95 percent of music sold now is digital, rather than CD's

Dark_Angel · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:03

Anyone see that on the BBC news the other day? (TV, not the website).

They said that only 5 percent of music is now purchased on CD, the rest is digital mediums. On the other hand, this number goes to around 40 percent at christmas time apparently.

I was very shocked at the number O.o

Can that really be true?

Kreeeee · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:04

CD is a digital medium =/

nikebee · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:07

Kreeeee said:
CD is a digital medium =/

Thought the same thing myself.

jasonmorris · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:09

Think the story may be bogus as my missus does research for record companies and physical sales are still over 70% - probably just a spike for xmas and due to x-factor.

iBot · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:10

i havent bought a cd since 1994.

CD is dying anyway. vinyl is making a comeback because it sounds "warmer".

Cookie-Monster · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:11

I worked for a record company a couple of years ago, and think that rather than saying digital or otherwise, look at physical and not physical

two years ago it was around 90% physical and think that in excess of 70% still makes sense for physical, there would be no money in significant retail operations or origination costs if 95% of sales were not CD based

Hxc · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:12

Unless we are waaaaay ahead of the US on this that's completely false. A recent part of my blogging job was Digital Music, and the figures in the US show that it's currently only 18% downloads.... with 41% predicted for 2013. (source: JupiterResearch )

I was fairly suprised by how low the US figures were, so it's possible they are wrong.

Bes · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:16

Dark_Angel said:
Anyone see that on the BBC news the other day? (TV, not the website).

They said that only 5 percent of music is now purchased on CD, the rest is digital mediums. On the other hand, this number goes to around 40 percent at christmas time apparently.

I was very shocked at the number O.o

Can that really be true?

No, they were talking about singles sales.

Dark_Angel · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:17

Kreeeee said:
CD is a digital medium =/

Digial medium as in downloading from Itunes is what they mean I assume (for example).

Ciphon · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:18

I'd believe that with ease... cant remember the last time I bought a CD...

jasonmorris · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:18

That would be x-factor then - highest ever sales for a digital download. Physical single sales has been in rapid decline for the last few years.

a1ex2001 · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:21

Bes said:
No, they were talking about singles sales.

Which makes the figures perfectly normal, the traditional market for singles has always been the young as older consumers have been much more likely to purchase albums and the young have been the first to embrace itunes and the like. The reason for the spike in physical single sales at Christmas is probably the X-Factor as your mum/granny are much more likely to go to the shops and buy Alexandra's single than download it.

Album sales will remain high on CD I suspect until someone offers a decent high quality (ie lossless) doanload service without DRM which allows you to download a new copy every time you loose one in your latest hard disk disaster.

starfighter · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:22

Kreeeee said:
CD is a digital medium =/

HaHa. Pwned.

I also heard that stores like HMV et al only survive on computer games and movies. Mainly computer games.

Who are the geeks now ey. We were right all along. Now the masses are catching up 10 years late...

Sic · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:23

Kreeeee said:
CD is a digital medium =/

heh, that's what I thought.

I only buy CDs - sod crappy bitrate DRM'd downloads.

Kreeeee · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:25

a1ex2001 said:
Which makes the figures perfectly normal, the traditional market for singles has always been the young as older consumers have been much more likely to purchase albums and the young have been the first to embrace itunes and the like. The reason for the spike in physical single sales at Christmas is probably the X-Factor as your mum/granny are much more likely to go to the shops and buy Alexandra's single than download it.

Album sales will remain high on CD I suspect until someone offers a decent high quality (ie lossless) doanload service without DRM which allows you to download a new copy every time you loose one in your latest hard disk disaster.

I imagine the boom over Christmas is actually to do with purchasing physical presents.

Tomsk · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:27

Ciphon said:
I'd believe that with ease... cant remember the last time I bought a CD...

I don't believe that figure. ALL my music purchases have been CD (previously vinyl).

Glaucus · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:30

It probably is digital and thus includes cd's.

If that's true it sounds about right. Only 5% vinyl and maybe a few tapes.

Dark_Angel · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:30

starfighter said:
HaHa. Pwned.

I also heard that stores like HMV et al only survive on computer games and movies. Mainly computer games.

Who are the geeks now ey. We were right all along. Now the masses are catching up 10 years late...

"Pwned" would indicate that I was wrong, I wasn't. I simply didn't explain myself well enough in the opening post.

However, I still am shocked by how it is progressing at the moment - I would like to get some numbers on game downloads via for example steam rather than physical game purchases in highstreet stores...

Dark_Angel · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:32

AcidHell2 said:
It probably is digital and thus includes cd's.

If that's true it sounds about right. Only 5% vinyl and maybe a few tapes.

As far as I heard on the BBC news, from when I was watching it, they said 5 percent are CD sales, and the rest are basically downloads and whatever, maybe I mis-heard, the news caster mis spoke, but I am 100 percent certain that is the wording used, because if they said only 5 percent are on vinyl I would not have even been slightly surprised.

Glaucus · 22 Dec 2008 at 11:32

Also on bbc news

Paid-for digital music services such as iTunes are used by just 10% and make up just 8% of overall music revenue. The BPI admitted that the current mechanisms for selling music were "broken".

That sounds like a better figure