Online Sales Outstrip CDs? Nope. Not Really.
from the not-quite dept
Jeremiah writes “From the article: “Just before Christmas, it was announced that more songs were downloaded from the internet than were bought as CDs or records in shops, and, this week, it emerged that sales of new songs were being outstripped by their sales as mobile phone ringtones.” I sure wish the Telegraph would have referenced their source for this claim, but if they went with it, I have faith an editor checked the work.” Jeremiah shouldn’t have that much faith in the Telegraph’s editors. The article is worded very oddly. While most of it is talking about the “single,” that sentence seems to leave out the word “single.” Another article from the Telegraph (perhaps they should have linked to it themselves?) notes that it’s just CD singles that are being outsold by music downloads. That, by itself, really isn’t very big news. When was the last time you bought a CD single? After the slow decline of vinyl, the concept of the “single” had pretty much faded out in the CD world, where it was all about album sales. So all this is really saying is that online music sales have surpassed a format that was barely pushed at all — and when it was, it was often at ridiculous prices. So, the news isn’t particularly exciting.
Comments on “Online Sales Outstrip CDs? Nope. Not Really.”
The Charts
The two articles raise an interesting question. Do the singles charts take into account song downloads? Apparently in the UK they do not. I wonder if the Billboard Top 100 includes downloads?