Friday, March 23, 2007
CD Sales Down: The Digital Single Effect
Posted by Damion Chaplin in "CONTENT" @ 10:00 AM
"The music industry quaked [Tuesday] as reports surfaced indicating that CD sales have plummeted 20 percent compared to the same period last year. This is just the latest a string of bad news for music sales going back several years. The question is, what's to blame? This quarter, 81.5 million CDs will be sold. While that's down 20 percent from the same period last year, digital singles sold by the likes of Apple's iTunes store grew 54 percent, to account for 175 million songs sold. In other words, the quantity of downloaded songs far outweighs the quantity of CDs sold as a whole. How many of those purchases are "singles," as opposed to digital album sales conducted online or subscription downloads?"
People are buying less CDs and more digital singles, from places like iTunes. Now that people have the option of just buying the single their looking for, why should they bother to buy the CD? Personally I'm of the mind that if I like one of their singles I may very well like the rest of the stuff on the album, so I usually buy the entire album. That and I can't stand DRM'd music or paying $8 for a CD single. How about you? Have you found yourself buying less CDs and more digital singles? Do you ever buy the full album?
People are buying less CDs and more digital singles, from places like iTunes. Now that people have the option of just buying the single their looking for, why should they bother to buy the CD? Personally I'm of the mind that if I like one of their singles I may very well like the rest of the stuff on the album, so I usually buy the entire album. That and I can't stand DRM'd music or paying $8 for a CD single. How about you? Have you found yourself buying less CDs and more digital singles? Do you ever buy the full album?
