Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that CD sales were in decline, and have been so for the last few years?
|
You are right, and a very good point. I should clarify what I meant. Physical CD unit sales are down, but so are new releases. If you account for the dramadic drop in new releases, which started in 2000, and then calculate the percentage of the actual releases that got sold, you see what the industry is selling a higher percentage of all releases across the board. Though total sales figures are down, because there's simply less new music. Not exactly what you expect if the industry is being 'eaten alive' by piracy.
From a peak of almost 40,000 new music albums in 2000, about 12,000 albums are what is getting published yearly in the last three years.
Imagine a music store that lost 2/3 of all its new releases, but somehow maintained 80% of its sales figures. Yes sales are down, but the percentage of existing product that is being sold is higher than it ever was. If new releaes were to rise back up, it would be safe to assume that sales figures would exceed past sales figures.
BTW, the RIAA intentionally stopped reporting new releases in 2001 less someone figure this out. But there are other sources for the numbers, just the industry itself doesn't want people to figure this out.