02/12/2008, 11:55am, EST
Tuesday, February 12thfrom: www.electronista.com
NBC report blames poor album sales on iPod, iTunes
Album sales have declined rapidly in recent years, and Apple bears a large responsibility, NBC claims. The TV network notes that although R&B singer Alicia Keys debuted her new album at the top of the Billboard album charts last week, this amounted to only 61,000 or so discs, nearly the lowest amount for a number-one album in Billboard history. Album sales fell 15 percent as a whole in 2007, the sixth annual decrease since 2000; artists who were once able to sell 10 to 15 million copies of an album may now be fortunate to reach 1 million.
The reason, says NBC, is that people are switching en masse to digital downloads, as evidenced by sales of 120 million iPods since 2001. More critically, people are often choosing to buy songs individually, instead of collections that may contain mediocre tracks or filler. Purchases of individual tracks are said to have grown 500 percent within the last three years.
Imagery and language in the report implicates iTunes, which is the largest source of digital music sales and frequently ties people to iPods through use of Apple's FairPlay DRM restrictions. On the iTunes Store, people can buy most tracks for 99 cents, cheaper even than would be possible with a CD single.
Filed under: iPod, Apple
Other story tags: iTunes, music, NBC
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In an odd sort of way, this is like going back to the 50's and early sixties, where people bought singles on 45's (anyone remember those?), and album sales were not really a factor until huge Beatles' albums like Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper.
Aside from that, the majority of content on iPods is ripped content, from the user's own collection - hardly locked in.
Nevertheless, it does fascinate me how many people mindlessly buy iTunes songs and albums, when purchasing used CDs is a better way to get the same music.
Mind you, not complaining. Keeps my AAPL stock healthy :-)
Five years ago... I wasn't buying $50 video games for Wii, PS3 I wasn't paying $70 a month for DirecTV I wasn't paying $18 a month for Netflix I wasn't paying $200 a month for at&t four person family plan etc....
Lower those other services and I'd have more money for music.
But, oh, it' iTunes/Apple's fault! If only evil Apple didn't exist, people wouldn't be buying from iTunes and we could go back to the old days when people just pirated music instead to get their digital downloads.
Oh, wait...
Oh, wait...
You aren't needed anymore.
p.s. the Fairplay lock is your fault not Apples, they are asking labels to sell iTunes Plus which is DRM free... if you did that you end the supposed 'lock in'.
Oh wait no one makes 8 track any more. No wonder why they track sales through albums. Here's a hint, albums ate going away as well. Better start tracking digital downloads!
Just a thought.