Presto Music has warned the future of the classical recording industry is at threat from poor music-streaming payments and has called on rival services to match its own Fair Play initiative, which pays up to 10 times more per album listen. It’s also questioning the reliability of payments made to composers and musicians.

The British music-streaming service specialises in classical and jazz genres, offering 200,000+ albums to stream, many in high-resolution audio quality. Its Fair Play initiative sees Presto Music pay per second of music streamed, rather than ‘per play’ like other services. That makes a huge difference, especially to classical and jazz recordings where tracks can be significantly longer than the average pop or rock tune.

Presto Music Chief Executive, Chris O’Reilly, says: “Our data makes it plain just how unfair the ‘pay per play’ model is when it comes to a big chunk of classical repertoire - especially orchestral music, which is also typically expensive to record. To ensure the future viability of our industry it needs to pay fairly. We’re doing that and hope others will start doing so as well.“ 

Are payments reaching the right people?
Having .launched its Fair Play initiative, Presto Music’s next mission is to ensure those higher revenues reliably make it to the artists concerned. The team are exploring the accuracy of information held by Collecting Societies – the organisations that allocate royalties to composers and performers.

As Chris O’Reilly explains: ‘Like all streaming services, we report usage of Collecting Societies, who then match back plays to specific creators. However, poor database information  - especially for classical works – can undermine the reliability of that matching, which means creators and musicians can miss out on revenue that’s then pooled and paid out to creators of other, better-indexed genres. We’re assessing the scale of the situation and how it can be addressed – we’ll never stop trying to help musicians and composers get a fairer deal.”

Launched in 2023, Presto Music’s streaming service has grown into a strong specialist offering, including:

·       200,000+ classical and jazz albums, many in high-resolution audio quality

·       Listen offline or online - via desktop and mobile apps, integrated support for BluOS streamers or Presto Music's own streamer.

·       Enjoy in-depth guides and daily features from Presto Music's expert team of music lovers.

·       From £10.99/$10.99 month, with options to add downloads into the mix, too.

·       30-day Free Trial available so you can try before you buy: https://www.prestomusic.com/streaming

How Presto Music calculates the streaming payments shown

Presto Music has used a few prominent recent releases to demonstrate its Fair Play initiative in action – illustrated by the graphs here. As payments from services to labels are not based on specific 'per play' rates (but instead calculated according to total streams and total revenue each month) there is limited data as to exactly 'who pays what' in the public domain. After extensive research through articles and statistics published online over the last few years, and with the help of some supportive UK-based classical record labels, Presto Music calculated an average ‘per play’ rate per service and from those have created the graphs shown here.

All these music services offer multiple streaming plans, some include ad-funded options, most have student and family plans, and all charge different prices in different countries, so the ‘average’ shown is exactly that.

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For further info on Presto Music, and interview opportunities, please contact:
Clare Newsome, cnewsome@me.com

 

About Presto Music
Based in Royal Leamington Spa in the UK, Presto Music is the UK’s leading destination for classical and jazz recordings  - whether via its streaming service or online and in-store sales of CDs, DVDs, high-quality downloads and vinyl. It also offers sheet music, music books and musical instruments. Founded in 1986 as a small high street shop, the Presto Music website was started in 2001 and has grown into one of the most significant online retailers for music products in the world, focusing on enriching the lives of music lovers and musicians of all ages, backgrounds and abilities by championing a passion for music.