Tag Archives: physical media

Is the UK Music Industry Sleepwalking into a CD Crisis? « Music Industry Blog

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This is an interesting article about the current state of the UK music industry. It seems the rise in digital sales is not matching the drop in CDs. As we hear that Game may well go bust shortly, the signs for physical media and those who retail them are not good.

CD sales are falling at an alarming rate: though digital album unit sales grew by 5.6 million, CD album sales fell by 12.3 million. So the digital growth was less than half of the physical decline in absolute terms. A worrying ratio at this stage in the development of the digital market (i.e. when it should be maturing, not just getting started).

via Is the UK Music Industry Sleepwalking into a CD Crisis? « Music Industry Blog.

Burglars as consumers: Not worth nicking | The Economist

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The death of physical media continues apace as The Economist notes that burglars no longer bother to steal DVDs and CDs, which are now only taken in 7% of burglaries when other items are stolen.

“These sorts of crimes are regarded even by criminals as the preserve of the desperate,” says James Treadwell, a Leicester University criminologist. Burglars are generally drug-addled, unskilled and opportunistic. Yet they are capable of making economic calculations. And their behaviour reveals something about the state of the media business. Hollywood and the record labels believe they can hold off the threat from technology, both legitimate and illegitimate, and maintain the value of their products. Britain’s burglars disagree.

This doesn’t mean your music’s safe, however – computers are the things most likely to be taken.

Burglars as consumers: Not worth nicking | The Economist via Boing Boing

Amazon’s ebook sales eclipse paperbacks for the first time | World news | guardian.co.uk

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In the US at least, the rise of the ebook appears to be continuing. It would be interesting to see how the UK market for digital books compares.

In what could be a landmark moment in the struggle between old versus new technology, Amazon has announced that it now sells more copies of its Kindle ebooks than traditional paperbacks.

The online retailer, in posting its latest financial results, revealed that paid-for sales of the electronic format outstrip its total sales of paperbacks – although combined sales of paperbacks and hardbacks still seem to maintain print’s number one spot overall.

via Amazon’s ebook sales eclipse paperbacks for the first time | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Blu-Ray Blues

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Blu-ray Discs
Image by William Hook via Flickr

One thing that really annoys me about DVDs is that when I buy them, I have to sit through an advert telling me not to steal, followed by a bunch of trailers that can be hard to skip depending on the player. If I were to watch an illegal copy, I’d get none of this unwanted content before the film. Of course, the film industry can’t put anti-piracy ads before pirate copies, but it’s frustrating to be a legitimate customer and yet be inconvenienced in this way.

However, many owners of Blu-Ray players find the situation even worse, as the players are very slow to load the discs in the first place, and then they have to get through the lectures, ads and trailers. This article puts forward the view that Blu-Ray is a less enjoyable consumer format than DVD.

To even casual technology observers, it’s always been obvious that Blu-Ray is a format designed more for content producers than for consumers, but it’s hard to understand how hostile the Blu-Ray ecosystem is to consumers until you actually own one and try to use it regularly. Turning on my Blu-Ray player is just not as fun as streaming movies via Netflix, or renting them from iTunes. And I say this as one of a dwindling number of consumers who would prefer, on the whole, to own my media on discs rather than as digital files.

via Subtraction.com: Blu-Ray Blues.

I don’t have a Blu-Ray player and don’t plan to get one, despite the excellent visual and audio quality. I firmly believe the days of getting films on little discs of plastic are numbered, and digital distribution will become as prevalent for films as it has for music.

Downloads fail to fill gap as album sales plummet for sixth year running | Business | The Guardian

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Bad times for the UK music industry, with another year of dropping sales for physical media. Although downloads are rising, and make up 98% of sales of singles now, sales overall are still down.

The music industry had another miserable year in 2010,with new figures published today showing that album sales had dropped for the sixth year running.

Combined digital and physical sales, chiefly CDs, dropped by 7% overall to 119.9m units. Digital album sales were up by 30.6% on last year – from a little over 16m to 21m – but the CD market continued to slump, falling 12.4% to 98.5m.

The figures were made available as HMV announced that it was closing 60 UK stores in 12 months after Christmas sales were down 10%. It blamed severe weather and “challenging trading conditions”.

via Downloads fail to fill gap as album sales plummet for sixth year running | Business | The Guardian.

Warning over digital music and film purchases | Money | guardian.co.uk

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Speaking as someone who over the years has bought and sold many books, records, CDs and DVDs, I think there are advantages digital media has over the physical equivalent, generally to do with convenience. However, one thing is undeniable – if I own a book, CD or DVD I can do what I want with it, such as lend it or sell it on to someone else. This is not possible with digital media. As this Guardian article reports, if a consumer has problems with a digital media product they may not even be able to find a way of taking this up with the retailer, and the standard consumer right of refund does not apply.

In extreme cases, the digital product can even be taken from consumers without notice, as the buyers of an edition of 1984 on Amazon’s Kindle found out. In a series of events that did much to harm Amazon’s reputation, they deleted the book from the devices of readers and refunded the price without notice due to a rights issue. They were successfully sued by a student who had all the notes he had made removed at the same time. The irony of this happening to the book that gave us the concept of Big Brother was not lost to commentators.

Sadly, the fact that the digital edition is a lesser product, and cheaper to produce and distribute is not always acknowledged with lower prices than the physical equivalent.

via Warning over digital music and film purchases | Money | guardian.co.uk.

HMV’s troubles are only the end of the beginning | Business | guardian.co.uk

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HMV’s just-released sales figures show that the traditional high street media retailers are struggling to succeed in a declining market. Part of this is a move by consumers away from physical media, and part is due to the recession.

HMV’s meltdown is only surprising in that you wonder what took so long. The dog and gramaphone retailer’s interim figures show – again – the scale of the impact of both the recession and the structural changes in the media business. Chuck in for good measure an innovation hiatus in the games business, between the end of Wii and the arrival of Microsoft’s Kinect, and you have a full blown crisis – or rather a massive 16.1% decline in like for like in sales in the half to October 23.

via HMV’s troubles are only the end of the beginning | Business | guardian.co.uk.

DVD industry in crisis as sales slump | Media | The Guardian

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Interesting article on the decline in sales of physical media and the uptake of (much less profitable) streaming services. This is likely to have a big impact on the film industry, as projected DVD sales were often a key factor in decisions about whether or not to fund a particular movie.

Now a combination of the economic downturn and the digital revolution has forced the video industry to face up to the same crisis that still traumatises record companies – how to make up the income lost when your key physical product is in decline and predicted to become obsolete within 20 years. Sales and rentals of DVDs and Blu-ray discs fell by 7% to $10.9bn in the first nine months of this year compared with last year, according to the industry body The Digital Entertainment Group; and the British Video Association says DVD sales fell 5.6% last year. The fall was most severe in new-release titles, which account for 25% of the market, with sales crashing 15% in 2009.

The home entertainment experience is being transformed, with content delivered on-demand through web-enabled set-top boxes, games consoles, and now the iPad, which has stolen the DVD’s crown as the fastest-adopted consumer device. The recession has driven consumer spending towards cheaper rentals, depriving studios of those juicy box-set profits. The income generated by the arrival of Blu-ray, the ability to download episodes of Doctor Who on iTunes at £2.49 per escapade and stream films on demand, has so far failed to offset the decline in physical sales, a pattern that resulted in a shrinkage of the recorded music industry.

via DVD industry in crisis as sales slump | Media | The Guardian.

Marc Ruxin: The Death of Touch and the Lost Joy of the Unexpected

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Having spent much of my life carefully hunting down and accumulating physical media of various sorts, this article struck a chord. I have mixed feelings about physical vs digital media, as both types have clear advantages and disadvantages. An mp3 file will never be any more than the music it contains, unlike a beautiful limited-edition piece of vinyl in a handmade cover, or a prized white label, but it is unarguably convenient. HD film downloads look better than DVDs, but you can’t (legally) lend them to your friends.

However, there’s no denying that the ease of storage and distribution of digital media has brought about new patterns of acquisition and consumption, and that this development is ongoing.

At once, I am reminded to take time to mourn for something very specific for a moment or two before it disappears completely. Among the ugly urban scatter that defines LA’s endless strip architecture, you will see, if you look closely, the beginning of an epidemic. It is the rapid and steady decline of stores that once sold the artifacts we used to call records, CDs, books, movie rentals and even games. At some point, in the not so distant future, we will live in a world without the places that used to give us physical access to music, cinema and literature.

Marc Ruxin: The Death of Touch and the Lost Joy of the Unexpected:

(Via Boing Boing)