Browsing all posts in physical vs digital.
Digital vs Physical Album Sales
This stat continues to baffle me – 65% of music sales are still a physical cd format! At least according to the sales numbers for the first half of 2009. Digital download sales account for the other 35%. The prediction is that digital sales will overtake physical sales by 2010 as cd sales fall 15-20% [...]
Rethinking the Album
Is the album dead? Yes. The sale of a physical cd/album will never again reach the peak of 1999. Yet that is not stopping Mariah Carey from experimenting with a fresh concept for her upcoming album. Mariah will be working in conjunction with Elle magazine to create a 34 page magazine-style album insert. This insert [...]
Digital Music Percentages
A disconnect exists between the % of digital music consumed and the % of Record Label sales derived from those digital sales. EMI’s CEO, Elio Leoni-Sceti, recently stated that “seventy percent of music consumption is digital and yet only about twenty percent of music company revenues are derived from digital.” It is likely that 80% [...]
TuneCore & Universal Music Partnership
TuneCore and Universal Music just signed a distribution partnership that will allow upcoming artists a chance to receive services from a major record label. TuneCore is a company that distributes an artist or band’s digital songs to a number of retail outlets (ex. iTunes). TuneCore charges a fee per song, but the artist receives 100% [...]
Album Sales
Nielsen just issued their NARM report highlighting trends in album sales. Here are some of the main findings: By the end of 2010, 50% of music unit purchases will be in the digital format. Physical albums still generate more revenue than digital sales, so digital increases will not make up for physical declines until 2011 [...]
May Album Sales Drastically Down
Physical album sales dropped 17.8% over May ’08. From May ’07 to May ’08, album sales were down 14%. It’s getting worse. Not a big surprise, but these drops continue to be extreme. For all of 2009, physical album sales are down 13.4% compared to 2008. So, why keep writing about this? I think the [...]
Selling the Beatles Catalog
Word is that Apple Corps Ltd., the multi-media company set up by The Beatles (not to be confused with Apple, Inc), is considering selling the Beatles catalog on their own website. The Beatles have been noticeably absent from iTunes by not licensing their catalog to the mega online store. It’s not like the Beatles need [...]
Beatles: The Video Game
You know a major shift has occurred when the Beatles, yes, the Beatles, release their songs digitally to a video game but still don’t have their songs on iTunes. It was just announced that the Beatles will release part of their digital catalog to be included in the “Rock Band” video game. The announcement noted [...]
Universal Company Structure Changes
Universal Music Group Distribution (UMGD) changed its corporate structure around a bit recently. In a move telling of the times, digital and physical music sales will now fall under the same area called Universal Music Distribution. The other areas under UMGD are: – Fontana – Indie Distribution- Vivendi – Video Distribution- Digital – Digital Assets [...]
