UK Music urges government to protect music industry from “Economic Storm” as wew report reveals sector’s fragile recovery
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UK Music, the collective voice of the UK music industry, publishes
its This Is Music 2022 annual report today (Sept 22), which reveals
how the sector began to recover from the initial impact of the
pandemic. Unveiling the report, UK Music Chief Executive Jamie
Njoku-Goodwin said the economic findings showed why the Government
should act to support the music industry, which still faces a
“major threat from strong economic headwinds”. The key
findings in This Is...Request free
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UK Music, the collective voice of the UK music industry, publishes its This Is Music 2022 annual report today (Sept 22), which reveals how the sector began to recover from the initial impact of the pandemic. Unveiling the report, UK Music Chief Executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin said the economic findings showed why the Government should act to support the music industry, which still faces a “major threat from strong economic headwinds”. The key findings in This Is Music - based on data collated from across the music industry in 2021 - include:
UK Music’s report measures the health of the music business by collating data about the sector’s contribution in goods and services to the economy. That economic contribution is known as Gross Value Added (GVA). The data shows that in 2021 the sector was recovering from the initial impact of the pandemic, as the music industry adapted. While music studios were allowed to remain open with limitations, the Government-mandated restrictions meant that live venues spent a significant amount of the year closed or operating at limited capacity. This was a major factor in the drop in the music industry’s economic contribution, which fell from its pre-pandemic high of £5.8 billion in 2019 to £4 billion in 2021. The 2021 This is Music data also showed many of the music industry jobs wiped out by the pandemic, which saw employment in the sector drop by 35% from 197,000 in 2019 to 128,000 in 2020, had not returned in 2021. While exports were still down on the 2019 pre-pandemic figures, year-on-year demand strengthened significantly in 2021, with a 10% rise from £2.3 billion to £2.5 billion. However, there were some great British success stories. In 2021, the biggest selling album in the world was Adele's ‘30’. Ed Sheeran's ‘=’ was the fourth best-selling album and Dua Lipa's ‘Future Nostalgia’ was in sixth place. UK Music’s Chief Executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin said the report showed the urgent need for support from new PM Liz Truss and the Government to reduce the tax burden on the music industry, incentivise investment and help boost exports. UK Music Chief Executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin said: “The UK music industry is working hard to recover after the catastrophic impact of COVID-19, but there is still some way to go to restore the jobs and growth lost during the pandemic.
“Our sector still faces a serious threat from the economic storm that could blow our fragile recovery off course without urgent Government support.
“It’s vital that Government acts to protect and support a sector that creates jobs, contributes to the economy and matters to millions of people across our country.
“The new Prime Minister has said she wants to cut taxes to stimulate growth.
“If she is serious about this, then she should use the emergency budget to reduce the tax burden on the music industry, for instance, by extending the hugely successful creative industry tax reliefs to the music industry.
“This would incentivise investment and boost exports of British music, which are at risk due to increasing international competition and issues following the UK’s exit from the European Union.
“We welcome the Government's announcement to combat the impact of soaring energy bills, which will give music businesses some urgently needed support. However, we need clarity about what happens after that support is withdrawn after six months. “And we still need to see more assistance to secure our sector’s long-term recovery, including a significant cut in VAT from its current rate of 20% - something the Government did in the pandemic to support the music sector.
“It is also essential that Government recognises the importance of copyright to the creative sector and takes step to protect intellectual property rights.
“Proposals by the previous Government to allow AI companies a copyright exception for text and data mining are an existential threat to our sector and must be stopped.
“These plans constitute a green light to music laundering and the whole industry is united in urging the Government to scrap them. “As we showed before the pandemic, the UK music industry can be world leading. But without help from new Prime Minister Liz Truss and her ministerial team, there is the deeply worrying prospect that the billions spent supporting music businesses and cultural institutions during the lockdowns will be wasted. We cannot allow that to happen. “We have a music industry in the UK that is the envy of the world and a talent pipeline that continues to produce global stars and an army of highly skilled professionals. “It is vital that the Government works with us to protect and nurture the music industry from the economic turbulence we face so we can pull through and create the jobs and investment to make it even stronger than it was before the pandemic.” This Is Music 2022 outlines a five-step plan for Government to support the music industry recovery:
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