I remember the days of buying a music CD, burning it onto my iTunes library and importing it onto my iPod. I was also one of the very early adopters of Spotify, the music streaming service, in the early 2010s. It first came to the UK through an invite-only code from your friends and family, for you to then refer to others. It felt like a game-changer, and it exploded in popularity in the decade that followed. The platform now claims to have nearly 700m monthly active users.

The convenience of streaming only partly explains why physical music sales have been in a long-term downward trend. Piracy has a lot to do with it, too. The trend appears to be stabilising, as the UK recently saw a five per cent increase in music sales for the first time in two decades. The superfan item - the vinyl - saw a bigger increase of around 12 per cent.

News has gone through a similar transformation from analogue to digital. In the UK, print consumption has fallen from 59 per cent to 12 per cent in the last 12 years, according to the last Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025. Subscriptions have similarly emerged as a lifeline, but they appear to be hitting a ceiling. Like music, other revenue streams - particularly the live sector - have become vital.

Enter Beth Gordon, The Independent's director of brand marketing and communications. She's a rarity who has spent her career in both the news and the music industry, including five years at Spotify during its pivotal launch in the UK as the........

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