Comments on: Can Music Sales Get Any Worse? Just Watch.

By: Universal Music: We Don’t Sound As Bad As Everyone Else | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:26:11 +0000

[...] during the same period, or the 22% decline that Sony’s Sony Music Entertainment (SNE) recorded. Universal says earnings (EBDITA, in this case), declined 3.6% for the quarter, or 6.6% if adjusted [...]

By: Warner Music Sales Down 11%; Could Have Been Worse | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:04:36 +0000

[...] good news for Warner Music Group (WMG) executives: Their fourth quarter was better than the one that their rivals at Sony Music Entertainment (SNE) posted. The bad news: That’s still a lousy [...]

By: Glenn Peoples

Glenn Peoples — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:23:00 +0000

Sam, you’re wrong now and you will be wrong in the future. CD sales are down, not dead. A few hundred million sold in 2008. That’s a lot of units of a dead format. In 1995, the CD still had four years until its peak year in terms of units sold in the U.S. These are not difficult statistics to find online. Google can help.

If recorded music is merely an advertisement for an artist, and a way to get people to concerts, then a lot of the population is going to get left out. Those U2 tours don’t exactly stop in Amarillo, do they? And soundtracks…there are no tours behind soundtracks. Or many greatest hits comps. Or EPs.

Every band that releases music would have to tour or play live to support it…what a weird world that would be. Have a family and a full-time job? Tough, go tour. Just a bedroom producer of electronic music? Tough, go tour.

The top fraction of a percentile makes a heap of money from touring. Everybody else does from OK to poorly. So it’s not all about live concerts. But when you’re Madonna and can charge $160 per seat and do a $120 million deal with Live Nation, yes, it’s all about the live concert. For everybody else, it’s about recorded music, publishing and merchandise.

When you think through it, the “songs are just ads” argument should fall apart fairly quickly.

It’s too safe, and too pedestrian, to simply say the way the music industry works today won’t be how it will work in the future. Of course it is going to change. It has already changed a great deal. For starters, it’s a lot smaller.

By: Sam Harrison

Sam Harrison — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:39:55 +0000

in the big picture, music is about live concerts, and songs are ads for the artist

that means the entire music industry as it is now formulated is dead

and good riddance

By: Sam Harrison

Sam Harrison — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:38:11 +0000

this isn’t news. since 1995 and certainly since 2005 it’s no big prediction that the cd is dead

By: Can Music Sales Get Any Worse? Just Watch. [MediaMemo] | heave-ho.org

Can Music Sales Get Any Worse? Just Watch. [MediaMemo] | heave-ho.org — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:06:25 +0000

[...] View original here: Can Music Sales Get Any Worse? Just Watch. [MediaMemo] [...]

By: The results of pushing canned music from Idols & Disney « Sharing the truth one thread at a time

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:32:47 +0000

[...] « The results of pushing canned music from Idols & Disney January 30, 2009 Zero longevity and sustained listener loyalty: Earlier this week, a music industry exec told me he thinks that the CD sales decline, which [...]