Australia’s recorded music industry is making more money, but less of it is staying in Australia. This report studied the top 10,000 artists being streamed inside Australia from 2021 to 2024. It shows that the presence of Australian artists has been declining, both in terms of the total number of artists, and the number of streams.

This paper suggests two ways that new artists could be better supported: by supporting local content curators on radio and streaming services; and by providing grants to enable touring artists to extend their tours, similar to Canada’s Starmaker Fund. These initiatives could help raise the profile of Australian artists, and their streams.

Aside from fostering the curation of Australian content, more can be done to support Australian artists to reach a level of popularity overseas that will reinforce their popularity domestically. Without action, listenership will probably continue to decline.

Key findings

• In the past few years, Australian recorded music revenues have risen by an impressive 25% – from USD$417.5m in 2021 to $534m in 2024. But the share going to local artists has shrunk by almost a third.
• Fewer new artists are achieving lasting success because, on streaming services, they must compete on an uneven playing field with international and established acts.
• Australia has a ‘one-way valve’ dilemma: Australian consumers are increasingly streaming international artists (which is crowding out domestic artists) and Australian artists are struggling with the costs of touring overseas.
• The process that is working in favour of smaller national languages is working against countries in which English is the dominant language (other than the USA).
• The most popular artist across Australia’s streaming services is The Wiggles.