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Welcome to "On the Net Today". Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we bring you a handpicked selection of three valuable and interesting online resources to help you get the most out of the internet and optimize your browsing time.

Here are the three resources we've prepared for today:

• Paid streaming, major driver of recorded music business worldwide

• Rome2Rio: discover how to get anywhere

• Kirsty Coventry, first woman and first African to hold IOC presidency

Paid streaming, major driver of recorded music business worldwide

IFPI's annual report provides a comprehensive portrait of the sector

Global recorded music revenues increased by 4.8% last year, according to data released this week by IFPI, the organization representing the music industry worldwide. Specifically, revenues rose to $29.6 billion, allowing the music market to grow for the tenth consecutive year.

IFPI has just published its annual “Global Music Report 2025”, which provides a comprehensive portrait of the recorded music business worldwide.

Subscriptions to paid streaming services, such as Spotify or Apple Music, were the major drivers of this market growth. Revenue increased by 9.5%, while user accounts grew by 10.6%, reaching 752 million worldwide.

By format, revenues in 2024 were distributed as follows:

• Streaming: $20.4 billion. This is the first time that revenues in this format have exceeded $20 billion. They represented 69% of total recorded music. For a more exact idea of the magnitude of this figure, those $20 billion exceed the total annual revenues that the sector had between 2003 and 2020. Paid streaming increased its revenues by 9.5%, while ad-supported streaming grew by only 1.2%.

• Physical formats fell by 3.1% overall. Specifically, vinyl revenues increased by 4.6%.

• Performance rights revenues were $2.9 billion, 5.9% more than in 2023.

The following graph reflects the evolution of revenues by format since 1999:

The IFPI report indicates that there is still significant room for growth in the music sector thanks to "innovation, emerging technologies, and investment in both artists and the evolving parts of the growing global music ecosystem."

Additionally, IFPI wanted to specifically highlight the decisive role of record companies in the positive evolution of the market. "These positive developments don't happen by accident - the report's authors affirm. They reflect the brilliant creativity, vision, and hard work of artists and songwriters around the world, driven in part by the work, investment, and passion of record companies and their teams. In the case of record labels, recurring revenues allow them to be patient, long-term, and consistent investors in artists, innovation, and culture."

Links:

• IFPI: Amidst Highly Competitive Market, Global Recorded Music Revenues Grew 4,8% in 2024

• Download the report

Rome2Rio: discover how to get anywhere 

One of the basic questions we can ask ourselves before any trip is what transportation options we have to reach our destination. Plane, train, bus, ferry, car... what are the best options? At what price? How long does the trip take?

The travel website Rome2Rio is 100% dedicated to answering this question. "Rome2Rio searches for any city, town, landmark, attraction, or address worldwide with thousands of multimodal routes to easily take you from A to B," this site says in its introduction.

Once we enter our point of origin and the destination we want to go to, Rome2Rio searches among all available options and offers us the different possibilities we have to travel, in any mode of transportation. In the results, we will find a varied range of prices and travel duration depending on the existing options.

Rome2Rio has 10 million locations covered and more than 12,000 transport operators in 240 countries and territories.

Rome2Rio was born in 2011 as a result of the difficulties that two engineers encountered in finding accurate travel information. They dedicated themselves to connecting all possible travel options around the world to make them available to internet users.

The company is headquartered in Melbourne (Australia) and has a team of more than 80 professionals. Since 2019, it has belonged to the Omio Group.

The website is free for users. Rome2Rio is available in 24 languages, including Spanish and English.

Here are some interesting facts offered by this platform:

• The regions of the world with the most searches are Italy, United States, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom. 

• Queries for Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Thailand are increasing.

• There is a growing interest in train travel. Searches for train travel have increased dramatically in recent years, following the pandemic.

In addition to travel options, Rome2Rio also offers a series of practical travel guides about destinations or ways to travel, among other topics, which can be useful for users.

Link: 

• Rome2Rio

Kirsty Coventry, first woman and first African to hold IOC presidency

Former swimmer and Olympic medalist Kirsty Coventry, 41, Zimbabwe's Minister of Sports, was elected this Thursday, March 20, 2025, as the 10th President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). 

She is the first woman and the first African person to hold this position. The vote took place at the 144th IOC session held in Greece.

The African candidate received 49 votes and prevailed over the six other candidates, all men, including Spain's Juan Antonio Samaranch and Britain's Sebastian Coe.

Coventry, who succeeds outgoing president Thomas Bach, will assume her duties on June 23, 2025. The new president will oversee the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, which will be her first Olympic Games as president. Her term is for eight years.

President-elect Coventry's IOC Presidential election manifesto can be found here.

Links:

• Kirsty Coventry elected 10th IOC President at 144th IOC Session in Greece - IOC

• Kirsty Coventry – IOC

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That's all for today. Thank you for reading!