Good morning. The music industry has long been one of the UK’s successful export stories, whether it was the British invasion of the US spearheaded by the Beatles and the Stones in the 1960s or the contemporary success of the likes of Adele and Ed Sheeran.
In recent years, however, there has been a steady drumbeat of doom in the background. Artists have concerns about artificial intelligence slop replacing them, they face dwindling earning power due to [paltry streaming royalty rates](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/22/spotify-announces…
Good morning. The music industry has long been one of the UK’s successful export stories, whether it was the British invasion of the US spearheaded by the Beatles and the Stones in the 1960s or the contemporary success of the likes of Adele and Ed Sheeran.
In recent years, however, there has been a steady drumbeat of doom in the background. Artists have concerns about artificial intelligence slop replacing them, they face dwindling earning power due to paltry streaming royalty rates, and crucially, there has been a contraction in the number of venues where musicians can hone their craft and build a fanbase.
The Music Venue Trust (MVT) is a charity that works to protect, secure and improve the UK’s grassroots music venues (GMVs). Ahead of the publication of its annual report (pdf) this morning, I spoke to founder and CEO chair Mark Davyd to discuss the progress the MVT has made in safeguarding GMVs, and what he believes could be improved to keep the UK’s music scene thriving for the decades ahead. First, here are the headlines.
Five big stories
***UK news ***| The government has approved the construction of a vast new Chinese embassy complex in east London despite concerns about security and its impact on political exiles in the capital. 1.
***Chagos Island ***| Donald Trump has suggested Britain’s decision to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is among the reasons he wants to take over Greenland. 1.
***Social trends ***| Rightwing movements are struggling to gain support among graduates as education emerges as the most important dividing line in British attitudes towards politics, diversity and immigration. 1.
***Middle East ***| Israeli crews have started bulldozing the Jerusalem headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and fired teargas at a UN vocational school in Qalandia in the West Bank. 1.
***US news ***| An Indiana state court judge and his wife were in stable condition on Monday as authorities continued to search for suspects who shot the couple the day before at their Lafayette home.
In depth: ‘There is language from this government that suggests doors are opening’
Amyl and the Sniffers perform at the Electric Ballroom, London. Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer
Last night I was at the V&A in Kensington for the launch of the Music Venue Trust’s annual report. V&A director Tristram Hunt pointed out the museum would host a Lost Music Venues exhibition this year, Liberal Democrat culture spokesperson Anna Sabine pointed out nobody from Labour had come, Glenn Tilbrook did a whistle-stop Squeeze greatest hits accompanied by his son Leon, and I embarrassed myself by being too much of a fanboy when I spotted, then clumsily introduced myself, to The Anchoress.
More importantly than all that, the numbers in the new MVT report suggest the live music scene could be on the verge of recovery, but Davyd is keen not to overstate the improvement in fortunes in 2025. “I wouldn’t say we’ve turned the corner,” he tells me. “But I think I would say that we are at least peering round a corner.”
Reasons to be cheerful
On the face of it, there are reasons for cautious optimism. Audiences are back, more gigs are being staged, and the rate at which venues are disappearing has slowed. Over the year covered by the report, 30 venues permanently closed and 48 stopped operating as grassroots music venues – but 69 new or revived spaces joined the network, meaning the overall decline eased. Activity across the sector is higher than it was in the bleak post-pandemic years of 2023 and 2024.
But beneath that surface recovery, the financial foundations remain dangerously thin. More than half of grassroots music venues made no profit at all in 2025, and the average profit margin across the sector was just 2.5%. Live music itself is still often structurally loss-making, with many venues subsidising gigs through bar sales, food and other income streams.
This is not a love song
The sounds coming out of government, Davyd says, are more positive than they have been for years. Officials at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have been broadly supportive since the trust was founded more than a decade ago, but he believes something has shifted politically. “There is language from this government that suggests doors are opening,” he says. “The creative industries sector plan was fantastic for grassroots venues.”
Ministers, he says, now clearly recognise the role small venues play not just in developing artists – the “talent pipeline” – but also as “drivers of local community engagement and social cohesion”. The problem, he says, is turning that recognition into policy. “Has that yet resulted in government policies that are really taking the opportunity to build something on it? Not so far.”
Davyd points to business rates as a case in point. “We have been saying for 10 years you need a specific category for music venues, otherwise they are assessed as more commercial entities and will eventually be forced out of the premises. The business rate review got announced, and that wasn’t done. So we are now currently trying to help the government and the Treasury understand exactly how that’s gone wrong – and what they can do to unravel it.”
Stand by me
By far the biggest shock in the 2025 report is not about rents or energy bills, but employment. The sector lost almost 6,000 jobs in a single year – a 19% contraction – after the government lowered the threshold at which employers start paying national insurance contributions.
“I think if we were talking about a 19% downturn in employment in just about any other sector of industry it would be headline news,” Davyd says. “In one year 6,000 people lost their jobs. That is absolutely shocking and should never have happened.”
He describes it as a classic case of the law of unintended consequences. “I don’t think anybody sat down to write a national insurance policy intended to make people lose their jobs in grassroots live music, but they took a general approach which failed to recognise the specifics of this sector.”
Those specifics, he explains, are that much of the workforce is young and freelance, juggling two, three or even four low-paid jobs across different venues. “People are earning between £5,000 and £10,000 from each employer, and when the threshold dropped, suddenly all of those jobs became liable for national insurance.”
What really alarms him is who was hit. “The sad part about that, and the bit that really should worry everybody, is the fact that those 6,000 jobs were almost exclusively in the 18 to 25-year-old bracket.”
These are the trainees and future technicians, bookers and promoters of the industry – the people who get their first foot in the door by doing the lights, working the bar or taking tickets at a small venue. “They’re losing future skills and staff,” Davyd says. “In 10 years’ time we will have a shrunk workforce across the whole music industry because of what happened in this one sector in 2025.”
This town ain’t big enough
The report paints a picture of a sector that is busier and better organised, but also shows how the national touring circuit continues to retreat into a handful of major cities, leaving 175 towns and cities – home to about 25 million people – without regular visits from professional touring artists. Davyd calls it a map of cultural “haves and have-nots”, with local audiences and emerging musicians alike cut off from the ecosystem that once sustained them.
Music Venue Trust is trying to plug those gaps through emergency grants, advice and new touring schemes. In Margate, the grassroots venue Where Else? credits the trust with helping it survive a crisis with its landlord. Its co-founder Sammy Clarke says the intervention “didn’t just solve an immediate crisis; they helped us build a more secure financial footing for the future”. Yet the NME reported the venue has recently had to resort to crowdfunding to try to stay afloat – a reminder of how little headroom most operators have.
There is a light that never goes out
For Davyd – and myself – this is not an abstract policy problem. I am an enthusiastic gig-goer myself, and while I enjoy seeing the heritage acts I loved in the 80s and 90s in big arenas, I still love discovering new artists in small rooms – Dog Race, the New Eves, and the aptly named Desperate Journalist have all deeply impressed me in recent years.
Davyd traces his own life in music back to walking into the 100 Club as a teenager. “It was the first time probably my entire life I ever felt, ‘Oh yeah, I actually belong somewhere.’” He went on to open the Tunbridge Wells Forum and to build his career around live bands. “I just get such a buzz out being in a small room with 200 or 300 people. I love that moment when the band plays the song you’re all waiting for and you all start singing it together.”
That, he says, is what is at stake. Despite everything, he believes the opportunity still exists to do more than simply keep venues on life support. “I think we genuinely could pick up on a huge opportunity to actually start restoring this network – not just stabilising it. So we’re pretty optimistic about 2026. But it does require some actions.”
Guardian live
President Donald Trump. Photograph: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Shutterstock
Guardian newsroom: Year One of Trumpism: Is Britain Emulating the US? On Wednesday 21 January, join Jonathan Freedland, Tania Branigan, Anand Menon and Nick Lowles as they reflect on the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidency – and to ask if Britain could be set on the same path. Book tickets here
What else we’ve been reading
An Iranian man walks next to a wall painting of Iranian supreme leaders past and present in Tehran, Iran. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA
Iranians are still being cut off from the world with the state-enforced internet blackout. But a brave protester has been able to get their words out against the odds. Aamna
Our picture desk has gathered together the 20 winning photographs from the Portrait of Britain photography awards. Martin
Donald Trump made 10 key pledges a year ago. What has happened since? David Smith breaks it down. Aamna
Amy Hawkins takes a long look at the morbid sounding Are You Dead? app which has become a sensation in China among lonely and isolated people. Martin
Technology has changed how we live in profound ways, Tom Gill writes. For those desperate to connect, check out his tips to help us feel more human. Aamna
Sport
Gabriel Jesus celebrates scoring Arsenal’s second against Inter with Leandro Trossard, who assisted the goal from a set piece. Photograph: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC/Getty Images
***Football ***| Arsenal confirmed their place in the last 16 of the Champions League without the need for a playoff with an impressive 3-1 win at Inter. Kasper Høgh scored twice before Rodri was sent off as Manchester City were outclassed 3-1 by Bodø/Glimt, with Pep Guardiola admitting “everything is going wrong”.
***Tennis ***| Emma Raducanu crashed out of the Australian Open in the second round with a poor 7-6 (3), 6-2 loss to Anastasia Potapova after a tepid, error-strewn performance in Melbourne. You can follow today’s latest Australian Open action with our live blog.
***Golf ***| Luke Donald will hold talks with senior officials at the European Tour Group this week in Dubai, as the Englishman edges closer to a third stint as Europe’s Ryder Cup captain.
The front pages
“Europe condemns Trump threats on Greenland as ‘new colonialism’” is the Guardian’s print lead today. The Financial Times has “Rift with Europe deepens as Trump warns ‘no going back’ on Greenland”. The Times seems more relaxed: “We’ll work something out, Trump tells Nato”. Practicalities in the i paper: “RAF and Navy in talks to join Nato force in Arctic”.
“Online rant stuns the world” – the Metro is talking about guess who, talking about Britain ceding Diego Garcia to Mauritius. On that topic the Telegraph runs with “Fix your country, Trump tells Starmer” while the Express goes to Kemi Badenoch for an opinion: “PM ‘out of his depth in the new world order’”. “MI5 warning to kowtow Keir” – the **Mail **says the PM faces “fury” over the approval of China’s London “mega-embassy”. “Moment Brooklyn snapped – this ends now” – that’s the Mirror on the Beckham feud if you’re interested.
Today in Focus
Diane Carson in The Traitors Photograph: Studio Lambert/BBC
How we got hooked on The Traitors
Elle Hunt on the success of the BBC’s hit reality show
Cartoon of the day | Ella Baron
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Coins from a hoard from Harold II’s short reign, probably buried on the eve of battle in 1066. Photograph: British Museum/PA
Britain saw a record number of archaeological and treasure finds in 2024, largely due to metal detectorists.
Significant discoveries included a hoard of pennies linked to Harold II and buried around 1066, a rare Roman vehicle fitting, and early medieval objects.
The British Museum reported that 94% of finds were reported by the public, demonstrating the contribution of metal detecting enthusiasts to preserving the nation’s history.
The 179 silver penny hoard, containing only coins from Harold II’s short reign, is notable among discoveries from the politically tumultuous 1060s.
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Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.