AfterDawn: News

Digital sales surpass CD sales, says Atlantic Records

Atlantic Records, a unit of the much bigger Warner Music Group, has announced that they are the first major label to have over 50 percent of its music sales in the US come from digital downloads.

“We’re like a college basketball team on an 18-2 run,” said Craig Kallman, Atlantic’s chairman and chief executive.

Overall for Warner, digital represented 27 percent of revenue, while Atlantic said digital sales now accounted for 51 percent of their revenue.



With the milestone however comes the clear realization that digital sales will never compensate for the lost revenue of declining CD sales. At its peak, in 1999, music sale revenue was $14.6 billion. Analysts at Forrester Research say that number will fall to $9.2 billion this year, despite the exponential rise in digital sales.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 26 Nov 2008 23:14

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• 11 comments

• Thoatih12

  Woooow i would have never seen this coming :(

  26.11.2008 23:22 #1

• Ransack

  I believe in 2015 Sale overall sales will fall to 1.2 billion industry. It is very obvious that music sales even with digital sales being up in these times still wouldn't help the sales of music. With 10 billion illegal downloads and file sharing happening world wide last year tell the true story of where music sales are going.

  27.11.2008 02:46 #2

• munx

  Ransack, where did you come up with the number 10 billion illegal downloads? Just curious...

  27.11.2008 03:57 #3

• Azuran

  Originally posted by munx: Ransack, where did you come up with the number 10 billion illegal downloads? Just curious...I would say he's being pretty conservative. The recording industry predicts double that...
  
  http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0310/download.html

  27.11.2008 10:28 #4

• Ransack

  I was looking for the article but must have misplaced it. But there are many web links stating the illegal pricay rate online. Here is an article on on 2005- http://www.pp-international.net/node/33
  
  And here is one stating that there was 20 billion illegal download music files in 2006 - http://www.pp-international.net/node/33
  
  I still have to find the web link for 2007 cause I misplaced the article!

  27.11.2008 11:19 #5

• beanos66

  Quote:I would say he's being pretty conservative. The recording industry predicts double that...
  
  And the recording industry never!! exagerates
  
  It is my belief that the only reason music sales is going down is coz of the rise in the number of music video tv and dab radio stations

  27.11.2008 12:44 #6

• fungyo

  Easy to blame it on illegal downloads, but show me the proof!!!
  There are other factors which could explain why sales have dropped, such as price reductions, the ability to buy single songs instead of full albums, the declining quality of music from major labels and artists doing it on their own without major labels etc etc.
  
  The more you blame it on illegal downloads, the more fuel you give the media mafia in their quest to control digital technology.

  27.11.2008 21:59 #7

• Ransack

  Well over all it would seem like a strange coincidence that since one of the first illegal file sharing site started back in in 1999 the music industry has had a major change in CD sales!
  
  No one can truly show any exact figures of stats towards how illegal downloading ruined the music industry sales because there are so much opinion based theories on it. But in my opinion I don't believe that illegal downloading sites have helped the music industry very much!

  28.11.2008 00:27 #8

• gallagher

  Originally posted by Ransack: Well over all it would seem like a strange coincidence that since one of the first illegal file sharing site started back in in 1999 the music industry has had a major change in CD sales!
  
  No one can truly show any exact figures of stats towards how illegal downloading ruined the music industry sales because there are so much opinion based theories on it. But in my opinion I don't believe that illegal downloading sites have helped the music industry very much!What ruined the industry is that they were lazy and sat on the rear ends while network file sharing took off. That was their fault. Had they offered reasonable SINGLE song downloads from day one without DRM, piracy would not have been bad. But YES, either way, albums are going to take a hit because there is no reason to have album fillers anymore.

  29.11.2008 20:56 #9

• Ransack

  Quote:Originally posted by Ransack: Well over all it would seem like a strange coincidence that since one of the first illegal file sharing site started back in in 1999 the music industry has had a major change in CD sales!
  
  No one can truly show any exact figures of stats towards how illegal downloading ruined the music industry sales because there are so much opinion based theories on it. But in my opinion I don't believe that illegal downloading sites have helped the music industry very much!What ruined the industry is that they were lazy and sat on the rear ends while network file sharing took off. That was their fault. Had they offered reasonable SINGLE song downloads from day one without DRM, piracy would not have been bad. But YES, either way, albums are going to take a hit because there is no reason to have album fillers anymore.And that's one of the other main reasons why full album's /CD's don't sell anymore. And it could go right back to the artists themselves to the artistic lyrical quality that they place on a 18 song CD that cost anywhere from $10-16 (not including tax). THE MUSIC and SONGS! Most of the times the record labels push artists & bands to put out CD's once a year and rush the material being produced. This is a major problem because it doesn't give the artist/band enough time to compose songs that are time lasting. Fans realize this and most times want to just create their own compilation mix CD from various 'HIT' songs from various artists that they may favor. Over all in a time of over saturation of music and fallen sales the chances of a artist or band putting out a CD that has 18 hit songs is rare and almost impossible in these times. What the major label record companies should do is create Full length mixed song CD's comprised of various artists. This is what would sell, but yet no one with in the industry seems to capitalize on it as of yet? I'm surprised because CD's would probably have a better chance of selling seeing that the avid listener would save time towards creating something that they already do on their spear time. Record labels have to be smart and work for the consumer so that they can try to salvage a almost completely sunken ship of the music industry.

  30.11.2008 14:23 #10