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Legal US Music Downloads Beat CD Single Sales
Kelly McNeill writes "I've received a lot of feedback from osViews readers (my site) asking about the music download survey that we've been conducting over the past few weeks, saying that osViews readership must be skewed in one particular direction to get the results we did. The primary reason given is not necessarily the fact that iTunes has significantly surpassed its competitors, but that the results show legal digital downloads surpassing even CD sales. I must admit that even I thought this a was a bit peculiar, but now, according to a BBC World news report, it seems the survey is correct. Digital downloads have surpassed even physical CD sales!" Update: 11/04 23:35 GMT by S : The BBC story refers to CD single sales, so Mr.McNeill maybe not be quite as right as he thinks, sadly.
...Well no SHIT sherlock!
Of course the number of units sold online is going to surpass the number of physical units sold. You have a higher availability of product, lower cost, and a greater transport for them that the consumer loves.
Of course, I am above saying I told you so to people, so I will avoid that in this case towards the RIAA. However, I would like to rub their noses in it, literally, so if someone could work that out, that'd be great.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Of course, these reports will be meaningless to the music execs. Instead of acknowledging that the albums with only or two decent songs are on the way out, they'll continue to blame piracy for the decline of CD sales. I recently signed on with iTunes (for Windows) and I'm enjoying it. iTunes has (what I consider to be) reasonable use policies. I'm not about to give up my perfectly working MP3 player so I was wanting a service that will allow me to make MP3s using reasonable steps. Already, I've purchased more music that I have the past couple of years. And get this... they're all songs that I like; none of the filler crap.
Eventually, they'll "get it" and realize that their business model is changing and you'll see more services like iTunes.
You cant scratch an Mp3
wud
Thank you for pointing this out. I'm tired of this story being posted without the "CD Singles" verbage. Downloads aren't even CLOSE to touching album sales people. Last time I did the math, if Apple meets their 100M song goal for the year, that will be something like 1% of all record sales in the US. Quite a lot, but no where near "more than physical CDs"
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
I suppose downloading music is OK for one hit wonders and the latest throw away tune. But if I'm going to buy classic jazz or orchestral music, I want it guaranteed to last my lifetime. Downloading has its place but it will never replace hard copy CDs for me.
If I recall correctly, CD singles usually are bundled with a few other miscellaneous tracks, AND cost more than a dollar to purchase. Suppose a CD single costs 2$. In which case the record companies have made 7.7 million dollars off of legit downloading (99 cents a pop), and eight million dollars off of CD singles.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Oh they got the note... and they're still collecting money for every song that Apple sells.
We can laugh at them for not jumping on the bandwagon sooner, but they're getting the last laugh, and still getting paid.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
The question I'm wondering is: how many 45 rpm singles were being sold at the height of their popularity, into what population?
We are guessing that 7.7M + 4M/month is way low compared to the peak, which I might guess was 10-15 million/month for a smaller population.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Album art died when CDs took over. The days of that glorious 12" record jacket and the detailed artwork it could hold have been gone for 15 years.
As much as the idea sucks, it's a fact of life that things change.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I bought a CD single last week. It was 3.99. It contained a remix of the song, the album version of the song. A remix of another song on the album. And a previously unreleased cover song. So, I get 4 songs for $4. Sounds like the iTMS. :)
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
I didn't even need to click. I've been doing the math to figure how big a deal this iTunes thing is (not big, at least not yet).
Here are the numbers. The U.S. record industry sold $12.6 billion worldwide in various formats (almost all CDs) in 2002. This is off a bit from the peak $14.6 billion in 1999. It's important to keep in mind that, even at those levels, we're talking about nine weeks revenue for IBM.
Assuming the Windows side of iTunes Music Store continues to sell at the initial rate of 1 million songs/$1 million revenue in the first 3.5 days, that's only about $104 million per year. The Mac side sold $13 million in tunes in the first six months, so we'll put that side at $26 million per year.
That's $130 million per year for all iTMS. Even if the store doubles its sales, and then the other stores collectively match its sales, you'd be talking about total online sales of $520 million per year, still a drop in the bucket.
The growth will need to get exponential before there is any comparison with offline music sales. I'm not saying it won't happen, but that's what we're talking about, and that's how I instantly new the hed on the posting was wrong.
Singles used to be a HUGE market. Bands used to release a stream of singles before releasing an album, and many times those singles were not even on the album that would later come out. If you missed the single, you missed the boat. Of, course, this was back in the day of the 45RPM record.
I used to buy a fair number of singles on 45, especially from bands I otherwise didn't really care for. And for about a dollar a pop, it wasn't bad deal. When CDs killed off LPs and 45's, the market for singles pretty much died for a while. At least until they convinced kids to fork out $4.00 - $6.00 a piece for the little blighters.
The market for singles died because the record companies refused to take a fair price for songs on CD. And sales forces were focused on the "album", which is odd since most albums of recent music are made up of a collection of seemingly random songs that have no central theme to hold them together. They might as well be collections of singles.
I think that buying only what you want online is going to bring back the era of the single. I know I've spent more money on music since iTunes for Windows came out than I have for the last year. And why? Because I can buy only the one song I like buy that band I otherwise don't care for. And for a dollar a pop, that's not bad.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.