Web music sales up, albums sales plummet
p2pnet news view Music:- It’s going to another interesting, in the Confucian sense, year for Vivendi Universal (France), Sony BMG (Japan and Germany), EMI (Britain), and Warner Music (US) operations in the States.
The RIAA set the scene at the end of 2008 with a spurious announcement (much hyped by the mainstream media, with Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal right up front) that it’ll stop suing online music lovers, instead leaving the task of harassment up to ISPs.
Except in almost the next breath, the Big 4 said they nonetheless reserve the right to continue to do whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it, with New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo leading the way, a fact barely mentioned by the corporate press.
Music sales continued to slump in 2008, “as the increased number of downloads of digital tracks failed to make up for a plunge in the sale of compact discs,” says the Associated Press, quoting The Nielsen Co.
Then, “Music purchases in 2008 reached 1.5 billion, marking the fourth consecutive year music sales have exceeded one billion (1.4 billion in 2007, 1.2 billion in 2006 and 1 billion in 2005),” says Business of Cinema, quoting Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen BDS and Nielsen RingScan.
“Music sales exceeded 65 million in the final week of 2008, representing the biggest sales week in the history of Nielsen SoundScan,” says the story. “The previous record was Christmas week 2007 with 58.4 million music purchases.”
Bitter and relentless attacks
What it boils down to is: thanks to the Net, music lovers are no longer stuck with having to pay through the nose for disks [read albums] with only one or two decent tracks.
Instead, they can first test-listen their choices in full, and then download all the singles they want for free from the P2P networks, for reasonable amounts from the growing number of independent download services, or be ripped off by the likes of iTunes.
Another reason the numbers are down is because the Big $ have been engaging in bitter and relentless attacks on their own customers, calling them criminals and thieves and then expecting them to buy ‘product’.
This aspect is never mentioned by the mainstream media.
“Sales of digital music continued to rise steeply last year,” says the New York Times. “Just over a billion songs were downloaded, a 27 percent increase from 2007, and some record companies say they are finally beginning to wring significant profits from music on Web sites like YouTube and MySpace.”
Unfortunately, measurement specialist BigChampagne no longer compiles P2P download numbers, but to put the “billion songs” number into perspective, the company told p2pnet overall statistics for the number of people simultaneously logged onto p2p networks at any given time in the US in 2006 looked like this:
2003 – 3,004,873
2004 – 4,603,048
2005 – 6,523,733
October, 2006 – 6,562,440
And globally, the numbers were:
2003 – 5,518,899
2004 – 7,048,102
2005 – 8,997,196
September, 2006 – 9,385,967
That was two years ago and RIAA claims to the contrary notwithstanding, it’s a safe bet file sharing numbers have continued to rise, fuelling the music buying public’s propensity for singles.
But despite the growth of online music sales, “CDs remain by far the most popular format, although that hold is slipping; 361 million CDs were sold in 2008, down almost 20 percent from the previous year, says the NYT, going on:
“And since CDs remain the record industry’s biggest profit engine, many analysts worry that the industry will be particularly vulnerable to inventory reductions at retail stores. Big-box stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy account for up to 65 percent of all retail purchases, and many of those stores are sharply reducing the floor space allotted to music, said Richard Greenfield, a media analyst at Pali Research in New York.”
Ironically, as digital downloads grew, vinyl album sales also climbed. In 2008, more vinyl albums were purchased (1.88 million) than any other year since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991, says AP.
“More than two of every three vinyl albums were purchased at an independent music store during the year, the company reported.”
Meanwhile, Universal Music Group, “remained the industry’s big dog, with a nearly 32 percent share of the album market, followed by Sony BMG Music Entertainment, at 25 percent,” says the Los Angeles Times, adding:
“Warner Music Group claimed 21 percent of sales, and the smallest of the major labels, EMI Music, had a market share of 9 percent.“Lil Wayne’s ‘Tha Carter III’ was the best-selling album of the year. The rock group AC/DC was the best-selling group.”
Click here for corporate stats in depth and in detail.
Associated Press – Album sales plunge, digital downloads up, January 1, 2009
Business of Cinema - US music purchases exceed 1.5 billion; 10% growth in 08, January 2, 2009
New York Times – Music downloads hit 1 billion mark, January 2, 2009
at any given time in the US – RIAA losing p2p file sharing war, Novembere 17, 2006
Los Angeles Times – Digital music downloads set record but fail to make up for decline in CD sales, December 31, 2008
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January 2nd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I’d like to know if the recording industry took in more money this year than last year. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did, in spite of the recession. They report retail album sales are down, but their cash flows from a lot of other revenue streams (like ringtones, videos, games, internet radio, licensing, and “360 contracts”, as well as mass-extortion) are simply exploding, and they don’t seem to talk much about that.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
“Except in almost the next breath, the Big 4 said they nonetheless reserve the right to do continue to do whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it, ”
Me too.
January 2nd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Currious. Nielsen SoundScan always show up with this type of optimistic stat while nobody else does.
Talk about propaganda for the investors!
We are boycotting and the RIAA based recording industry is going, going, going, down down down down. . . .
If you want to wast money invest in Vivendique Univers-sale, EMI, Time Warner or Sony/BMG!
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:40 pm
“as the increased number of downloads of digital tracks failed to make up for a plunge in the sale of compact discs,”
This is definitely GOOD news. Let’s continue the war against the Mafia to starve them of profits.