AllThingsD-Not News: CD Buyers Disappearing Daily. Might Be News: Music Buyers Disappearing, Too
Comments(1) hoooboy. This is NOT good!
m|m|d regulars know I’ve never been concerned about declining CD sales, since they perfectly mirror the normal end of every medium’s lifespan. The drop only seems dramatic because the product was so wildly successful, and the industry so tightly lashed itself to it that people in the business can no longer remember (or imagine) life without it. This is different: for the first time we’re seeing a decline in the audience for recorded music, not just the sales of a particular format.
Unfortunately the article provides no help with interpreting their numbers. For instance they claim we lost 13 million customers, but don’t provide the size of the original pool. While it’s entirely possible this report signals a big, negative change in music consumption/listening habits, it’s also possible that the problem is entirely related to the bushpression, which was in full swing when this survey was conducted.
I can’t help but think that the Presidential election hurt all time-based media in 2008. Time is a finite resource. There are only 24 hours in a day, and 365 days in a year. When your attention is dominated by a current events, it can’t help but impinge on leisure activities and spending. The election of 2008 was all-consuming, with more debates and must-watch events than any contest in modern memory. The controversies and campaigns were engaging. People cared.
So we’ll have to wait and see whether the NPD survey represents a real shift in music audience, or a temporary slump, caused by a spike in demand for time/attention and plummeting incomes.
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