Comments on: After recorded music loses its value/2009/05/15/after-recorded-music-loses-its-value/Andrew Curry's blog on futures, trends, emerging issues and scenariosFri, 11 Mar 2016 08:22:37 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.com/By: thenextwavefutures/2009/05/15/after-recorded-music-loses-its-value/#comment-2373Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:56:14 +0000/?p=966#comment-2373Nick makes good points here; there’s an argument which says we think that hard format sales are lower than they are because the music industry talks them down to support their positions on copyright law. I don’t have the link to hand, but as far as I recall British hard format sales actually went up last year, at least by turnover.

But there are longer term reasons to think the hard format market is in decline. The first is that profit margins are falling (look at the average cover price); the amount of retail floor space given over to CDs has shrunk dramatically (fewer record shops, each giving a greater share of floor space to non-music products – games, DVDs); and the ageing of the customer base (‘dadrock’, the ’50-quid bloke’, and all of that). Businesses with ageing customer bases die slowly – look at the Daily Express – but they do die.

Andrew

]]>By: Nick Wray/2009/05/15/after-recorded-music-loses-its-value/#comment-2360Mon, 25 May 2009 20:27:53 +0000/?p=966#comment-2360I agree with the thrust of this piece, in terms of the move to revenue generation being seen as merchandise and live gigs. However, mp3 (and CD) sales are by no means trivial. At an anecdotal level, HMV stores in the UK would be closed if there were no physical sales, and if this source is accurate iTunes alone made nearly $600m in profit in 2008. If that represents a “valueless” commodity, it is one I’d be happy to trade in! http://www.wired.com/listening_post/2008/03/apple-apparentl/

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