Interesting discussion, via Hits Magazine on the Compact Disc — still a multi=-billion dollar business:
CD OR NOT CD: Here’s a shocker: A just-completed survey of American
music consumers conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project
survey found that 82% of respondents, or 69% of those under 35, still
buy all (62%) or most (20%) of their music on CD, while 15%, or 27% of
those under 35, said that half of their purchases now downloads of
individual tracks. Some 86% of music buyers said they rely on radio, TV
or movies to find out about music (apparently print media wasn’t listed
as a choice in the survey), 64% consult family, friends and co-workers,
and 51% said online information had no impact whatsoever on their music
purchases. Just 22% of those surveyed said their most recent music
purchase was done online (including physical CDs as well as downloads),
while 74% said the purchase was made at a retail location. Thanks to
Digital Media Wire for crunching the numbers. (5/23a)-Hits Magazine, quoting DMW who summarize the Pew report (below).
Consider the following music/cd factoids —
Music purchasing still generally means buying a CD and buying in a store:
• 82% of music buyers say that all (62%) or most (20%) of the music they buy is CDs.
• 15% say at least half their purchases were individual digital files.
Even for young adult music buyers (defined as those under age 36), music purchasing still is dominated by CDs:
• 69% buy most or all of their music on CDs
• 27% purchasing digital music files at least half the time.
• 74% of music buyers say their most recent purchase was at a store, while 22% said it
was done online (either ordering a CD or a paid download).
Once people buy music, they are most likely to cite an offline means as a way that they
share the experience:
• 77% of music buyers say they talk about a music purchase with family or friends.
Various media resources also play key roles in how people engage with music after they buy it:
• 56% of music buyers say they watch a music video of the song or artist, some of which may be online videos.
• 44% of music buyers transfer the music to a CD, computer, or MP3 player.
• 44% of music buyers have done at least one online activity relating to their music purchase, such as going to an artist’s or band’s website or reading blogs about the artist or band.
Internet-using music buyers use the internet post-purchase to connect directly with artists.
• 39% go to the artist’s or band’s website.
• 28% look online for live performances by the artist.
• 13% either post their music to a social networking site such as Facebook or post their
own reviews of the music they purchase.
Thanks, Gene.
>
Source:
The Internet and Consumer Choice
PEW INTERNET & AMERICAN LIFE PROJECT
18 May 2008
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Consumer.Decisions.pdf
I would be very surprised if the record industry is actually concerned about actual CD sales. They’re worried about distribution and marketing. It’s not CDs vs. MP3s, it’s indie self-distribution vs. record companies. It’s the Long Tail of music vs. top 40. It’s about self-production vs. professional production. It’s about blogs&myspace vs. the radio&MTV.
Look at the ways in which music become popular, not CD sales. When distribution and production are free, and marketing is near-free, what do we need record companies for? The record companies have realized that the tastemakers have ditched them, and in an industry entirely built on hype and popularity, that’s a big blow.
The last time I bought a CD must be 10 years ago now.
Everything I get is purchased online or bootlegged from Limewire. I try to pay for as much good music as I can. If I find myself listening to something for longer than 1 week, for instance I pay the artist.
I still buy a lot of stuff on CD’s because, if you will excuse my language for a minute, I am tired of getting dicked around by Digital Rights Management from places like iTunes, Amazon.com, etc.
I don’t want to wake up one day and discover that an album I bought several years ago from iTunes will no longer work, because Apple has decided it wants to do something else now, and what do you know, you will have to buy your music all over again.
With a CD, I own it. I can hold it. I can lick it, if I want, or serve etouffee on it. I don’t have to go hat in hand to a 10 mile long User Agreement to see if I can play it while left-handed in DRM Zone-15a while Mercury is in retrogade.
When I first saw the headline, I thought this was going to be an article about a Certificate of Deposit.
Glad to see we’re talking about “spending” and not “savings”. ;-)
How long did it take VHS to die?
Same thing with CD’s.
You sure as hell wouldn’t want to own a business that had a significant exposure to making/selling CD’s.
How’d they conduct this survey, stand outside Virgin Records and ask people on their way out?
How’d they conduct this survey, stand outside Virgin Records and ask people on their way out?
What the hell happened to this post? It was up. Then it was gone. Now it’s back up?
Gotta love a blog that can squeeze a Malthusian post about the world running out of water in between speculation on the 3G iPhone and contemplation on wheter the CD is stil a viable format for the commercial distribution of music.
Great range.
I buy at most 1 CD a year.
Since there are music channels on TV and streaming over the net these days, I just pipe those through the house or in the backyard when folks are over. And via the cellphone internet connection through the car speakers when driving. No need to buy music when every genre streams for free.
The Party music is good poolside, btw. That and drinks!
I also wonder about how these data were obtained, but I must say I still mostly buy CDs rather than download, too. My reason is the quality of the sound: nothing beats the wave file on a good system. Most downloads are in some lousy compressed format like 125 Kbps, which is very noticeably inferior to the sound on a CD. Even my iPod is only compressed to 325 Kbps. Maybe when downloads sound better they’ll sell better?
How’d they conduct this survey, stand outside Virgin Records and ask people on their way out?
That would probably skew the stats low. $18.99 for a CD? I don’t know how Branson stays in business…
But to the point, iTunes only has ~10% of the market. The other download sites probably get a few points combined. That still leaves 80%+ of the music purchase market left to CD’s even with an ecosystem of iTunes and millions of iPods in existence. So much for the death of the CD.
I still buy CD’s for all of the reasons (and more) that Joe cites above. Amazon’s Marketplace partners has been a boon to my music collection. I have picked up barely used CD’s delivered for under $5. Even if I were to throw the disc away after burning it, I still beat the iTunes price and get a better sounding file.
The key is 80% of Music purchases are still on cd, but that has nothing to do with those who don’t buy ANY music and download all their music for free via .torrent or p2p. Bad for record companies, but a means for bands that would have previously been too obscure to have a chance now. It takes a lot to drop even $10 – $15 to go see a band you’ve never heard, but if you read or hear about a band and can check out their work(and not just one or two albums or songs , but download whole discographies) without any risk you find bands that you really like that you may make it a point to see and tell your friends about. It’s the decentralization of the music industry. It will be harder to become McCartney rich as a musician, but easier to make a living. It’s only bad news for the mega record companies and their cookie cutter bands that are pre-packaged to appeal to as many people possible.
I stopped buying music when the music companies started being abusive to their customers (suing random napster users etc.) and started pushing only high production bubble gum pop. I experimented with several media including internet-based start-up radio that the music industry shut down in 2002 and later yahoo!radio and found some good artist that way and bought some of my last CDs. After the industry made it clear it didn’t want my business, I returned to grade school roots and began listening to the radio again and using youtube to listen to songs I like and to discover bands. The only CD purchases my household makes is a few latin artists in CD a year that my wife buys.
I would like to know how the sample was chosen. It’s clear if the survey was on line, by telephone or out of the CD’s store, the results are going to be totally different.
I would like to know the margin of error of that type of sample too.
As a musician it is hard for me to believe in those numbers.
Great blog!
I still buy and use CDs … I download my music via iTunes or Amazon, then I burn it right on freshly minted blank CD. Snap … just like that, INSTANT COMPILATION. This can really be handy while on vacation.
Barry, I note that participants were not asked what % of their total music intake was pirated.
This survey deals with how music is purchased…that’s significantly different from how music is acquired.
If a kid tells you he bought 1 CD and downloaded another from iTunes, the survey will conclude 50/50…but if he goes on to tell you that he downloaded 198 other songs for free, the ratio falls to 2/200 = 1/100.
The survey needs to ask the second question.
Regards,
George
So if I understand this correctly, what they are saying is that 100% of purchased music is purchased?
As I posted to this blog once long ago, there is one long tail of CDs that isn’t going away, and that is classical. Classical is the longest of the long tails.
I own close to a thousand “classical” CDs, almost all of them of twentieth century music. Less than a quarter of them are even available as downloads, but it doesn’t matter. I am not going to buy a file that has been compressed using a lossy codec, such as MP3. I am going to buy the best quality I can afford.
Already, there are some Web sites that specialize in classical downloads, but I don’t know how they will survive. I am sure most classical music people are like me and want the best sound quality they can get. Some day, someone may smarten up and offer downloads that use a lossless codec, such as in FLAC, and then I will buy them. Until then, no way.
Furthermore, classical music buyers want documentation to go along with their music. A PDF would be OK, but a physical booklet is better.
CD sales of classical continue to rise not fall. However, because of the hugely long tail of classical music, most of these sales are through the Web. No store could possibly compete with what’s available on Amazon, Qualiton, ArkivMusic, CDUniverse, etc.
Like Jim, I’m also a purchaser of classical CDs. There is no way I would consider an MP3 file. Sorry, not interested. If I may add, your classical listener is also picky. I will pay full price for the Chicago Symphony/Solti Beethoven 3rd, but I won’t even consider a ‘lesser’ artist no matter what the price. (Berlin Philharmonic/Karajan OK; Dallas Symphony/Anybody Bah, humbug)
Hey folks,
The music industry sold over 500 million CDs last year. Hell, they sold over 400,000 casette tapes and 1.4 million vinyl albums last year too.
The classical and jazz guys that long for a better sounding digital format will have a long wait. Most of those albums sell between 5,000 and 25,000 copies. That’s a half a day sales for an American Idol kid.
The notion that nobody pays for music is silly. They sold over $10.3 billion worth of CDs, vinyl, digital, etc. in 2007.