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CD singles to become obsolete 'in three years'

Posted on 16/01/04 00:32 by SeÃ¡n Byrne

While CD Album sales have not changed significantly over the past few years, CD Single sales are falling rapidly. The music industry blames piracy for the CD Single sale drop, but it appears that legal online music download services are gobbling up the sales on singles. With the growing rate of both broadband penetration and online music download services, it is reckoned that CD Singles will become obsolete in about three years. Despite album sales rising in theUK, CD single sales have fell by 30% last year in the UK.

In the US, sales of the odd single in the US have actually done better across legal music download services than on the Billboard hot 100 singles chart. iTunes are currently the market leader with online sales covering 50% of all music downloads purchased online. Online sales are expected to shoot up even further when Microsoft launches its service. Unfortunately unlike with physical CDs, CD singles were intended to promote albums, but with online services customers have the option to download the tracks they want thus ruling out the sale of singles as a method of promoting full album sales. Quakester2000 submitted the following news from the BBC via our news submit :

CD singles will be phased out in the US within three years, according to a leading chart expert.
Sales are continuing to drop with online piracy blamed for many of the industry problems.

With broadband becoming far more common, it is easier to simply download a track than go out and buy it, the industry argues.

Emmanuel Legrand, Bureau Chief for Billboard Europe, told BBC World Service's The Music Biz programme that this is likely to spell the end of the chart single.

"I doubt that in three years from now, there will be physical singles available in the US," he stated.

"It will happen very quickly once all the legitimate services will be in place."

In the UK, sales CD singles fell by 30% last year.

Marketing mistake

For the first time, sales of the most-downloaded track in the US have been higher than those for the CD single at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

A number of factors are coming together to further promote the growth of online music - and hasten the demise of the CD single, Mr Legrand added.

"This business is growing," he said.

Read the full article here.

I have no problem seeing online music download services replacing singles over time, but it may take more work before they can do this with complete albums also. With CD Singles, the price per song can work out several times more expensive than purchasing the song at 99 cent from a download service. But with Albums, the difference between the album and downloading all the tracks individually roughly adds up not far from the CD price. With the hassle of downloading each song, encoded in a lossy codec, infected with DRM restrictions and no authentic looking CD, the small extra cost for the album on CD is generally worth it; assuming the CD is not CPRM protected also!

Feel free to discuss and read about online music download shops and other peer to peer related topics on our Music Downloads, P2P & Legal Issues Forum.

Source: BBC Entertainment News

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