreneurial as much as they are ambitious, and we extend our congratulations to him for this award.

In celebration of their incredible 30-year professional partnership, our Pioneer Artist & Manager Awards, sponsored by PPL, goes to Skin and her manager Leigh Johnson. Throughout Leigh’s management of Skunk Anansie and Skin’s own individual projects, this relationship has been one of sustained trust and commitment. Both are genuine and shining inspirations, and we are proud to highlight Skin and Leigh’s contribution to the music industry, their energy and commitment, not least as two women working in the white male dominated rock genre.

Coming to wider public attention after her prominent placing on the BBC’s Sound of 2020, Arlo Parks’ music has offered many of us melodic comfort and solace during the lockdown period. Arlo and her manager Ali Raymond receive the Breakthrough Artist & Manager Awards, sponsored by Spotify. Recently entering the UK charts at number three with debut album, Collapsed in Sunbeams released through Transgressive, this artist/manager team is also a great demonstration of truly independent music. This has been a stunning campaign which, despite the pandemic, has stayed on course during an unbelievably challenging year while maintaining the sincerity of Arlo’s music. We are very proud to be celebrating such a fantastic talent who is clearly set for a long, happy and sustained career in music.

Finally, we are delighted to recognise Driift with our Innovation Award. Founded last year in response to the sudden shutdown of live shows by ATC Management’s Ric Salmon and Brian Message, Driift has been a true pioneer in the livestream space and set the pace for ticketed online events. In operation for a little over six months, the business kicked off with a groundbreaking performance from Laura Marling at London’s Union Chapel, and has since built a variety of partnerships to deliver equally stunning events for artists as varied as Niall Horan, Biffy Clyro, Nick Cave, Andrea Bocelli, Lianne La Havas, Sleaford Mods, Kylie Minogue and Dermot Kennedy. In conversation with Beggars Group’s Ruth Barlow, a founding investor in the business, Ric gives us a flavour of the background to this incredible journey, and how Driift have already sold around 500,000 tickets to music fans all over the world.

We hope everyone who watches tonight’s premiere, or who catches up at a later date, will get something from it. As well as a heartfelt thank you to our winners for opening their worlds to our camera lens, we also want to pay tribute to our sponsors at PPL, Spotify, Songtrust and YouTube Music for having the confidence and trust to back the project.

If you do tune in tonight and would like to donate to our brilliant charity partner Attitude is Everything, a universally-respected organisation that works so tirelessly to make live music more inclusive for Deaf and disabled people, that is something we would all hugely appreciate.

For anyone upcoming artist or aspiring manager, we hope this film will inspire your future career and encourage you to join up to the FAC or MMF. And perhaps one day soon, we’ll be recognising your successes in a future awards show in a big tent in the centre of London.

Annabella Coldrick, Chief Executive, Music Managers Forum

David Martin, CEO, Featured Artists Coalition

The collapse in live music due to the pandemic has put an increasing focus on artists recorded income. This combined with the Black Lives Matter movement has led to a spotlight on the injustices of legacy contracts and calls for all labels to systematically review and reform unfair deductions designed to reduce artists royalty payments. In this light MMF warmly welcomes last week’s announcement by BMG to eliminate all so-called “controlled composition clauses” from the company’s North American recording contracts.

Historically, controlled composition clauses were forced upon artist-composers by US record labels, bestowing the former a 25% discount on the statutory rate for mechanical royalty payments at the expense of the latter.

Although use of controlled composition clauses is limited to physical releases, such financial chicanery is still, according to BMG’s estimates, displacing around $14m that should have been paid by labels to creators.

A not insignificant sum, especially in the current climate, but also an important statement on principles of fairness. I certainly hope that other US record labels who haven’t yet addressed this point also update their contracts as well as removing the cap on the number of tracks per album (relevant for physical releases).

In the words of BMG’s CEO, Hartwig Masuch: “It is unacceptable for the record industry to continue to apply deal terms which are solely designed to reduce the incomes of musicians. We have heard a lot during the coronavirus crisis of initiatives by music companies to support artists. The best way to support artists is not to subject them to unfair terms in the first place”.

I suspect few music managers would disagree with Hartwig’s stance, and it’s heartening that an increasing number of forward-thinking label and publishing executives are committed to changing and rebalancing the commercial dynamics between “rights owners” and artists.

Martin Mills at Beggars Group, for instance, suggested 5 key reforms for labels almost 5 years ago, including a minimum 15% royalty for digital exploitation for all existing contracts (low but with no further deductions), a writing off of unrecouped artist balances after 20 years, and the cessation of “breakage” in licensing negotiations when tied to “market share”.

As Martin eloquently put it, “Practices in negotiation which leave the artist poorer, confused and alienated should stop.”

An overhaul of legacy contracts was also at the heart of Kanye West’s online “manifesto”, published in mid-September, which suggested artists should own and lease their copyrights to label or publisher partners, and that those partners should assume the role of “service provider” rather than “rights owner”.

Of course, many new artists, especially those coming through via streaming services, have already made this shift. They are retaining ownership of their masters, they are working with label services or distribution companies, or striking new types of partnerships with record labels.

The challenges are far more pronounced with legacy contracts, designed for an analogue age and now shoehorned into a digital era.

And while stopping inequitable US practices on physical sales is one thing, some of the more significant market-wide changes – as outlined and identified in the MMF’s Dissecting The Digital Dollar publications – are needed in this area. Covid-19 and the collapse of live music has only instilled a renewed urgency to these conversations.

As we push for greater transparency around licensing, the MMF will continue to be at the heart of such debates – as will the European Music Managers Alliance, of which we are proud to be a founding member – watch this space for more news on how you can get involved in these discussions.

In the digital era, pretty much every technological shift in music has brought with it a degree of legal uncertainty, provoking industry lawyers to redefine emerging formats and forms of consumption and retrofit them to artist and composer contracts.

As explored in detail in the MMF’s Dissecting The Digital Dollar, this process has not been without problems, as highlighted by the advent of audio streaming, which appeared to sit somewhere between a radio broadcast and a download, while simultaneously being nothing like either. Eventually, the likes of Spotify and Apple Music were licensed by music publishers as incorporating both performance and mechanical (or reproduction) rights, like a kind of hybrid format. The tangle of recorded licensing deals, permeated with large upfront advances to the major labels and secretive breakage clauses, may never become transparent to artists and creators.

With that in mind, and given the economic outlook, it’s important that history doesn’t repeat itself in regards to the current pandemic-driven surge of livestreamed online events.

While this particular medium isn’t exactly new (20 years ago, Madonna was reaching a global audience of 9m from Brixton Academy, mostly on dial-up, via a partnership with MSN) the current shutdown of gigs and festivals has undoubtedly elevated the importance of livestreaming and triggered a wave of online activity. This has incorporated everything from lo-fi free-to-view (FTV) at-home lockdown performances over Instagram, YouTube, Facebook or Twitch, to innovative hi-end pay-per-view (PPV) models and in-game experiences on Fortnite and Minecraft. Further innovation will undoubtedly come from virtual reality technologies and other subscription-based platforms.

In a bleak and catastrophic year, particularly for the live sector, this shift has provided a welcome shot of optimism. Although born of necessity, it’s been utterly inspiring to see music managers at the heart of these innovations, building opportunities for their artists, and jumping feet first into the space. Their endeavours have helped re-pivot album campaigns, raise money for charity and, on a more innate human level, allow artists to create new and shared experiences with their audience. In a year of isolation and uncertainty, that’s been a lifeline.

A recent report by Bandsintown indicated the extent to which livestreaming has boomed, revealing a marked increase in the number of artists taking to performing online – with 30% of the artists they surveyed saying they planned to livestream at least once a week in the coming months.

Their activity appears to be finding a receptive audience. Bandsintown suggest that 73% of their respondents had watched a livestream by August 2020 (up from 33.8% before COVID) and 60% said they would continue to do so even when “in-person” events return.

This feels like an important shift. Aside from the constrictions of the here and now, it appears that livestreaming may play a permanent and considerable part in music’s future. Rather than audio-visual content being treated as “free” to the consumer, as it historically has been, there will be an increasing desire to monetise these experiences.

Which is where it gets more complex.

Because while a genuine one-off not-to-be-repeated livestream might be considered equal to an actual live «in-person» performance, with clearances (you would hope!) required only for publishing rights via the relevant PRO, elsewhere things are less clearcut.

For instance, what happens if your livestream is pre-recorded? Or if it’s retained online for playback? Or re-broadcast to other territories? Or if the artist is signed to a 360 deal?

All would potentially move away from territories traditionally reserved for «live» and deeper into record company territory – since artist contracts will typically give a label ownership over both audio and audio-visual recordings

There are other issues too.

Livestreams have set-up costs. These are potentially significant for PPV events. Many will require staffing, as well as marketing and ticketing. Others will be hosted in venues, which in turn opens up further challenges around event licensing and health and safety.

And what about platforms and the events themselves? Are they fully licensed for these activities? Should artists involve their agents or a promoter?

These are some big and, in many cases, unanswered questions.

At the current time, thankfully, it feels the vast majority of record labels are adopting a pragmatic and forward-thinking approach. In the middle of a pandemic, which has wreaked such enormous disruption upon artists and their teams, the last thing we need are business affairs teams playing hardball and making a contractual landgrab.

If anything, with this market in early stage development, it would be infinitely preferable to see a “tour support” approach to livestreaming, to help fund further innovation or underwrite set-up costs on the basis that labels will ultimately benefit through increased recorded sales and streams – much as they would with a traditional live show or festival. Artists, managers and their lawyers negotiating new deals should be thinking about how to future-proof their contracts, and aiming to clarify their rights to income for the first broadcast ‘as live’ per territory, if not future re-use and monetisation of the live recording.

While the biggest acts will find the financing of a livestream events less of an issue, and have fewer problems attracting outside backers, there will likely be funding gaps for more embryonic artists. Outside of existing industry partnerships, the Arts Council could play a role here, and they appear very open to funding live streaming projects (with or without an audience) through their National Lottery Project Grants and I would strongly encourage managers to explore this option. These can be professionally produced, ticketed events but need to demonstrate the need for additional support to make them financially viable.

More widely than that, all of us in the industry should have a mutual interest in ensuring that those platforms hosting live-streamed events have the necessary publishing licences in place. In this year of all years, it’s absolutely critical that artists, songwriters and performers get paid their dues.

As we know from streaming, ad-supported and paid can happily coexist side by side – but if livestreaming is to blossom and to realise its potential then it is vital we nurture this exciting space, not allow the biggest actors to define and control it.

Last night’s Government announcement caught everyone by surprise.

Most in the music industry were anticipating an update on emergency arts funding would be revealed in this Wednesday’s summer statement, yet at 10.30pm Sunday came confirmation from DCMS of a £1.57bn support package to ensure “arts groups and venues across the UK can stay afloat and support their staff whilst their doors remain closed and curtains remain down.”

It was an arresting headline, accompanied by welcoming words from the Royal Opera House alongside Directors of the Science, Natural History, British and V&A museums, as well as the National and Tate galleries and the Music Venues Trust.

£1.57bn certainly sounds a substantial sum.

However, live music alone contributes £5.2bn annually to the UK economy and supports an estimated 200,000 jobs.

Also, the £880m being made available as grants is reserved for the entire arts sector – in the Chancellor’s words, our “world-renowned galleries, museums, heritage sites, music venues and independent cinemas.” Given the devastating nationwide impact of coronavirus and the substantial losses already incurred, such resources will inevitably be stretched VERY thin.

And that’s before we mention two other elephants in the room.

First, live music has been completely shut down since March and will remain shutdown as long as social distancing is in place. The primary revenue stream for musicians is not being turned on, and nor should it be until venues are safe to return to.

Secondly, for all the references to buildings and institutions, the Government’s announcement made little mention of performers, workers or audiences.

In a sector dependent upon freelancers and small businesses, the majority of whom have struggled to access existing support packages, this has created a growing sense of unease. Their future still looks hideously uncertain.

These artists and creative workers were at the forefront of last Thursday’s Let The Music Play campaign, along with a central ask that they should receive a comprehensive support package, including an extension to the furlough scheme and help for the self-employed and sole traders.

Without that support, which alongside artists includes managers, crew, agents and promoters as well as the venues and festivals they play in, the live music sector will not function.

Annual research by Oxford Economics has repeatedly highlighted how music creators are responsible for almost half of the entire music industry’s contribution (GVA) to the UK economy. As any promoter will tell you, without the talent there isn’t a show.

This is something we need urgent clarity on.

For while £1.57bn is an astonishing sum of money that might save many things, if it’s inaccessible to artists and the people who support them, then it won’t save live music.