U.K. MUSIC BIZ MAKES MORE WONGA

The U.K. music biz has cause for celebration, as a new report from trade body U.K. Music reveals that it made £4.1 billion for Blighty’s economy in 2014. That figure is up 5% from £3.8b in 2013, and takes into account cash generated from a wealth of facets including live, recorded music and publishing.

Musicians, composers, songwriters and lyricists were the biggest earners of the lot at £1.9b, followed by live music at £924 million (up 17% year-on-year), recorded music at £615m, music publishing at £410m, music producers, recording studios and staff at £116m and music reps at £89m.

It’s no secret that Her Majesty’s isle has spawned some of the biggest global stars of the past few years and the likes of Warner’s Ed Sheeran, Universal’s Sam Smith and Ellie Goulding and Sony’s One Direction helped recorded music exports rise 17% at £2.1bn in 2014.

Investment in A&R stood at just under £0.5bn in 2014. Labels cashed out the most with £178m, spending an additional £157m on marketing and promo. Music publishers invested in writers to the tune of £162m.

Another impressive stat is that fact that live music tourism contributed £3.1bn to Blighty's economy as a result of almost 26.7m visits being made to U.K. live music events last year.

It’s the second year U.K. Music has issued this study, and the figure is arrived at by using the grand total of all revenues from final sales and (net) subsidiaries.

You can download the full report here.