-
Yawn ...
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/02/music-sales-08-getting-worse-after-all.html
Rich, in a note (reg. required) that once again urges investors to sell (or short) Warner Music Group, lays out his case concisely:
While some investors were excited by an improvement in CD sales (smaller declines) in the first two weeks of 2008, unit sales have rapidly dropped off, with year-over-year declines now back over 20% on a weekly basis. As floor space at retail continues to contract and consumers begin to forget what a CD is, we expect physical CD unit sales declines to accelerate. In addition, digital unit sales are up only 30% so far this quarter, about half of the growth experienced last year at this point in the quarter. -
Borders Plans The Death Of The CD
Borders Group (BGP) is showing off the first of 14 new concept stores it will open this month. One concept it's ditching: CD sales. The music section has been "downsized", and replaced with a digital kiosk center that sounds great and is almost certain to fail. See if you can see why:
The circular, oversized kiosk features several computer stations where customers can burn music CDs, download music and audiobooks onto MP3 players, create digital photo albums, learn how to self-publish and research family genealogy. Staffers will be on hand to assist.
"We wanted to create a comfortable, easy to understand environment," said Rob Gruen, executive vice president of merchandising and marketing.
The only glitch so far: The digital services don't work with Apple's iPod, something Borders says it's working on.
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/2/borders_plans_the_death_of_the_cd
-
Well, of course it doesn't work with the iPod. You can only use authorized computers, and once you've used your 5 (something that it is very easy to do), you run the risk of accidentally wiping your iPod by authorizing a 6th. I know my Father-in-law has done this more than once, and he's at least passably tech-savvy. Until Apple unlocks that feature, the digital kiosks will only be good for burning discs, and really, that will just put the factory workers at CD plants out of a job.
-
And hell would freeze over first before Steve gives up monopoly control over iPod. It's his cash cow.
The best hope is to let the industry dies choking on their own greed.
-
iTunes passes Bestbuy as second largest music retailer. (when was last time anybody buy CD at best buy anyway?)
Looks like there's something to this "downloading music" thing after all -- just eight months after topping Amazon, iTunes has now passed Best Buy to become the number two music retailer in the US. Apple says 50 million customers have bought over 4 billion songs, with 20 million sold on Christmas day alone. That leaves just Wal-Mart in first place, but with the percentage of digital music sales growing each quarter, ol' Wally may not be safe for long.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/02/26itunes.html -
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-music27feb27,0,4432240.story
48% of teens bought NO cds last year. -
I bought Fiest on CD at best buy last year while waiting on a mailing. It seemed novel, like I was taking a horse and buggy ride. That said I used to buy CDs all the time when I worked next to an indie record store, about a year and a half ago. There is nothing like that for miles in Cambridge where I work now.
-
I still find myself buying CDs from bands direct or from tiny record labels who still like to make real objects to sell.
-
-
tee heee... still not learning the basic lesson.
that mp3 is not a digital version of little round disc. People want to pay money, but it better be worth it. (amazon is trying to sell downloadable CD, while apple is selling "easy to search, all in one convinience and hipness" all in one place.)
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/internet_irony_amazon_getting_disrupted_by_apple_bittorrent_et_al
Amazon has redoubled its efforts in digital distribution in recent years (see its MP3 store, movie-download service Unbox, and the Kindle). But, at least in music, Amazon's embryonic digital growth can't offset the decline in physical sales, in part because many (most?) music "customers" don't pay for the digital version. And for the customers that do, Amazon still badly trails the company that caught it asleep at the digital switch, Apple (AAPL). -
This puppy is not doing too good. It gonna dies in winter after next credit crunch comes in.
(There goes third biggest brick and mortar CD retailer)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080619/bs_nm/circuitcity_results_dc_2
Retailer Circuit City Stores (CC.N) reported a wider first-quarter loss on Thursday as sales fell amid the challenging U.S. consumer spending environment, and said it has suspended dividend payments to save cash.The consumer electronics chain, which received a takeover offer from Blockbuster Inc (BBI.N) earlier this year and is allowing the movie-rental company to view its books, also cut capital spending for the year and forecast a wider second- quarter loss.
But Circuit City added it expects a "gradual recovery" in the second half.
The net loss came to $164.8 million, or $1 a share, for the first quarter that ended May 31, compared with a loss of $54.6 million, or 33 cents a share, a year earlier.
Sales fell 7 percent to $2.3 billion in the quarter as weaker U.S. sales offset rising international revenue. Sales at stores open at least a year, or same-store sales, fell 11.3 percent overall.
-
i buy cd's to rip them.. 9.99 for a cd on amazon or 8.99 for mp3s, i'd rather pay the extra buck and make them ship it to me.. make it like $5 for the mp3 album and there's no question what i'd buy..
i also always choose a receipt from an ATM machine that charges me $1.50 because I want to cut into their bottom line -
I just can't reconcile myself to paying almost the same for a download as a CD and yet only get 1/10 of the data.
-
the first big company to start doing free V0 MP3 downloads, $3 FLAC downloads and $5 CD/LP sales is going to make enough money on traffic/ad sales to keep going while everyone goes bankrupt; mark my words
imagine if the big 4 started a website with every album ever in free V0. It would get enough hits to kill Rocky. -
1. aggregator (general internet music news, blogs)
2. show review/ticket
3. download sale (high quality album, video, etc)
4. public review
5. social networking.
put them all in one place with UI that makes sense. Money will start pouring in. (The music doesn't even have to be that good. As long as it's fun and listenable)
Anthony, Brandon... get to it! -
Warner Music Group shares drop; analyst points to industry decline in 1st-half of 2008
NEW YORK (AP) -- Warner Music Group Corp.'s shares dropped on Monday after an analyst said an industry decline in music sales seems to have accelerated in the first half of 2008.White noted that total album sales, both physical and digital, have continued to decline in the first half of 2008, while digital album sales have increased at a slightly slower rate than recent quarters.
Nielsen SoundScan data shows that total album sales have dropped 11 percent in the first half of the year and physical CD sales are down more than 16 percent year-to-date.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080707/warner_music_group_mover.html?.v=2 -
I have to wonder what any of these chains expected when they were charging $19.99 for CDs. As soon as CD burners became widespread and people realized how truly inexpensive a piece of plastic those CDs were, there was no way they were going to get away with that highway robbery.
Of course, I think Circuit City's problems go way beyond CD sales... -
I don't want CDs to go. Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I like having a physical product when I buy my music.
The other problem is that in the UK, our high streets are getting more and more dull. Taking away record stores, especially independents would just make it worse. -
Nobody makes nice cheap CD player anymore. They are all DVD,CD rom,Blue-Ray, etc.. On top of that CD just doesn't make sense in term of quality and convenience it can delivers.
SInce nobody initiate new standard and mp3 is highly profitable... The major label company will simply sells crap until they can't get away with it anymore. The biggest of indie labels wants to be major label, they couldn't care less either.
If I have to make prediction: the big label will simply push around all big consumer electronic manufacturer. Until some completely unknow player (probably office supply maker, or some obscure handheld maker come up with wildly crazy gadget replacing iPod.)
It'll probably some sort of cheap chinese video iPod clone, except with open software and people can make their own information layer on top of the music. They are climbing the food ladder very quickly. by early next year those player will be able to run full linux. -
Sony BMG Lost $42M Last Quarter
Sales at Sony BMG decreased 6% over the previous year "due to the continue decline in the physical music market worldwide not being fully offset by growth in digital product sales" according to Sony's latest earnings report. The division lost $42 million before taxes last quarter alone compared to a profit of $31 million in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year. Best selling releases during the quarter included Usher's, Here I Stand, Leona Lewis' Spirit and Neil Diamond's Home Before Dark.
The decline left analysts scrambling to explain why Sony would still be in serious talks to purchase a controlling interest in the partnership from Bertlesmann. Does Sony really see future profits in recorded music or does it want to gut the operation to cut its losses more quickly?
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2008/07/sony-bmg-lost-4.html
-
this is pretty much the death kneel to CD. THere isn't going to be any meaningful CD sale by 2009 holiday
Walmart Clearing Out CDs/DVDs to Make Room for Electronics, Games and Blu-ray?
It's good or bad news, depending how you look at it. But according to analyst Richard Greenfield, Walmart is "increasing its exposure to consumer electronics, video games and Blu-ray, and reducing floor space devoted to CDs and standard DVDs." This quarter, Walmart has seen a 23% decline in CD sales, so bowing to MP3 momentum while investing in their digital infrastructure and making room for more iPods makes some sense. Cutting back on DVD shelf space, however, sounds like more of a gamble if we're talking about the timeframe leading up to Christmas. -
At Atlantic Records, Digital Sales Surpass CDs
http://slashdot.org/articles/08/11/26/012230.shtml
The NYTimes reports that Atlantic is the first major label to report getting a majority of its revenue from digital sales, not CDs. Analysts say that Atlantic is out in front — the industry as a whole isn't expected to hit the 50% mark until 2011. By 2013, music industry revenues will be 37% down from their 1999 levels (when Napster arrived on the scene), according to Forrester. "'It's not at all clear that digital economics can make up for the drop in physical,' said John Rose, a former executive at EMI... Instead, the music industry is now hoping to find growth from a variety of other revenue streams it has not always had access to, like concert ticket sales and merchandise from artist tours. ... In virtually all... corners of the media world, executives are fighting to hold onto as much of their old business as possible while transitioning to digital — a difficult process that NBC Universal's chief executive... has described as 'trading analog dollars for digital pennies.'"
-
Atlantic, whose artists include the Southern rapper T. I., the rock band Death Cab for Cutie and Kid Rock, appears to be the first of the major labels to claim that most of its revenue is coming from digital sales — and it says it has done so without seeing as steep a decline in compact disc sales as the rest of the industry.
This performance is sharply at odds with the trends in the music industry over all, where data show that sales of compact discs still account for more than two-thirds of music sales. Forrester Research does not expect digital music to reach 50 percent of the overall pie until 2011.
Analysts said they were surprised that Atlantic — with the highest overall market share in the industry this year — had such a high percentage of digital revenue.
“That’s a lot,” said David Card, a digital music analyst at Forrester Research. “That’s very high. No one is near that.”
-----
wait, lemme guess who is the last one... Sony? followed by Universal..tee hee..
EMI surprisingly is trying. And they might come out ahead in a few years (black and blue as it is)
-
Holy cow...
CD has gone retro resurgence in the UK. (I guess people are digging their old collection instead of buying new one)Portable CD players see a resurgence in the UK
-
The Album Is Dead
How come no one is writing this story? That Michael Jackson sold so few albums in the wake of his death?
Huh?
MJ only sold 422,000 albums. But he sold 2.3 million individual tracks!
Now that album figure is physical and digital combined. 225,000 were digital. And there was only so much physical product in the stores. But it turns out that online people only want the single!
Are you getting this? A legendary artist, with at least two classic albums, and most people just want to cherry-pick the singles.
Even more fascinating is that through Wednesday, the "Thriller" video had been streamed more than 8.5 million times online.
http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2009/07/05/michael-jackson-turning-points/
me: yeah, but most pop / soul artists "albums" really are just collection of "single hits" instead of coherent album. A well made album is rare.
-
Irony = a bunch of music bloggers prefer CD format. (I do too, but then, I don't buy that much music anymore -- it kind of just shows up.)
That said: Me, I sell more CDs than downloads through my blog, or so relatively unscientific sampling suggests. But then, I'm a FOLK blogger. My audience is, um, more mature. They like old things, and they are slow to change. And the music they listen to pretty much never comes in "digital only" format.
Or 8 track format, for that matter. What the hell is Cheap Trick trying to prove? I'm going to release an album of sepai-toned sheet music, maybe come out with a limited edition wax cylinder to go with it.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/cheap-trick-brings-back-the-8-track/article1205531/
/rant -
A lot of bands over here are releasing things on cassette only.
By 'a lot' I mean enough to make be fucking annoyed at their being so pointlessly and willfully obtuse. -
"Based on preliminary sales numbers from Nielsen SoundScan, Jackson's catalog of solo albums sold a whopping 800,000 copies in the U.S.
...A jump in sales was expected, since this was the first full week of sales since Jackson's passing on June 25. Additionally, after most physical retailers swiftly sold out of available Jackson albums, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group were able to replenish brick-and-mortar stores with CDs last week to meet customer demand.
...In turn, physical albums accounted for 82% of Jackson's sales last week..."
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/michael-jackson-music-dominates-billboard-1003991520.story -
Last week, Jackson had a record eight albums out of the top 10 on the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart, while a Jackson 5 compilation also found its way into the upper tier. This week, the entire top 10 is all-Jackson, all the time. He alone has albums at Nos. 1-6 and Nos. 8-10 while a Jackson 5 title ("The Ultimate Collection") resides at No. 7.
----
hilarious. the top chart is now like hypem popular list. -
And reflects the same level of music quality.
oh did I just say that out loud? Apologies, I was distracted by the fact that MJ didn't play any instruments, couldn't write music, and freeloaded off the efforts of Black musicians who paved the way for him with little acknowledgment of their success. Hello? Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, or Louis Armstrong... all popular and well selling artists in Black and White households.
Of course people buy his singles on line; the fact that they're buying vinyl is the real story here.
xoxo,
Tart -
and i saw blank cassettes for sale at cvs yesterday - not exactly a high-end esoteric audio shop specializing in dead media. that's a shelflife of 15 years past its 'death' - just something to consider while we declare this stuff 'finished'.. it's a long way from obsolete to unavailable when you're that entrenched in a market.
-
hold the phone.
"couldn't write music" -
I like them, but I find the idea of releasing stuff on cassette to be a little silly. It's narrowing your audience to such an extent, without the standard vinyl excuse of things sounding better.
-
was trying to find CD sales data
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/10/05/album-sales-down-in-2009-despite-huge-jackson-beatles-numbers/
Album sales are down 11.1 percent in the third quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year, Reuters reports based on figures provided by Nielsen SoundScan. That decline comes even with the influx of sales after Michael Jackson’s death and the release of the Beatles remasters, as both artists’ respective catalogs have combined for about 6.3 million in sales this quarter. Even with the unexpected push from the catalog albums, total sales are still down 13.9 percent from 2008, a year which itself saw its sales drop 14 percent compared to 2007. If the trend continues, this will mark the eighth time in nine years that the record industry has seen a decline. According to Reuters, 2009’s biggest seller so far has been Michael Jackson’s Number Ones compilation, which sold 1.8 million copies since the King of Pop’s death on June 25th. Sluggish sales can’t be blamed on a lack of marquee releases, though, as artists who have generally gone multiplatinum in the past — like Green Day, Eminem, Dave Matthews Band and U2 — have all put out high-profile releases this year. Eminem’s Relapse has lead the charge with 1.4 million copies since its release in May. After 30 weeks on the Billboard chart, U2’s No Line on the Horizon reached platinum two weeks ago, while Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown and DMB’s Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King have yet to pass the million copies sold mark. -
German blogger Robert Gehring recently published a fascinating piece analyzing the reasons CD sales have been declining in the US. Gehring took a closer look at the US sales numbers published by the RIAA for the years 1990 to 2007 to figure out what exactly causes the current crisis. His conclusion?
"The market for physical audio recordings has been significantly impacted by the specific features of CDs."
In other words: Don't blame file sharing networks for effects that are caused by the CD format itself. Gehring believes that the initial boom of audio CDs was primarily caused by the fact that people wanted to convert their entire music collection to the new, digital format, and as a result even bought legacy albums that they already owned on vinyl or tape. Gehring calls this the growth phase of the CD, which approximately lasted from 1991 to 1994.
After that, the market went through a phase of consolidation, which approximately lasted from '94 to 2000, according to Gehring. There's not much more growth during that phase, and sales of recorded music are more or less stable, averaging around a billion recordings per year. The CD has gained a market share of 90 percent at this time, and most consumers are starting to have substantial CD collections.
Of course, those CD collections are all digital, perfect copies. People may not copy or rip CDs that much during the 90ies, but that doesn't mean that they don't trade or sell them, opening up a whole new secondary market.
http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-1009.html -
Music needs an awesome new physical format that forces me to re-purchase all my favourite albums vs. just remastering, kinda how movies have with VHS to DVD to BluRay. We had Records to tapes to CDs and that's it (mp3s don't count in my asinine argument). Maybe a non-writable memory stick type device that also makes me buy a new stereo and car equipment. That'd be awesome!
-
Would a help here?
-
Yes.
Yes it would. -
Actually, Tsuru's point continually winds me up. I have bought a few albums numerous times now and at no point has the music industry remembered that what one purchases is not the physical album but the right to reproduce the recordings for your personal entertainment purposes, hence entitling me to massively discounted re-purchasing prices because all I am now paying for is the bit of plastic as I already own the right to reproduce the intellectual property.
Suddenly, it's all about the little plastic discs again. -
wait, wait, wait.... I made a point?
;) -
Wow, smartphone app now beat Music industry!!!! lol lololololoooooo.....
This business model izzzzz deeeeaaad.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/17/mobile_app_sales/Mobile apps to earn $17bn by 2012
-
whoa brutal
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6390D720100410
During the three months ended April 4, combined U.S. sales of albums and track-equivalent albums (or TEA, where 10 tracks equal an album) totaled 113.2 million units, down 6.1 percent from 120.6 million during the corresponding period of 2009, when sales fell 7 percent year on year, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
DIGITAL DOWNTURN
On the downside, digital tracks recorded their first year-on-year quarterly sales decline, falling 0.9 percent to 312.4 million in the first quarter from 315.4 million in first-quarter 2009, when track sales climbed 13 percent year on year.
An important caveat to these numbers: Because the 2009 sales year included a 53rd week, SoundScan dropped the first sales week of 2009 from all year-on-year sales comparisons with 2010 data to preserve a 13-week comparison for every quarter of this year.
--------------
-
Is it cool to release stuff on Minidisc yet? It's the logical progression after CD > 7" > 10" > C90 Cassette and the step just before > 8-Track > Wax Cylinder > Music Box.
Anyway, if this is the case, can retailers please contact me? I bought a ton of Minidiscs years ago and am now using them as coasters. I'll shift them for a reasonable price. -
I would love to have a single on wax cylinder (and I still used my minidisc all the time until 2006) - still got a good few lying around as well actually
-
Plastic Beach, released in early march by Damon Albarn's virtual band Gorillaz, is what used to be quaintly called an album. These days, though, the songs are just the beginning. With the recorded music industry ravaged by piracy and unable to keep pace with digital delivery, Gorillaz is showing a way forward. Plastic Beach — which debuted at No. 2 on the U.S. and U.K. charts and sold over 200,000 copies in the first week alone — is as much a multimedia experience as it is a record. Buyers are given a special code that they can use to access computer games, manga-style videos and live audio streamed on the Gorillaz website. The band's label, debt-laden EMI, is so convinced that Albarn fans will want to access all of the extras, it is allowing people to listen to the album for free on the Guardian newspaper's website.
EMI's strategy reflects both the weaknesses of the music business, as well as the possibilities for a new future. The crisis in the industry is well known: although sales of songs via iTunes and other digital media increased by 10% to 15% in the U.S. last year, that wasn't enough to offset the 20% falloff in CD sales, which still account for about three-quarters of the market. Globally, recorded music sales plummeted from $26.5 billion in 2000 to just $17 billion in 2009, according to the latest set of figures available from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the antique-sounding industry body.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1987504,00.html
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- All Discussions3,267
- General2,523
- Band Promotion217
- Blog Promotion259
- MP3 Blog Tips148
- MP3 Blog Tools120
- Private Messages0