Consumers in the U.S. and Western Europe are...

Consumers in the U.S. and Western Europe are expected to spend about $3 billion on music streaming services in 2014, said a Futuresource Consulting news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1rYtRVJ) about its report on the music streaming industry (http://bit.ly/1w8Ubmh). The estimate, which didn’t include personal radio services, is a 59 percent increase from 2013, said David Sidebottom, Futuresource senior market analyst. “Despite the strong growth in streaming services, in many markets it will not be enough in the short term to compensate for both the decline in packaged music and pay-per-download (PPD) market,” said the release. Streaming subscriptions have helped stabilize overall consumer spending in several countries, but has “stifled growth in PPD albums and singles from services such as iTunes,” it said. Juniper Research recently projected “slow growth” for the digital music industry over the next five years, with an estimated value of $13.9 billion in 2019 compared with $12.3 billion in 2014 (http://bit.ly/VD8sqB) (CD Aug 20 p11).