The British music industry enjoyed some rare good news yesterday when it was revealed that the growth in digital music royalties had outpaced falling CD sales for the first time last year.

Royalties generated by online music sales grew by 72.7 per cent last year to £30.4 million, as increasing numbers of consumers downloaded music from sites such as Apple’s iTunes. About 16.1 million albums were downloaded in 2009, up 56.1 per cent on the previous year.

PRS for Music, which collects royalties for 65,000 British songwriters, said that the £12.8 million growth in digital music revenue had more than compensated for the £8.7 million loss in royalties from falling CD sales. It announced an overall 2.6 per cent rise in annual revenue in 2009 to £623 million.

Robert Ashcroft, chief executive of PRS, said: “2009 was the first year in which the growth in revenues from the legal digital market compensated for the decline in revenues from traditional CDs and DVDs, though we remain cautious as to whether this represents a true turning point.

“The next decade does, however, promise further growth in earnings from the legal digital market as well as the use of British music overseas.”

Last year, sales of music singles — which are mostly sold digitally — overtook album sales in Britain for the first time. More than 150 million singles were sold in 2009, up from 115 million in 2008, according to figures published in January by the BPI. In contrast, album sales fell from 134 million to 129 million over the same period. Singles provide record labels with as little as 7 per cent of the revenue generated by album sales.

Top 10 most-played tracks in 2009

Sweet About Me Gabriella Cilmi

Viva La Vida Coldplay

The Time is Now Moloko

Mercy Duffy

Shine Take That

The Promise Girls Aloud

No Air Jordin Sparks

The Man who Can’t be Moved The Script

Greatest Day Take That

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