FFWD worked with Music Australia CEO Millie Milgate and local economic consultancy McAtamney and Partners to deliver the inaugural economic impact assessment of the Australian music industry; The Bass Line.

Chris Carey served as an internal consultant supporting Music Australia in choosing the local partner, structuring the economic analysis, securing data sources and helping explain the music value chain, the revenue streams, the double counting within published data sets and the global dynamics driving change in Australia.

The first edition was delivered in person in Sydney in May 2025, with the second edition delivered at the Victorian Music Development annual Data and Insight Summit in Melbourne in May 2026, with FFWD retained to support the 3rd edition into 2027.

Key Findings

  • It found that the Australian music industry generated revenues of $10.76 billion and contributed $4.28 billion in direct gross value added, or GVA, to the Australian economy in 2024-25. 

  • Music exports contributed an estimated $1.08 billion (or about 10%) to the total Australian music industry revenue. 

“With two years of data, patterns are beginning to emerge that no single snapshot can show,” Music Australia Director Millie Milgate notes in the report.

We can see how value moves through the industry, where it stays and where it leaves, and what that means for the artists and businesses at the centre of it.

“We can see which costs are rising, where unpaid time is being absorbed, where income is diversifying and where it remains concentrated. We can better understand the correlations between different industry drivers, where the economics are sticky, and track where conditions are improving.

“One relationship we all instinctively know that the data is making increasingly clear: the consumption of Australian music by Australian audiences is directly connected to artist revenue growth,” she adds. “This kind of picture, built year on year, is the evidence based signals needed for long-term local content considerations.”

You can view the full report here: https://creative.gov.au/research/bass-line-charting-economic-contribution-australias-music-industry