2009 Year End / Decade End Numbers & Stats

[rack gear]

Rough Decade: US-Based Albums Tanked 60 Percent In the 2000s... — Digital Music News

Rough Decade: US-Based Albums Tanked 60 Percent In the 2000s... <Rough Decade: US-Based Albums Tanked 60 Percent In the 2000s... &mdash; Digital Music News>
Is the year-over-year album decline getting better, at least in the US? In 2008, the drop was 14 percent, on a unit decline of 72.1 million units. In 2009, the decline was 12.7 percent, on a decline of 54.5 million units.

Sounds like slower bleeding, though in reality, the past ten years have been an absolute bloodbath for the recording industry. In 2000, album sales peaked at 943 million units <Scary Stat: Album Sales Down 54.6 Percent Since 2000... &mdash; Digital Music News> , only to crash more than 60 percent to roughly 374 units in 2009.

Of course, digital albums - and a myriad of other formats - have charged onto the scene since 2000, though not enough to stem the bleeding on physical.

And, perhaps fittingly, the industry lost one of its biggest superstars as the decade closed. The death of Michael Jackson was a tough loss for many fans, but from a purely financial perspective, the incident offered a big album sales boost. In 2009, Jackson shifted 8.2 million albums in the United States alone, according to details shared by Nielsen Soundscan. Without that boost, the year-over-year decline would have been 62.7 million units, a 14.6 percent drop, and the one-time gain raises more questions about 2010 and beyond.

[rack gear]

Album Sales Collapse As Digital Downloads Top 40% Of Market – 24/7 Wall St.

Album Sales Collapse As Digital Downloads Top 40% Of Market
Posted: January 7, 2010 at 5:46 am

Digital downloads accounted for 40% of all music sales in 2009, according to Nielsen SoundScan. But, that was not enough to stop an overall drop in sales whichreached 13% compared to 2008.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “Domestic album sales, including digital downloads, fell to 373.9 million units, a decline of 13% from 2008.” The increase in digital sales surprisingly rose only 8.3% for the year.

The drop on the sales of physical albums was expected. The slow increase in song downloads was not. It poses a threat to the ongoing success of services like Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL) iTunes and may eventually affect sales of multimedia players including the iPod.

There are several reasons that digital download sales did not do better last year. The first one is clear and that is the recession cut into the ability of people to pay for almosteverything, even inexpensive entertainment. Sales should rebound in 2010 and 2011 if that is the case.

The more sinister problem is piracy. The IPFI, which represents the global music industry, reported early last year that illegal downloads were 95% of all consumer album and songusage. The organization said it would continue to pressure ISPs to find individuals who run software services that are used to steal music without payments to publishers andartists.

The level of piracy identified by the IPFI is much too great to be lessened much by better monitoring systems and persecution of law-breakers. It is too easy for people to us PirateBay and other illegal download services. Consumers have little or no qualms about listening to music that they have not paid for.

The leave the music industry to face a problem. Digital album sales may never grow quickly again. Piracy may be plaguing the business more and more each year.

Douglas A. McIntyre

[rack gear]

The Recording Industry In 2009: Albums Down 12.7%, Digital Still Gaining... &mdash; Digital Music News

The Recording Industry In 2009: Albums Down 12.7%, Digital Still Gaining... <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/010710album>


Albums suffered another precipitous drop in 2009, according to the latest US-based data from Nielsen Soundscan. The group reported yearly sales of 373.9 million units, down 12.7 percent from a 2008 total of 428.4 million. The tally includes CDs, digital albums, LPs, and the increasingly-marginalized cassettes.

That represents another tough drop, though the label-partial Nielsen softened the blow by factoring in its usual bag of questionable calculations. That includes 'track equivalent albums,' as well as a separate methodology that counts every discrete transaction - download, ringtone, album sale, whatever - and invariably comes up with a gain.

But a straighter read of digital sales still revealed continued gains. For example, digital album sales gained 16.1 percent to 76.4 million, though the broader album decline negated those improvements. Separately, digital track sales gained 8.3 percent to 1.159 billion units, the second-straight post-billion year for song downloads. Still, the broader feeling is that paid downloads are entering a plateau after an explosive period of early-stage growth.

And the zinger? LPs, or vinyl albums, gained 33 percent to 2.5 million, the highest level since Nielsen started tracking in the early 90s.

[XHipHop]

The positives FAR outweigh the negatives this decade.

[Ciaccona]

Don't mean to be a smart ass or anything but isn't the end of the decade to come in the end of 2010?

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by XHipHop

The positives FAR outweigh the negatives this decade.

yes, for the pirates and thieves, but that's changing soon enough.

[The Beatsmith]

Originally Posted by Ciaccona

Don't mean to be a smart ass or anything but isn't the end of the decade to come in the end of 2010?

no. the "80's" started in 1980 and not 1981. and so, the "10's" (or teenies or whatever you wanna call em) start in 2010 not 2011 thumbsup

[XHipHop]

Originally Posted by redvelvetstudios

yes, for the pirates and thieves, but that's changing soon enough.

No, for musicians.

Think About These 2009 Music Sales Figures... - hypebot

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by XHipHop

No, for musicians.

Think About These 2009 Music Sales Figures... - hypebot

sorry but that is complete and total propaganda at best and outright lies at worst... another propaganda site for new media quoting stats out of context.

revenues are down - the thing that people need to pay rent, eat, supplement tour support, buy marketing with, etc ... is down, revenue is down, money is down, earnings are down...

it's fun to skew the stats to say music sales are up when only looking at individual song download UNITS... which are 1/10th the revenue of albums...

it's making claims like this that make it hard for me to engage in legitimate conversations with you - when you intentionally and deliberately are misrepresenting reality through a very distorted, convenient and selective lens.

Overall Revenue from Recorded Music Sales are down, have been down, and continue to be down - and that's both a fact and the truth.

In reviewing the document attached to that article, here's the real numbers that should be quoted which show an entirely different and factual picture - DOWN 8.5%

OVERALL ALBUM SALES (1/5/09 – 1/3/2010)
(INCLUDES ALL ALBUMS & TRACK EQUIVALENT ALBUMS - IN MILLIONS)

UNITS SOLD

2009 2008 % Chg.
489.8 535.4 - 8.5%

[Dopamine]

Honestly, I am surprised that the sales figures are as high as they are.

Just about every record store has closed and I don't really know anyone that buys cds on a regular basis, whereas 10 years ago all of my friends did.

I find it amazing that 374 million units were sold in 2009.

[rack gear]

looks like three numbers are up - individual song sales, piracy rates, and layoffs...

Developing: Layoff Round at Universal Music Group...
(The following is a developing story, please check back for more information.)

Universal Music Group (UMG) triggered a layoff round Thursday, according to numerous sources inside and outside the organization. Twitter is also bubbling with the news, though exact estimates from inside the building vary. An estimate from Billboard pegs the pare-down at 50, and Variety echoed the number. Variety also pointed to reductions across Verve, Def Jam, Interscope and Universal Motown, as well as Universal Music Group Distribution.

Separately, a representative at UMG confirmed the reduction. "Universal Music Group is continuing to transform our organization to better serve our artists and business partners," the company offered in a statement. "Given the current economic climate, we have to be as agile and efficient as possible."

[thethrillfactor]

The album concept as we know it is dead.

Every major label that i deal with are all preparing for it.

Heck that's what every artist, manager, producer and A&R talks about. How they refuse to spend the time or money any more doing an album if people are going to continue to pick and choose what they want. Most are thinking either doing EP's or 3 singles at the most.

It will take some getting used to but hopefully what it will do is force people to put their efforts on writing one great song instead of 10-12 so-so tracks.

[waxx]

that's true,

the last projects i've done as engineer were ep's one of 4 and one of 6 song (both not released yet), targetting on the african market (wich is pirated way worse than here).

Why, cause a cd may not cost much to have sales, and they rather spread their songs on several, so they are also avoiding filling (producing filling songs also cost money) so the ppl actually want all songs...

But both artists actually gain the majority off their money by touring, not by sales. They both see the cd more as a promo to get bookings and the sales are mainly to cover the production costs of that cd (at least partially).

[rack gear]

Originally Posted by thethrillfactor

The album concept as we know it is dead.

Every major label that i deal with are all preparing for it.

Heck that's what every artist, manager, producer and A&R talks about. How they refuse to spend the time or money any more doing an album if people are going to continue to pick and choose what they want. Most are thinking either doing EP's or 3 singles at the most.

It will take some getting used to but hopefully what it will do is force people to put their efforts on writing one great song instead of 10-12 so-so tracks.

the problem is - picking the hits isn't that easy... I think the old story (myth) is Kiss would write one hundred songs per album for 10 to make the cut...

[Neenja]

Why don't we ever see actual sales instead of units? Money is what matters, not number of products sold.