The album sales data comes from the RIAA, the broadband percentages (per total households) come from Pew Internet. US-based data, left axis in millions of units.
...and, if you want a non-animated version, we have that here.
Comments Closed
Jairzinho Sunday, October 02, 2011
Can you compare the singles over time please
Versus Monday, October 03, 2011
Are the "album sales" only including physical media, or album downloads as well?
Also, single sales would be useful to compare.
Thank you...
-Versus
paul Monday, October 03, 2011
It's physical+digital - CDs, LPs, digital albums, even cassette-based albums, etc.
/paul
LondonMusicMapp Monday, October 03, 2011
The numbers don't lie. It would be great to get the figures for Europe.
Rob Monday, October 03, 2011
As well as chipping in with the traditional correlation doesn't equal causation I wonder if you could plot computer game sales against that as people doing other things is often overlooked in discussions about demise of the music.
If your point is broadband increasing piracy it's also worth bearing in mind it offers many other distractions to draw people away from music, eg. exotic adult entertainment & cute cats (not necessarily at the same time).
Anonymous coward Monday, October 03, 2011
Try replacing "Album sales" with "album quality"! and look at it that way instead.
amazing Monday, October 03, 2011
thanks for restating, again, the obvious. journailsm at it's best.
Visitor Monday, October 03, 2011
If possible add music piracy penetration to that graph.
/yves villeneuve
causality vs. coincidence Monday, October 03, 2011
Coincidence does not mean causality. If it did, the rising federal deficit would be seen as causing the decline in album sales.
Or any data series that was trending upwards from 2000 onwards would be seen as the cause for declining album sales.
I could create a chart showing the stupidity and ignorance of the record companies' business model vs. album sales, and I would get a similar looking chart.
radiowaves Monday, October 03, 2011
So that's where people's disposable incoming is going... broadband costs!
Vince C Monday, October 03, 2011
This confirms the obvious lack of popularity for the album format, and agree with other posters that the trend vs Single Tracks will be most helpful please. Cheers,
Vince
paul Monday, October 03, 2011
Vince, check this out. I haven't overlayed broadband percentages onto it, but you get the idea.
/paul... while listening to Royce da 5'9"
Vince Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Thanks Paul, as expected and is the whole reason why iTunes is such a success with great presented platform based around giving the consumer individual track choice via a-la-carte singles - no big shock there of course, just stating the obvious I guess.
Nick Mango Monday, October 03, 2011
Great graph. The only question we should ask ourselves now is, is this because we have more distractions in our life, or more piracy? Music use to only have to compete with TV. Now it has to compete with the internet as well.
Visitor Monday, October 03, 2011
I think one can make a good assumption that during this period consumers chose to buy games and movies while stealing music. I have seen other graphs suggesting this.
Now that broadband has become much faster recently, movies have fallen prey to stealing as well and possibly increasing substantially unless piracy is under control. I have also seen a graph of this in these pages.
How about a graph of weekly music sales since the adoption of the piracy control business model by www.digitalrightscorp.com ? I am guessing the 3.4% YTD increase in unit sales is a result of this piracy control. What else could it be?
/yves villeneuve
Vail, CO Monday, October 03, 2011
Interesting. One could make the case that slower broadband adoption = slower album sales declines.
Informed Arbitrageur Wednesday, October 05, 2011
It's very possible that that's the result of iTunes music store coming out in mid 2003... That's just speculation though.
Josh Monday, October 03, 2011
So what the hell happened in 2004?
The Spirit of Jazz (mighty boo Wednesday, October 05, 2011
iTunes store launched in April of 2003, starting a paradigm change for mainstream digital music retail
@30frames Monday, October 03, 2011
30frames
This must be a coincidence, right?
Thoughts Wednesday, October 05, 2011
As single sales have spiked, it would be interesting to see total revenue of music sales. e.g. what chunk of music sales is generated by albums and what is generated by singles, and what that total revenue number is.
It would also be interesting to see what the distribution costs are now vs. then for singles. E.g. it has probably gotten much cheaper to distribute singles and albums that don't have to be physically manufactured and shipped. There's probably a higher rate of return for singles in addition to their sales going up.
Its interesting information, but that chart is only a part of the picture. "Album sales = music revenue" is kind of like saying "health insurance = health care"
paul Wednesday, October 05, 2011
@Thoughts
Some of this data is accessible, other stats not so accessible. The prevailing theory is that digital is cheaper, based on a surface count of things like warehouse production, storage, trucking, etc. But there's still a lot of setup around digital, including marketing, publicity, etc. (in fact, the IFPI argued in a recent report that digital costs are not cheaper than physical, though they certainly have a special interest in this game).
Throw in a more complicated analysis involving CD bundling and costs expressed as a percentage in a year like 2001, and you can easily argue that digital is not a more cost-effective format against returns.
Anyway, thanks for stimulating the wheels here, because there may be a good look I can put together on singles v. album revenues, with aggregated revenue totals and format percentages in mind.
/paul
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