The Australian music industry continues to favour men, but the gender gap is narrowing

triple j’s second annual Girls To The Front investigation has found that male artists continue to dominate the Australian music industry.

Hack crunched the numbers ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, and compared to this time last year, there has been a slight narrowing in the gender gap between men and women in the domestic music scene.

However, male artists are still overwhelmingly favoured on festival lineups, radio airplay, in national music grants and staffing on public boards.

Over a typical week, 61% of songs played on triple j were by all-male bands or male solo artists, the same number as when statistics were first measured in 2015. However, 71% of feature albums in 2016 were by all-male acts, compared to 67% in 2015.

Props to triple j for turning the microscope on itself, then, but there’s clearly still more work to do at the national youth broadcaster itself, as well as across the industry.

For instance, the music festivals Splendour, Falls, Laneway, Groovin The Moo and Listen Out all featured upwards of 60% of male artists in 2016, though Listen Out made a dramatic change from its 2015 lineup, on which 91% of acts were male.

However, the charts told a different story, with 57% of ARIA’s top 100 singles of 2016 featuring a female lead vocalist, a female solo artist or as part of a band with at least one female member.

Full details on the research and some handy infographics can be found at the triple j website.