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17 Million People Stopped Buying CDs In 2008
Houston 2600 sends along an Ars Technica writeup on the continuing downward trend in the traditional music business: NPD's annual survey found that 17 million CD customers dropped out last year. Among the good news is that streaming services such as Pandora are growing fast. "While overall music sales were up 10 percent in 2008, the year saw a drop not only in CD sales, but also in the number of customers actually purchasing music. But according to a new report, the act of listening to music is actually on the rise. ... NPD's annual Digital Music Study found that there were 17 million fewer CD customers in 2008 than in past years. CD sales have been dropping for quite some time, and while 1.5 billion songs were sold digitally last year, the number of Internet users paying for digital music only increased by 8 million in 2008."
also, I want to know a breakdown of what era the music is being purchased from... the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s or the current decade? Im guessing a big reason for the drop in CD sales is people have filled out their CD collections/replaced all their cassette tapes
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I work in a building near a mall. Several times a week I go over there and either eat in the food court or walk around during lunch.
There are TONS of people at that mall every day.
But hardly anyone actually has a bag, or is doing anything more than browsing.
So far, if I had to spit-ball it, I'd guess 22-24 stores have either "temporarily" closed or just boarded their doors.
No one is buying anything right now. The funny thing is, if you have the money, right now is such a ridiculously awesome time to buy stuff.
In short, your assessment is 100% correct IMO.
Sent from your iPad.
TFA says 1.5 billion downloads happened last year. That sounds a bit fishy since Apple alone sold 2 billion songs last year (see e.g. techcrunch article).
Let's add in the metrics that the amount of utter crap has risen by 70%.
I have not bought a new CD for 2 years because most out there are utter garbage. I have bought a lot of used classic (older than 3 year old release) ones and amazon.com non drm mp3's. but no new CD has interested me for 2 years now. One other thing that influenced this was I started my Sirius subscription over 2 years ago as well.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...the retail store is.
I'm serious. Kodak went thru the same process. Focused on selling physical high-volume goods (photo film & paper), they viewed the customer as the store buying stuff in volume - not the individual actually using the product. As a result, when digital photography started catching on, the manufacturer was faced with threats of retail stores dropping their products entirely. You see, the standard drug-store film-processing model required the end user to enter the retail store three times (buy film, drop off film, pick up prints), thus encouraging additional "well, while I'm here..." purchases resulting from the walk-in photo-processing model. Digital photography trashes that model: no longer must the end user come into the store so often ... which upsets the retailer, who then tells Kodak et al "don't go digital or we'll drop your products entirely". Thing is, by considering retailer = customer, the manufacturer doesn't see that the end user is going to go digital anyway and sales of film will eventually evaporate. Scared of losing the "customer" (i.e.: retailer), the manufacturer fails to serve the "real customer" (i.e.: end user), and isn't ready to handle the transition when it finally hits.
Same problem with music. Big labels see the retail stores as the customers, who complain "if you go to digital distribution we won't have anything to sell, so stifle that MP3 stuff or we'll stop selling your product" - not seeing that the end user is, en masse, going all-digital-download. You're not the RIAA's customer, the retail store is.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Pointless consumers whose lives are devoted to working and shopping discover they can't afford to shop any more, yet have no idea what to do with their free time other than going to the mall.
It's like the end of a zombie movie with the zombies wandering around aimlessly with no uninfected brains left to eat.
And we call this civilization.
Or maybe they just got tired of buying RIAA produced crap? I have been talking to my buddies and a lot of them have been doing like me and just buying from local artists, which don't show up in these RIAA numbers. Even in a little state like AR I can have my choice of anything from bluegrass and traditional country to death and speed metal, and everything in between. And frankly you don't feel bent over by the local artists.
The last show I went to I got a T shirt, a nice 12 song CD with nice artwork and liner notes, and a bumper sticker for $25 and got a little 5 song EP CD for free. Hell of a lot better deal than what I would get from an RIAA member. I have also noticed that more and more are doing the tricks I used to do with my old band, like having a raffle for a guitar signed by the band. Every purchase of $10 or more got you put in the raffle. It gives the band another chance to sell you stuff after the show and who don't like raffles? We would pick up these Kramer guitars and basses from MusicYo(sadly no longer in business) for a little of nothing, play them for a couple of songs, and then sign one and give it away. I suppose from the looks of them the bands are using pawn shop specials now, but hell it's still fun and a great way to put butts in the seats.
So maybe they just got tired of feeling ripped off and skipped the middlemen? From the shows I have been seeing the local artists are going out of their way to make sure you have value for your hard earned $$ in this economy. And you know that every dime you hand them isn't going to some fat cat or some lawyer suing kids. So maybe like me they have just decided the RIAA crap isn't worth bothering with. Too much corporate MOR garbage for too much money.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.