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CD sales hit all-time low

Mon 1st Dec, 2008 in International News

Despite AC/DC’s best efforts to keep the compact disc holy, analysts are predicting 2008 will see the “worst [sales] decline in the history of the CD.” According to The Guardian, Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield has reported CD units sales are down this quarter an estimated 27% from 2007. “Q408 is shaping up to be the worst decline in the history of the CD,” his assessment concludes.

A study from CL King & Associates paints a similarly bleak picture for radio. Analyst Jim Boyle writes that American radio revenue has dropped 7% in 2008, the biggest decline since 1954. Is it time to draw dramatic parallels between McCarthyism and the digital revolution? Perhaps not. Giving little hope for the future, Boyle wrote, “October [2008] was the 18th consecutive negative year-over-year revenue month and 2008 is the eighth straight struggling year.”

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The_Judas_Priest

The_Judas_Priest said on the 1st Dec, 2008

What about vinyl sales? I've bought so many vinyls this year...

sarahanne

sarahanne said on the 1st Dec, 2008

I bought a very rad Cramps vinyl on the weekend...

darve

darve said on the 1st Dec, 2008

They are up 1000% in oz stats via air

sarahanne

sarahanne said on the 1st Dec, 2008

please explain darve?

FuQjump

FuQjump said on the 1st Dec, 2008

I heard cassette sales are down too :(

lil deksy

lil deksy said on the 1st Dec, 2008

cassette kids will be devo

rodismdotcom

rodismdotcom said on the 1st Dec, 2008

Any word on 8 track cartridge?

gumbuoy

gumbuoy said on the 1st Dec, 2008

they're up.

WAY up.

Piko

Piko said on the 1st Dec, 2008

they're up.

WAY up.

Yerp, there i hear one sold at the markets the other day. broke all recent sales records. :D

As for slow CD sales, I think the end of the year has been great? post Coldplay. Think about it, they had fastest selling 3 days in YEARS people, and arent the top selling album of the year. King of Leon are, Pink, AC/DC and Metallica, make the rest of the top 5 selling albums of the year, all came out in the second half of the year? and all had huge sales first week (well Kings of Leon have been constant), breaking sales figures for the last couple years from what i can tell?

dream_brother

dream_brother said on the 2nd Dec, 2008

i think you can tell cd sales are going bad when Pink is in the top 5.

nDodds

nDodds said on the 2nd Dec, 2008

I still buy CDs

dream_brother

dream_brother said on the 2nd Dec, 2008

that's good, nDodds.

bsolah said on the 2nd Dec, 2008

I still buy CDs, but am probably more selective of what I think is worth buying and have a hard copy of. And I'm more likely to buy local or smaller bands CDs coz they need the money more than say Britney or Metallica.

asb123

asb123 said on the 2nd Dec, 2008

revolution guys. iTunes is going to go even more bonkers in the next few years, esp. with single sales. makes a humble singersongwriter terrified with the future possibilities...

MegX said on the 2nd Dec, 2008

I still buy CDs, as well as rare vinyl in second-hand stores.

Biodagar

Biodagar said on the 3rd Dec, 2008

CDs are awesome, reckon they'll be around for a while yet. Anyway, if they're judging on what's popular, no wonder the figures are f-ked. Metal is the highest selling genre (besides the top 20) in JB HiFi throughout the country... and JB was the only retailer to post a profit...

maybe they just need to revisit the way they sell CDs in order to boost sales? Paying $35 for one disc is just ridiculous, IMHO.

bsolah said on the 3rd Dec, 2008

Good point Biodagar; when you look at the crowds in JB around the Metal and Emo/Screamo/Punk sections it's a little surprising.

sarahanne

sarahanne said on the 3rd Dec, 2008

And quite honestly - the CDs I usually but these days are from local gigs themselves. I know w lot of bands who make a nice amount of money from their personal sale of CDs at gigs. They dont even bother with distro....

Sputnik

Sputnik said on the 5th Dec, 2008

When I was very young you got an LP cover that would take you an hour to read. They launched CDs (in some cases in extended boxes) and everything was fly shit sized. Now you get Mp3/Mp4 and there's nothing to read. Wots more the quality sux compared to CD - I hope they are around for a while more or the MP# quality improves five fold.

Piko

Piko said on the 5th Dec, 2008

Yer they should start using SHN or FLAC or other lossless formats, but the file size is currently too big (5 minute song coded by FLAC is 33MB an MP3 at 128 = 4.6MB, 192 = 6.9MB, 256 = 9.2MB). I think its more a cost of physical media that causes mp3 and other lossy formats to thrive. That said, MP3 is probably one of the worst quality formats there is these days. Anyhow, once 10 Terrabyte HDD's and 50GB flash memory players become the norm (not to forget internet bandwidth/download quota's), so will lossless formats

I should point out however, a lot of the new Iriver products that are 2GB+ actually support FLAC, so it's more an issue of the artists actually selling digital formats as such. And finally! It would not be too hard to have an audio format that allows in the files header for images and text to be stored that can be displayed on the players screen (as most by that time will be portable audio/video players...as some are now) when a song is playing. So digital media can compete! Just evolution takes time :(

edit: you could actually do that with MP3 tags as is, album art, comments, etc etc etc

Piko

Piko said on the 16th Dec, 2008

figured this was relevant

"Andre Rieu has become the first artist since Pink Floyd to outsell the number one album with a DVD.

Rieu rocked the Australian chart this week with his ‘Live In Australia’ DVD bolting home with sales of 50,452 units, about 30% more than Pink’s CD ‘Funhouse’ sold with 36,529 sales.

In July, 2006, Pink Floyd ‘Pulse’ on DVD outsold the number one album of the day, Muse ‘Black Holes and Revelations’. Then, Floyd sold around 16,000 units, to Muse’s 14,700.

This makes 45 weeks this year that Rieu has had a number one DVD in Australia."

Now i know Xmas sales are always well above normal year sales, but Pink still sold more than double Muse in July 06

bsolah said on the 16th Dec, 2008

I think Rieu's phenomenom is mainly due to it being an older audience, those of which don't really do the whole digital and iPod thing

Piko

Piko said on the 16th Dec, 2008

Well that is true, but i wasn't referring to his DVD sales anyhow, more the sales difference between Pink now and Muse then. Pink has had those numbers for weeks, plus the other artists i noted previous. KoL, AC/DC, Coldplay, all had good sales in Q4, i'm sure there will be be an increase against the economic downturn trend.

Speaking of this, does anyone know if there is any history of increase in music sales or even cinema attendances during depressions?

Meatbix

Meatbix said on the 16th Dec, 2008

Yer they should start using SHN or FLAC or other lossless formats, but the file size is currently too big (5 minute song coded by FLAC is 33MB an MP3 at 128 = 4.6MB, 192 = 6.9MB, 256 = 9.2MB). I think its more a cost of physical media that causes mp3 and other lossy formats to thrive. That said, MP3 is probably one of the worst quality formats there is these days. Anyhow, once 10 Terrabyte HDD's and 50GB flash memory players become the norm (not to forget internet bandwidth/download quota's), so will lossless formats

I should point out however, a lot of the new Iriver products that are 2GB+ actually support FLAC, so it's more an issue of the artists actually selling digital formats as such. And finally! It would not be too hard to have an audio format that allows in the files header for images and text to be stored that can be displayed on the players screen (as most by that time will be portable audio/video players...as some are now) when a song is playing. So digital media can compete! Just evolution takes time :(

edit: you could actually do that with MP3 tags as is, album art, comments, etc etc etc

Yeah there's really no reason that you can't include a lot more extras with MP3/AAC files- it's technically possible to embed multiple artwork files, lyrics etc, it just needs the labels/electronic distributors to push it's uptake.
As for the sound quality of compressed files, I honestly don;t think thy're that bad- thr 256kbit/s offered by Amazon/iTunes plus ais a pretty good compromise between file size and quality and sounds as good as CD on 95% of the equipment that mot people will listen to it on (and sure as hell beats tape!). The old 128kbit/s standards do sound like arse though.
But as you say as storage and bandwidth keep getting cheaper we'll see an eventual shift to lossless formats like FLAC and Apple Lossless and we'll get complete CD quality anyway.