Members Geoff Grace Posted April 7, 2007 Members Share Posted April 7, 2007 According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Moses Avalon was wrong in his optimistic conclusion that digital downloads and ringtone sales offset the decline of CD sales. For the full article, follow the link below: Sales of Music, Long in Decline, Plunge Sharply Here are some of the article's harsh statistics: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jotown Posted April 7, 2007 Members Share Posted April 7, 2007 None of this suprises me at all. If folks can get something for free it is going to hurt the value of something that they have to pay for. My fear is that an entire generation of music consumers are losing the value that other generations used to put on music. I have no idea what to do about it or how to stop it; but it is happening nonetheless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rabid Posted April 7, 2007 Members Share Posted April 7, 2007 It does not surprise me either considering how bad radio music is and how long it has been since CD audio became popular. I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members spokenward Posted April 7, 2007 Members Share Posted April 7, 2007 The EQ Mag - Moses Avalon rant is here. For me the center of the piece was the part following: Let me tell you a few secrets about what the RIAA doesn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted April 7, 2007 Members Share Posted April 7, 2007 First we heard that the sky was falling. Moses Avalon assured us it was not. Now the Wall Street Journal says the sky is indeed falling. Someone please tell us once and for all so we know whether to panic or not! Seriously, I would love to the WSJ address the RIAA's "lost sales" and sales of independent music, which allegedly constitutes 20% of all sales. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members alphajerk Posted April 7, 2007 Members Share Posted April 7, 2007 because they put out {censored} for music and expect people to buy it? you can only fool people for so long. i didnt buy a single album in 2006.... because there werent any to buy worth a damn. i "stole" an album this year 3 weeks before its release online... went to the store when it came out to buy it and it was SOLD OUT! bought it a week later [costing me $2 more than the initial sale price]. sounds WAY better than the mp3's i "stole" but i did get to hear the album early. the album is pretty good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geoff Grace Posted April 7, 2007 Author Members Share Posted April 7, 2007 The EQ Mag - Moses Avalon rant is here. For me the center of the piece was the part following: Let me tell you a few secrets about what the RIAA doesn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geoff Grace Posted April 7, 2007 Author Members Share Posted April 7, 2007 Now the Wall Street Journal says the sky is indeed falling. Rolling Stone magazine is reporting most of the same statistics as well (on page 15, in the current April 19, 2007 issue). I read it there first; but because I couldn't find the Rolling Stone article online, I linked to the Wall Street Journal article instead. The Rolling Stone article concludes with the following quote: "Music will gradually drop as a proportion of our pie," says Simon Wright, CEO of Virgin Entertainment. "We're planning our business around the fact that the music market will reduce in total size and will do so constantly from now on." Best, Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members spokenward Posted April 7, 2007 Members Share Posted April 7, 2007 Simon Wright, chief executive of Virgin Entertainment Group International, which runs 14 Virgin Megastores Wright is the exec for Virgin's retail group. So he is just saying that he will re-merchandise with tchotchkes. His calculus is simply, how do I maintain my sales per square ft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geoff Grace Posted April 8, 2007 Author Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 Wright is the exec for Virgin's retail group. So he is just saying that he will re-merchandise with tchotchkes. His calculus is simply, how do I maintain my sales per square ft. Exactly. You make it sound like no big deal, but he is talking about gradually phasing out music at a record store chain. Not a good sign, and not a good way turn the decreasing sales trend around. More from the Wall Street Journal article: Late last year, Tower Records closed its doors, after filing for bankruptcy-court protection in August. Earlier in 2006, following a bankruptcy filing, Musicland Holding Corp., which owned the Sam Goody chain, closed 500 of its 900 locations. And recently, Trans World Entertainment Corp., which operates the FYE and Coconuts chains, among others, began closing 134 of its 1,087 locations.But even at the outlets that are still open, business has suffered. Executives at Trans World, based in Albany, N.Y., told analysts earlier this month that sales of music at its stores declined 14% in the last quarter of 2006. For the year, music represented just 44% of the company's sales, down from 54% in 2005. For the final quarter of the year, music represented just 38% of its sales. Best, Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members spokenward Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 I agree here, the change in retail should have been the lead for the WSJ article. But I will come back to that. ok, here's my take. The WSJ story is not a real piece of original research. It is a combination of filler, press release and fluff. It hasn't worked out that way -- at least so far. Digital sales of individual songs this year have risen 54% from a year earlier to 173.4 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But that's nowhere near enough to offset the 20% decline from a year ago in CD sales to 81.5 million units. Overall, sales of all music -- digital and physical -- are down 10% this year. And even including sales of ringtones, subscription services and other "ancillary" goods, sales are still down 9%, according to one estimate; some recording executives have privately questioned that figure, which was included in a recent report by Pali Research. "some recording executives have privately questioned that figure" - What does that mean? This is freshman term paper weaseling. up? down? what? What about Pali Research (another source)? Pali Research follows WMG. WMG is the only label that is mentioned (besides Apple) Pali just upgraded WMG from sell to neutral. WMG's press releases love to tout the fact that they are a music business "pure play." So the overall "hell in a handbasket" tone is rewarded with a hold recommendation. http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/070329/warnermusic_shares.html?.v=1So, is this story vigorously researched? I don't get that feeling. My comment about Virgin stores has to be taken in context of the overall retail marketplace. Virgin has oversized stores in very, very expensive retail sales space. When Tower went away, Virgin could only look across the street at HMV (the only retailer with similar square footage) and say WTF are we doing in this neighborhood? Their real estate commitment predated the web. They are destination shopping locations when only tourists have time to shop there. The overall drop in the number of retail music outlets is the real scary problem at retail. This is a fundamentally bad thing for the record business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Frantag Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 My way of consuming music has changed drastically. I don't buy CD's any more unless it's from some friend who I'd like to encourage. I almost always now listen to music through Rhapsody. I have Rhapsody to go which for 15 bucks a month allows me to load songs on my mp3 player. It also has hundreds of radio channels and custom channels that can be downloaded as well. I am constantly given new music to listen to that is pretty well sorted and keeps me interested. I don't want to buy CD's any more. They take up space and I only like a few songs on each one. I also listen to a lot of music on MySpace and Soundclick. I love hearing music that I can't buy at Wal Mart. So the record companies are going to have to work a little harder and they're going to have to build their new system around .99 cent songs that are compelling enough for me to want to buy. That is a tough bill to fill. The days of rock star excess are nearly over. Now we're dealing with a much different economy. One that the consumer directs. Let's get on with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Spin Cycle Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 I take this as a step in the right direction- away from marketing schemes and repetitive flash-in-the-pan pop music and back towards music made for music's sake. Thank God, after 40 or so years of being fed recycled ideas people are beginning to see the light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Billster Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Moses Avalon was wrong in his optimistic conclusion that digital downloads and ringtone sales offset the decline of CD sales.Here are some of the article's harsh statistics: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Super 8 Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 I take this as a step in the right direction- away from marketing schemes and repetitive flash-in-the-pan pop music and back towards music made for music's sake. I agree. The only bad thing about this is that music sales only plunged 20%. Anyone who wishes to record music now can do so for pennies on the dollar of what it used to cost. Making it available for others to listen almost anywhere in the world is a breeze. We don't need this mega-behemoth music industry determining what gets to be heard and what doesn't anymore. It's the age of do-it-yourself. Certainly that's how people are listening to music. They want it, they download it, they listen to it....done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geoff Grace Posted April 8, 2007 Author Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 What week are we talking about here. If it's recent, then both of those albums are somewhat stale in the marketplace. When a compelling new release comes out, what are the sales for week 1 or week 2, not week 15, when the #1 for that week is a sustaining item because no one anyone wants to hear has released a new album since December?Look at the movie industry. Anyone who wants an Oscar releases their movie in December so they qualify for the year, do the big market push through January when the nominations are sealed, and get a bump from the nomination and awards in February and March.The movie studios release crap in the March-April season, then ramp up the brainless "blow stuff up" movies for the summer holidays. When was the "best picture" Oscar last awarded to a movie released in March of the qualifying year, or even before October?See what I'm sayin'? I think I understand what you're driving at, in which case it may help to know that the recent Dreamgirls release set a record as the lowest-selling selling chart topper of the SoundScan era (according to Rolling Stone). In other words, Dreamgirls was the lowest-selling number one record since 1991 (and probably since considerably earlier). This 16-year-or-longer spell is far too long of a time period to be considered a season. Best, Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RickTaylor Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 They want it, they download it, they listen to it....done. What happened to the part where the person creating the music gets money? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geoff Grace Posted April 8, 2007 Author Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 The overall drop in the number of retail music outlets is the real scary problem at retail. This is a fundamentally bad thing for the record business. Agreed. Best, Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 Well, look on the bright side: Record companies are working night and day, coming up with innovative new ways to exploit the digital revolution. For example, once they realized that the future was digital, they...uh...well, they...uh...hoped Apple would sell a bunch on iTunes, and they also...well...they decided to...uh...oh, never mind. They have no digital strategy. None. They just keep thinking they're going to sell CDs forever, preferably re-packaged versions of recordings they've already sold multiple times on vinyl, cassette, CD, remastered, as part of a boxed set, as a package with a DVD, etc. I don't have a lot of sympathy for businesses that stick their heads in the sand and deny reality. Record companies could have used their tremendous power of aggregation to crush Napster, not legally, but by added value to an extent no "pirate" organization could do. But they didn't. They didn't offer discounts on concert tickets, free passes to online chats with their artists, compromised fidelity free samples, and subscriptions to an artist's music, blogs, and live streaming of selected concerts, along with seeding an advance cut or two from an upcoming album. AND they KILLED THE SINGLE ON PURPOSE! They were so greedy they tried to push $5 CD singles. They killed the singles market, the engine that drove the record industry from its inception, and left it for dead. And still do: It took Apple Computer, for chrissake, to revive it. And the record labels have conceded the singles market to iTunes and its ilk. Look at Armin Van Buuren: 35 Euros a year gets you unlimited streaming of all his weekly "State of Trance" DJ sets for a year. I bet the WSJ isn't counting what he's making. But most importantly, he did it himself. No record company was bright enough to come up with this idea. The lack of innovative thinking displayed by the record companies is appalling. If Steve Jobs or Bill Gates had been equally unintelligent in terms of rolling with the punches, Apple and Microsoft would be distant footnotes in computer history. Oh, and one more thing while I'm on a roll : I get the Grammy Awards Guide every month that lists releases for that month. It seems the majority is re-packaging: ANOTHER Byrds boxed set, ANOTHER "remastered" version of Doors' albums, a 38 Special Greatest Hits package, and on and on and on and on. Sure, it's GREAT for the bottom line to keep selling the same stuff over and over, especially if people are dead and aren't going to be picky about royalties. But it's no way to build a business, no way to build a future, and as far away as possible from the entrepreneurial spirit that built the record industry into what it was. Give me new material to buy, and I'll buy it. Although come to think of it, the last CDs I bought were off a table at a gig from an independent artist...I bet that didn't show up on the WSJ's radar either, but it put $35 in Vicki Genfan's pocket. And she didn't need to "recoup her expenses" before getting paid, either. I'm all in favor of artists getting paid. And it seems they've decided to take care of that themselves rather than depend on a major label to do it for them. (And if anyone knows what happened to the royalties I'm owed for the four albums I did in the 60s and 70s that were re-released on CD and did quite well, thank you, let me know.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Spin Cycle Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 What happened to the part where the person creating the music gets money? Person downloads music, person enjoys music, person pays money directly to the artist in ticket sales at their concert. This does two things. A) Cuts out the money-grubbing scum{censored}s from the music industry and B) ensures that only bands that can actually put on an entertaining show make any cash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members spokenward Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 Clicks for Kicks (The Wall Street Journal Online is free unlike the rest of the WSJ. It is driven by delivering targeted audiences. In other words the content is tailored to the ad market. That may be less rigorous.)http://advertising.wsj.com/online/ad_opportunities/interest_based.html INTEREST-BASED In the 1990 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Geoff Grace Posted April 8, 2007 Author Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 So, it's a weak start for the year, but I'm not sure that it is the end of the world yet. Not the end of the world, by any means, but a serious problem, nonetheless. Best, Geoff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jotown Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 Quote: Originally Posted by Super 8 They want it, they download it, they listen to it....done. What happened to the part where the person creating the music gets money?DOH! +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jotown Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 Person downloads music, person enjoys music, person pays money directly to the artist in ticket sales at their concert.This does two things. A) Cuts out the money-grubbing scum{censored}s from the music industry and B) ensures that only bands that can actually put on an entertaining show make any cash.I am sorry but you are living in fantasy land if you think that artists will be able to survive financially by giving their music away. This is a myth and a falacy. CD sales (or digital music sales) are a part of how artists make their living. Many, many artists break even or lose money when touring. You have to make all of your revenue streams profitable. Giving your records away is a disaster of a business model. How will you pay to record your music (or buy the gear to) if you don't make any money from your recordings? From your concert ticket sales? When your tour is losing money? You have to rethink this model and talk to people who are really out there trying to make a living in the music business and not just hobbyists who have a day job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fred zappelin Posted April 8, 2007 Members Share Posted April 8, 2007 1- Most new music is crap, Just listen to the {censored} that is played on satellite radio. Who wants to buy that of what they are already hearing/payig for on satellite? 2- Personally I have too much music to listen to and I`m sure most of us are at the same saturation level. So the music industry is now feeling the effects of their own price gouging because the kids are downloading from all kinds of internet sources. Oh well ! If the CDs were less than the 17 bucks they keep jamming us for they might sell more. A frigggin new CD should be less than 10 bucks. I don`t feel sorry for them. 3- Rock is almost dead. The hand full of legends keeping it alive will be in their 70s & 80s soon. 4- The music "industry" is led by non-visionaries who promote {censored} only - see bullet #1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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