Geoff Barrow of Portishead has reported that the band has brought in a surprisingly low amount of money from online streaming of their music. Total revenue amounts to a mere $2,500, or £1,700.
After a whopping 34 million streams, the English trip-hop artists have yet to see any real returns from their catalog of music available on music streaming sites like Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. While the number is a rough estimate, it isn’t far off from the truth. He tweeted his frustrations on April 13:
So what does it mean for streaming platforms? Well for starters, it isn’t pretty. Artists like Calvin Harris, Maroon 5, and Sam Smith raked in significantly more in revenue streams, it doesn’t change the fact that sites are giving out music at a cost that’s about as close to free as physically possible. Spotify’s stated payout range rests only between $0.006-$0.0084/stream. Barrow made a valuable point in a following tweet that speaks a lot for the reality of the situation:
Despite the streaming controversy, there’s more positive news for Geoff Barrow and Portishead in 2015. Barrow is currently working alongside Radiohead’s Philip Selway to raise money for the Mary Hare Football & Food Festival to benefit the Mary Hare School for Deaf Children. He’s also working with Radiohead’s Ben Salisbury to score an upcoming film by Alex Garland. Portishead scheduled to headline The Festival Internacional De Benicassim in Spain.
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