Audio News for May 30, 2007

CD Sales Down Sharply – Though music CD sales have been declining the past seven years, the first three months of 2007 plunged 20% over 2006, showing a dramatic change in how consumers get their music.  The major slide has eclipsed the growth of digital downloads which were supposed to have saved the music industry. The sales of all music – physical and digital – is down 10%. About 800 music stores – including the 89 locations of Tower – closed during 2006 alone. Because of the Internet, music fans now have many more ways to obtain music than they did a decade ago.  Apple has sold 100 million iPods.  Although the legal service provided by Apple’s iTunes Store is doing well, people can listen to new tunes on MySpace pages or download them free from other sources. One billion songs a month are reportedly traded on illegal file-sharing sites, in spite of the crackdowns on Napster and others.

The democratization of the new digital world has been hard for the movie studios, and TV and publishing industries too. With ever  more powerful computers and a greater percentage of the public having broadband connections, videos are being traded and downloaded everywhere. People today are exposed to more media than ever before – the challenge is for the media companies to find ways to make money from that exposure. But is the music industry’s problem only digital downloading?  How about the quality of top-selling pop music? It’s the pits. Even the hits aren’t what they used to be. And collectors don’t want to waste money on a whole CD album just to get one or two tunes they like – they prefer to select just the tunes they want as digital downloads. One chain of dealers is making up for declining new music sales by emphasizing used CDs.  Best Buy has been reducing the floor space it gives for CD display and sales. Thus it’s even harder for collector to find titles they want in physical stores.

Asia Pacific Music Forum Meets – Today and tomorrow the second annual Music Matters forum is being held at the Grand Hyatt in Hong Kong. The even brings together leaders of the entertainment and technology industries discussing issues pertaining solely to Asia, pegged by some as the most important area for the music business today.  Music businessmen want to open up the China market, of course. But there are challenges such as the physical and digital piracy going on.  Among topics the forum seeks to discuss are: What can the global entertainment industry learn from advanced digital markets such as Korea and Japan? How relevant is the CD now, and does its decline present more creative business opportunity or less?  How is live music developing and how should it develop?  Asia is the leading market in mobile music; what is the killer app and how does it differ by country? Does anyone really understand licensing? and How does the changing landscape change how an artist creates their music?