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Digital downloads rising, but (bad) CDs still top the charts
1/8/2007 12:16:09 PM, by Nate Anderson
If you listen to much tech talk, you'll know how easy it is to forget about the humble compact disc. Digital downloads are the only hip way to purchase DRMed, lossy music without album art, but most of the world has yet to learn this valuable lesson. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, more than 90 percent of music today is purchased on CD, and a new study from JupiterResearch suggests that even in 2011, CDs will still dominate the market.
That's not to say that CD sales are rising; they're not. But they aren't plummeting, either, and Jupiter believes that in 2011, 78 percent of US consumer music spending will still go towards CDs.
David Schatsky, president of JupiterKagan, says that the CD has a long and happy life ahead. "As detailed in our research, the music download business will remain a sampling medium for many users rather than a CD replacement," he said.
The new study also finds that digital downloads grew more than 30 percent last year and that subscription services grew by 14 percent. In the next five years, Jupiter expects those trends to be reversed. Digital downloading will grow at 16 percent, while subscriptions (like those from Napster and Zune) will grow 32 percent. The overall digital music market is expected to hit $2.5 billion by 2011.
Jupiter predicts that the continued rise in spending on digital downloads and subscriptions won't make up for the overall decline in sales faced by the music industry—bad news for music executives who thought that simply going digital might fix the problem of declining sales.
Discussions like these usually end with snarky statements about how music publishers should maybe, for once, start thinking about publishing real, honest, worthwhile music in place of the hot bilge on toast they usually peddle. Only then—so goes the theory—will music-loving consumers return to the major-label embrace.
Newsflash: plenty of people love hot bilge on toast. Inventive pop songcraft (Belle & Sebastian) and earnest alt.country (Neko Case) produced two of the best albums in 2006, but they can't hold a candle to last year's biggest smash, the soundtrack to the Disney Channel TV movie High School Musical. Danity Kane, the girl group put together for the TV show Making the Band, went platinum (1 million copies) with their first album. Kelly Clarkson went five times platinum, and American Idol contestants Chris Daughtry, Clay Aiken, and Bo Bice all went gold (more than 500,000 copies). If record labels want to move more widgets, pre-fab rock-and-roll for teens still looks like a gold mine waiting to be tapped.
1/8/2007 12:16:09 PM, by Nate Anderson
If you listen to much tech talk, you'll know how easy it is to forget about the humble compact disc. Digital downloads are the only hip way to purchase DRMed, lossy music without album art, but most of the world has yet to learn this valuable lesson. According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, more than 90 percent of music today is purchased on CD, and a new study from JupiterResearch suggests that even in 2011, CDs will still dominate the market.
That's not to say that CD sales are rising; they're not. But they aren't plummeting, either, and Jupiter believes that in 2011, 78 percent of US consumer music spending will still go towards CDs.
David Schatsky, president of JupiterKagan, says that the CD has a long and happy life ahead. "As detailed in our research, the music download business will remain a sampling medium for many users rather than a CD replacement," he said.
The new study also finds that digital downloads grew more than 30 percent last year and that subscription services grew by 14 percent. In the next five years, Jupiter expects those trends to be reversed. Digital downloading will grow at 16 percent, while subscriptions (like those from Napster and Zune) will grow 32 percent. The overall digital music market is expected to hit $2.5 billion by 2011.
Jupiter predicts that the continued rise in spending on digital downloads and subscriptions won't make up for the overall decline in sales faced by the music industry—bad news for music executives who thought that simply going digital might fix the problem of declining sales.
Discussions like these usually end with snarky statements about how music publishers should maybe, for once, start thinking about publishing real, honest, worthwhile music in place of the hot bilge on toast they usually peddle. Only then—so goes the theory—will music-loving consumers return to the major-label embrace.
Newsflash: plenty of people love hot bilge on toast. Inventive pop songcraft (Belle & Sebastian) and earnest alt.country (Neko Case) produced two of the best albums in 2006, but they can't hold a candle to last year's biggest smash, the soundtrack to the Disney Channel TV movie High School Musical. Danity Kane, the girl group put together for the TV show Making the Band, went platinum (1 million copies) with their first album. Kelly Clarkson went five times platinum, and American Idol contestants Chris Daughtry, Clay Aiken, and Bo Bice all went gold (more than 500,000 copies). If record labels want to move more widgets, pre-fab rock-and-roll for teens still looks like a gold mine waiting to be tapped.
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