3 Comments

1. 

   Pierre-Julien Grizel on February 24, 2011 at 1:53 pm

   The graph shows decline per physical support… But it’s been several years now since the music industry understood it has to find other revenue sources (esp. events, concerts, edition, …).
   I’d really like to see the ratio of CD/digital sales in those companies revenues.

   Reply
2. 

   Mike Goitein on February 24, 2011 at 3:37 pm

   Minter,
   The graph has been corrected, with several additional graphs:

   http://www.businessinsider.com/these-charts-explain-the-real-death-of-the-music-industry-2011-2

   Here are some important points coaxed from the data:

   So let’s correct the inaccurate conclusions one might reasonably draw from the misleading Bain chart:

   Wrong: The music industry is down around 40% from its peak in 1999
   Correct: The music industry is down 64% from its peak.
   Wrong: At least the music industry is almost 4 times better off than in 1973.
   Correct: The music industry is actually down 45% from where it was in 1973.
   Wrong: The CD era was the aberration. (Mr. Gruber’s reasonable take)
   Correct: The CD peak was only 13% better than the vinyl peak, not over 250% better as the Bain chart implies.
   The overall conclusion is that the music industry is actually doing much worse than the Bain chart implies:
   10 years ago the average American spent almost 3 times as much on recorded music products as they do today.
   26 years ago they spent almost twice as much as they do today.

   Cheers,
   Mike

   Reply
3. 

   Minter Dial on February 28, 2011 at 6:12 pm

   @PJ Grizel: You are right that they have known for a while… They certainly have taken a long time to shift gears! What I would like to see is the business model concerning concerts, tickets & merchandising…

   @Mike: thanks for the corrections and the most revealing stats. It makes me wonder how musicians are faring in all that? What’s working? Niche music, playing at clubs, genius kids on YouTube?

   Reply

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