“Revenue from digital-music downloads and subscriptions edged out those from CDs for the first time in 2014, holding overall sales steady at about $15 billion globally, a trade group said,” Ethan Smith reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“Sales of CDs and other physical formats declined 8%, to $6.82 billion, while digital revenue grew nearly 7%, to $6.85 billion, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said in a report on Tuesday,” Smith reports. “Each of those represented 46% of overall music revenue. The other 8% came from sources such as radio airplay and licensing songs for television shows and films.”
“Subscription services generated $1.57 billion, or 23% of digital revenue; ad-supported services were 9% of digital revenue. Their combined 32% of digital revenue is a sharp increase from 2013, when they represented 23% of digital revenue. Download sales declined eight percentage points from 2013, but were 52% of digital revenue,” Smith reports. “The overall stability comes after years of steep declines in world-wide music sales, which peaked at $40 billion in 1996.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Once music cartels could no longer hold desirable music hostage by bundling it with twelve throwaway tracks o’ crap and charging $15 or more for the forced bundle – which they called the “album” – etched onto a 3-cent plastic disc in a 10-cent box with a 15-cent booklet. By debundling the album and giving customers the à la carte option to finally be able to purchase music’s intrinsic salable base unit, the song, Apple gave music buyers the power and took it away from the forced bundlers, thank Jobs!
In the face of rampant piracy and “free” music, Apple (Steve Jobs, to be specific) saved the music industry. That peak of $40 billion in 1996 was generated via forced bundles, it was an artificial peak based on an artificial construct (bundling), that took place before the advent of widespread broadband Internet use, and certainly should not be used to compare pre-torrent days versus today’s reality. There wasn’t a “decline” as much as there was a reformation. With music basically available free for the taking today, that the industry is still capable of generating $15 billion in annual music sales is nothing short of a miracle. The music industry should genuflect to Apple daily.
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