According to billboard/Nielsen, classical music had an overall 1% share of the market in 2019, or 12th out of 12 genres. This is the least popular music genre well behind the top four genres: R&B/hip-hop, rock & roll, pop, country, and even behind children’s music.
The top genres account for around 69% of the music with R&B/hip-hop by itself taking over a quarter of the share (27.7%). After the top four, Latin, dance/electronic, Christian/gospel, world music, holiday/seasonal, children, jazz and classical make up the other 18% of the market (the total does not equal 100%).
In 2009, classical music physical album sales had a 3% market share. So in the span of 10 years classical music, for the most part, lost 2% market share. This is not bad compared to rock, which in 2009, along with metal and alternative, had around 50% of the market share compared to 19.8% in 2019.
One item to note is that when it comes to digital album sales in 2019, classical music is ranked sixth out of twelve. Typically, people buy classical albums rather than individual songs because an album will have up to an hour of music and contain a few major works making it a good value. Example: if you purchase the album that contains Mieczysław Weinberg’s “Symphony No. 2” and “Symphony No. 21,” it has around 90 minutes of music and costs $10.
When it comes to money, classical music does make a little money comparatively. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the total revenue for the U.S. music industry in 2019 was $11.1 billion (not including concerts). This is nothing to laugh at and from RIAA data, most of the revenue in 2019 came from streaming and digital downloads.
If classical music in the U.S. had a 1 percent market share then classical music revenue for 2019 would be around $111 million. Of course, classical music does not rely on revenue alone to survive.
From a 2014 League of American Orchestras report, the average orchestra relied on only 40% of its revenue as earned income (mostly ticket sales), with 43% coming from contributed income (donations), and 17% from investment income. Overall, only a small percentage of revenue for classical music comes from music or album sales (streaming or physical).
In looking at the data from billboard/Nielsen and the RIAA, it seems that classical music in the U.S. is not popular nor does it make that much money, but for most people who listen to classical music, that is not why they listen. Classical music has always been the “art” music of Western culture and has always been monetarily supported by the patronage of the rich and of governments.
There was no mystical time in the past when classical music was the music of the masses; it has always been the music that tries to communicate a people’s culture, national identity, interesting and entertaining stories through long-form music, while also being an artistic form of entertainment. There have been a few exceptions when classical music had a wider audience such as classical popular theater (singspiel), the advent of radio when classical music provided a lot of the early musical content (and filler music), and the most exciting thing to ever happen to classical music in the contemporary world, providing music scores for films.
Reference: https://medium.com/@AmericanPublicU/popular-classical-music-how-popular-is-classical-music-part-ii-4040456752db
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