Comment|The popularity of Finnish music can be seen on the stages and on the hit lists, but it is concentrated in a narrow group of favourites, writes HS culture editor Ilkka Mattila.
Copyright organization Teosto regularly monitors and reports on Finnish music listening. According to the press release released on Tuesday, 30 percent of the music performed at concerts, gigs and festivals as well as on radio and TV channels last year was domestic.
For years, the music industry talked about how domestic music is preferred and listened to more in Finland than in most other European countries.
Even six years ago, domestic music accounted for no less than 56 percent of all music performed. The fall feels special at a time when stadiums and the main stages of big festivals are occupied by favorite domestic artists and in TV music programs, domestic stars perform interpretations of old domestic hits year after year.
The same the sound industry also supports the strange downhill sales figures. In 2014, 48 percent of all music sold in Finland was domestic, but in recent years the share has been less than a third, last year it was 35 percent.
That’s why it’s confusing to study the audio industry’s charts of last year’s most streamed songs and best-selling albums. Among the ten most streamed hits, there is only one foreign song, and even then only at number 10. All ten on the album list are domestic.
According to Teosto’s statistics, 80 percent of the music performed at live music events is domestic, and more than 52 percent on Yle’s regional radio stations, so it must be less somewhere else.
The domestic share of commercial radio channels is 30 percent, but in Yle’s TV channels, and especially in commercial TV channels, it is considerably less. The least amount of Finnish music is heard on video-on-demand channels, i.e. Netflix, Apple TV and other streaming services.
Domestic the changes in the parts of the music are therefore a consequence of where the music is most often heard. It also explains the decline in domestic music sales, of which more than 78 percent already come from paid streaming services. Still paying for streaming is still rarer in Finland than in other Nordic countries. Less than half of all streaming listeners want to pay for the service.
Although the majority of the most popular songs and albums are domestic, in the total use of streaming services, the combined listening of all foreign music is greater than that of domestic music.
Domestic music is by no means disappearing from popular culture, but its most popular edge is narrowing.
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