What Is the Value of A Stream?

With music streaming becoming the biggest medium by which people listen to music today, it is interesting that nobody could give you a definitive number if you asked them what the value of a stream is.

Although music streaming has made listening to music more convenient, millions of artists and producers who rely on revenue from streaming to earn a living are still unable to make a decent living from streaming and are forced to find other alternatives to make money, even though streaming platforms continue generating a profit. This leads to an important question: Who benefits from streaming? Is it the artist, record label, producer, or streaming platform?

When we first started asking about the value of a stream, we contacted several artists and asked each of them how much they were paid each time their song was streamed. It was interesting to note that nobody we asked could answer that question. Part of the reason for this was that different streaming platforms pay different amounts per stream, making the value of a stream subjective based on the number of streams and the specific streaming platform on which the music was streamed.

It was also very interesting to note that how much one earns from streaming is also subject to the geographical region in which the music was streamed. For example, a Kenyan artist earns more per stream when their music is streamed in the United States versus streamed in Kenya. This means that one million streams from Kenya would not be equal to one million streams from the US.

So why do artists, record labels, and producers still value streaming so highly over radio and other platforms? What streaming does is make it easy for music to be available online across the globe. This availability means that anyone searching for artists or songs can find them despite the user’s preference for one streaming platform over the other.

Have you noticed how we haven’t mentioned any streaming platform names? This is not because we are afraid of being sued but because what streaming platform you like or don’t like doesn’t matter. What matters is whether streaming platforms are being fair to artists, record labels, and producers when it comes to an equal share of revenue earned from streaming. And that answer is NO!

How do we know? We know because we as Radio 254 have also released music on streaming platforms and have been able to figure out what the value of a stream is at least based on dividing the number of streams we have by how much we have earned from those streams, and we are going to be sharing that with you to help show what we mean.

So, what now? We think that how much streaming platforms payout is unfair and hope to do something about this in the coming months to push for more equitable rights for artists, record labels, and producers, especially those from Kenya. With that said, however, we cannot take away the impact that streaming has had on the music industry, especially its role in growing the industry.

It makes no sense for a few artists to make millions while millions of artists make nothing. For those artists with huge streaming numbers, there is nothing to worry about, but for the millions that have music on streaming and are not earning anything despite garnering streams, something needs to be done.