Digital Media killing physical media

Hugh Freaking Dillon

EDITED THREAD TITLE TO REFLECT WHAT I REALY MEANT

Proof is in the pudding folks. HMV Canada is closing multiple locations cross-Canada after posting profits nation-wide of $1 MILLION FOR ALL OF 2010 (and most of that probably came in December). NATION WIDE. That's pathetic.

CD Plus is also closing all its stores this spring.

Guess what's going to happen now? All those illegal downloaders that buy a cd once in a while are going to bitch that they have to pay more at a local indie shop because they don't have the mass sales to support cheaper prices.

The silver lining? Indie shops win. But the artists are still going to have to censor their product in order to get sold at big boxes like Wal Mart and Target. Best Buy and Future Shop are already fazing out selling cd's. You should see the cd section at FS. It's like a tornado hit it. I don't even think they have anyone working that section anymore.

Go buy a freaking cd or vinyl. Stop torrenting. You're killing the industry.

Digital Twilight

I'll buy from HMV again when they stop charging £15 for a cd they bought for £3. HMV deserve what is happening to them. Cds need to be priced a lot lower then that.

I'm with you we should be at a state where we should be buying our music but as prices are high and desposable income is becoming less downloading is inevitable.

Just to be clear I prob download 5 albums a year and I spend more then the average person on music a year.

Hugh Freaking Dillon

I disagree actually. CD's haven't increased in price, well, EVER. I pay the same for a cd now that I did back in the early 90's, probably less. I remember when a new release was $18.99-$22.99. Now it's generaly $12.99 or so.

Also, there's a whole lot of hands in the pie of a cd. Artist, label, distribution, band, etc. Just think of the markup on any other product. A piece of clothing made for $2.00 sold for $150. Relatively speaking, it's not an unreasonable markup.

The markup is worse at indie stores. But I still buy from them too.

Digital Twilight wrote:

I'll buy from HMV again when they stop charging £15 for a cd they bought for £3. HMV deserve what is happening to them. Cds need to be priced a lot lower then that.

I'm with you we should be at a state where we should be buying our music but as prices are high and desposable income is becoming less downloading is inevitable.

Just to be clear I prob download 5 albums a year and I spend more then the average person on music a year.

Digital Twilight

Intersting read:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicbl ... -music-hmv

eddiec

Music stores have been consistently closing for years now. It's as much to do with new technology as illegal downloading though. We happen to be on a fansite which prides itself on vinyl and cd collection. But the average person these days, especially the younger generation, don't want anything to do with cd's. People seem to prefer to download onto their computer and then on to mp3's. At least i tunes kept up with the change in technology. I think as of last year they had sold 1 billion downloads. The music companies were way to slow to change their own technology when cd burners and napster came out. They sat around for years pushing for laws to stop ilegal downloading instead of finding ways to battle or come up with new technology. Consumers just want the best deals and the music industry refused to offer these.

Digital Twilight

eddiec wrote:

Music stores have been consistently closing for years now. It's as much to do with new technology as illegal downloading though. We happen to be on a fansite which prides itself on vinyl and cd collection. But the average person these days, especially the younger generation, don't want anything to do with cd's. People seem to prefer to download onto their computer and then on to mp3's. At least i tunes kept up with the change in technology. I think as of last year they had sold 1 billion downloads. The music companies were way to slow to change their own technology when cd burners and napster came out. They sat around for years pushing for laws to stop ilegal downloading instead of finding ways to battle or come up with new technology. Consumers just want the best deals and the music industry refused to offer these.

Well said. The Industry needs to change or they will be left behind.

Hugh Freaking Dillon

also agreed.

Digital Twilight wrote:

eddiec wrote:

Music stores have been consistently closing for years now. It's as much to do with new technology as illegal downloading though. We happen to be on a fansite which prides itself on vinyl and cd collection. But the average person these days, especially the younger generation, don't want anything to do with cd's. People seem to prefer to download onto their computer and then on to mp3's. At least i tunes kept up with the change in technology. I think as of last year they had sold 1 billion downloads. The music companies were way to slow to change their own technology when cd burners and napster came out. They sat around for years pushing for laws to stop ilegal downloading instead of finding ways to battle or come up with new technology. Consumers just want the best deals and the music industry refused to offer these.

Well said. The Industry needs to change or they will be left behind.

fife

I agree about illegal downloading but lets be honest with ourselves. it is the record companies that are killing themselves with their crappy music. record companies only care about getting their 5 to 10 million selling records out. They don't allow their artist grow. all i always say the same thing when i hear about record companies failing and that is "if Bob Dylan was a new artist today he would never been signed" instead we get Kesha and justin bieber.

Newch91

Paul David wrote:

also agreed.

Digital Twilight wrote:

eddiec wrote:

Music stores have been consistently closing for years now. It's as much to do with new technology as illegal downloading though. We happen to be on a fansite which prides itself on vinyl and cd collection. But the average person these days, especially the younger generation, don't want anything to do with cd's. People seem to prefer to download onto their computer and then on to mp3's. At least i tunes kept up with the change in technology. I think as of last year they had sold 1 billion downloads. The music companies were way to slow to change their own technology when cd burners and napster came out. They sat around for years pushing for laws to stop ilegal downloading instead of finding ways to battle or come up with new technology. Consumers just want the best deals and the music industry refused to offer these.

Well said. The Industry needs to change or they will be left behind.

Another agreed.

Prince Of Dorkness

There's a lot of blame to go around.

Saying that HMV spends $3 on a CD and sells it for $20 is just not true.

I worked in purchasing for HMV and I know that $20 CD costs them about $18. Their profit margins are very low.

Yes, the labels only pay maybe $1 to manufacture the CD but they have to pay millions is production, promotion, distribution... plus if an album tanks, they need to recoup those losses.

NOW...

Music sucks. It's shit. Albums like "Nevermind" and "Ten" and "Born To Run" and "Like A Virgin" and "Thriller" that sell for years with no promotion are pretty much gone. Sure, Britney Spears will debut at #1 and sell 3 million copies of her new collection of shit to her idiot fans... but the album will hit a wall and after about a year, it'll never sell again.

Record companies pour money into stink pits so talentless assholes like Eminem can shout "faggot" over a beat his producer sampled from someone else's record but those careers require constant hype to keep going. Just like Donny Osmond and Leif Garrett and the Bay City Rollers and Tiffany and Debbie Gibson... in a few years, Justin Beiber and the Jonas Brothers will be the punch line to a joke.

AND...

Music "fans" helped kill the industry. They stole the music from downloading sites, burned copies for their friends and came up with silly excuses like "it only costs $1" to make a CD. They stopped supporting their favorite artists and just bled them dry. Pearl Jam and Radio Head had to leave their major labels and start their own because their incomes were being cannibalized by an industry desperate to stay alive.

Prince Of Dorkness

By the way...

I still buy all my music. iTunes and vinyl. The only albums I buy on CD are Pearl Jam bootlegs for some reason. Go figure.

I buy maybe 5-6 albums every month.

Byrnzie

Maybe this is why concert ticket prices have increased, which is o.k by me. I'd rather give my money to a band that can play live than to a bunch of record executives.

know1

The entertainment industies' inability to adapt to changing times is what is killing them.

Furthermore, if we're talking about record shops, I'd say it's not the ILLEGAL downloading that's killing them. I don't buy any physical CDs or Movies anymore. I just download or stream them legally.

lukin2006

Paul David wrote:

Proof is in the pudding folks. HMV Canada is closing multiple locations cross-Canada after posting profits nation-wide of $1 MILLION FOR ALL OF 2010 (and most of that probably came in December). NATION WIDE. That's pathetic.

CD Plus is also closing all its stores this spring.

Guess what's going to happen now? All those illegal downloaders that buy a cd once in a while are going to bitch that they have to pay more at a local indie shop because they don't have the mass sales to support cheaper prices.

The silver lining? Indie shops win. But the artists are still going to have to censor their product in order to get sold at big boxes like Wal Mart and Target. Best Buy and Future Shop are already fazing out selling cd's. You should see the cd section at FS. It's like a tornado hit it. I don't even think they have anyone working that section anymore.

Go buy a freaking cd or vinyl. Stop torrenting. You're killing the industry.

Do you have a link of which stores are closing?

lukin2006

Byrnzie wrote:

Maybe this is why concert ticket prices have increased, which is o.k by me. I'd rather give my money to a band that can play live than to a bunch of record executives.

+1

Kel Varnsen

fife wrote:

They don't allow their artist grow. all i always say the same thing when i hear about record companies failing and that is "if Bob Dylan was a new artist today he would never been signed" instead we get Kesha and justin bieber.

I think the problem is that it isn't really in a label's best interest to let an artist grow. I mean if you put out a CD by say Springsteen or Madonna, those artists are going to have a ton of control as to what they put out (even if it isn't very sellable). And on top of that the more established artist is going to get a bigger cut of the sales of the CD, meaning that the label is going to make less money per CD. Now if they can put out another CD by some flash in the pan Disney kid, they are going to have complete control and make the CD as catchy as possible. And the artist for those CD's since they are unknown are going to make peanuts.

JonnyPistachio

Byrnzie wrote:

Maybe this is why concert ticket prices have increased, which is o.k by me. I'd rather give my money to a band that can play live than to a bunch of record executives.

I agree Byrnzie.
Also, I think I saw somewhere when Backspacer came out that PJ did this deal with Target because (out of their entire career), the deal they cut gave them the most $$ per CD sold. And i didnt see it so much as PJ wanting more money, but rather that it makes more sense that they get it instead of the crappy record execs getting rich off someone elses talents.

pjhawks

other than PJ i really have no interest at all in buying a CD of any artist. I cannot tell you the last non-PJ full cd i've bought. I would much rather download the songs than purchase a physical CD. Frankly other than PJ there is not a group out there that I could see liking all 10-15 songs on a new CD. I'll download from Itunes any new songs i like from other artists. Illegal downloading is not killing CDs and the companies that make CDs but it's just easier and more convenient to buy the songs in that format that a full cd of an artist you aren't really interested in. Personally I'd like to see all record companies go away and have all artists sell their own shit in their own way.

Jeanwah

Sheesh, you'd think that something more innovative would have sprung up by now, since piracy is old news.

blackredyellow

I don't think that piracy is what is hurting the record stores at all... it's just an outdated retail model.

For CD's, stores like Wal-Mart, Target & Best Buy sell a much higher volume than the old CD store chains. They can sell new releases at lower prices and not worry about profits, it gets you in the story to buy other stuff. Add to that, huge online stores like Amazon.

Then there is digital media, which is outpacing physical CD sales... iTunes is still growing, Amazon has a popular mp3 store, and others are getting in on the action.

Look at video rental places, it's the some thing... it's not piracy really hurting them, it's that there are much more convenient and cheaper options out there for people who want to buy or watch a movie.

Hugh Freaking Dillon

I think it's both, along with other factors. It's the technology that's killing physical media, really, but illegal downloading started it all.

Yeah, Byrnzie, I agree, and have been saying for years, this is why ticket prices have skyrocketed in the last while. Same with merch at the shows. I hate that sometimes I actually have to choose between a show and a cd.

blackredyellow wrote:

I don't think that piracy is what is hurting the record stores at all... it's just an outdated retail model.

For CD's, stores like Wal-Mart, Target & Best Buy sell a much higher volume than the old CD store chains. They can sell new releases at lower prices and not worry about profits, it gets you in the story to buy other stuff. Add to that, huge online stores like Amazon.

Then there is digital media, which is outpacing physical CD sales... iTunes is still growing, Amazon has a popular mp3 store, and others are getting in on the action.

Look at video rental places, it's the some thing... it's not piracy really hurting them, it's that there are much more convenient and cheaper options out there for people who want to buy or watch a movie.

Jeanwah

blackredyellow wrote:

I don't think that piracy is what is hurting the record stores at all... it's just an outdated retail model.

For CD's, stores like Wal-Mart, Target & Best Buy sell a much higher volume than the old CD store chains. They can sell new releases at lower prices and not worry about profits, it gets you in the story to buy other stuff. Add to that, huge online stores like Amazon.

Then there is digital media, which is outpacing physical CD sales... iTunes is still growing, Amazon has a popular mp3 store, and others are getting in on the action.

Look at video rental places, it's the some thing... it's not piracy really hurting them, it's that there are much more convenient and cheaper options out there for people who want to buy or watch a movie.

Right. But the video rentals took the hint, probably because so many people stopped renting. What's holding the music retail industry back from moving on?

Hugh Freaking Dillon

edited thread title to reflect what I really meant. it's not just the illegal downloaders, it's digital media as a whole. back when blank recordable cassette tapes came out in the 80's, the industry were up in arms. what did it do to hurt the industry? nothing.

blackredyellow

Jeanwah wrote:

blackredyellow wrote:

I don't think that piracy is what is hurting the record stores at all... it's just an outdated retail model.

For CD's, stores like Wal-Mart, Target & Best Buy sell a much higher volume than the old CD store chains. They can sell new releases at lower prices and not worry about profits, it gets you in the story to buy other stuff. Add to that, huge online stores like Amazon.

Then there is digital media, which is outpacing physical CD sales... iTunes is still growing, Amazon has a popular mp3 store, and others are getting in on the action.

Look at video rental places, it's the some thing... it's not piracy really hurting them, it's that there are much more convenient and cheaper options out there for people who want to buy or watch a movie.

Right. But the video rentals took the hint, probably because so many people stopped renting. What's holding the music retail industry back from moving on?

I don't think anything is really... it's just a slower transformation. With iTunes, and even the subscription services like Rhapsody, options are increasing all of the time. But there is still a large contigent of people out there (our generation and older) who like to buy physical CD's (and vinyl). There just weren't may people out there obsessed with collecting physical DVD's (or VHS tapes)... also the fact that unlike music, most people only watch most movies one time and buying it really doesn't matter.

Kel Varnsen

blackredyellow wrote:

Look at video rental places, it's the some thing... it's not piracy really hurting them, it's that there are much more convenient and cheaper options out there for people who want to buy or watch a movie.

For video rental places the thing that really was the first sign of death was that the stuidos totally changed the model on how they would make money on home video. My dad had a video store back in teh 80's and 90's and I remember back when he started his store, for him ordering a copy of a popular movie could easily cost over 100 dollars. By the time he sold his store in the late 90's he was buying a lot of his popular titles from Walmart (especially kids movies) since the walmart prices were actually cheaper than ordering from a distributor. I think in the early days the idea was to sell the VCR's for cheaper and get people to rent the movies just to get people to adopt the technology. But then it came to a point that everyone owned VCR's or DVD players and studios realized they could make more money by selling movies directly to the consumer (especially once DVD came out) for $10 bucks at walmart. I mean my wife and I have a pretty huge DVD collection, mostly because we go to the movies a lot (or at least we used to), and then for stuff we like, rather than renting it for $6 we just buy it for 18. If it still cost $100 to buy say Iron Man 2 at Walmart we would probably rent a lot more.

Newch91

I like buying the physical product and to be able to hold it and look through the artwork.

Whenever I tell my friends I have to go buy an album, they look at me weird and say, "Why not just download it for free?"

eddiec

The whole increase in technology is a huge catch-22. The biggest problem with downloading mp3's is that the quality sucks. Even at a high bit rate they don't compare to cd's. But most people don't mind cause everyone is listening to them on ipods, docking stations or computers with crappy speakers. What happened to the days of 100w per channel receivers that when turned up it was like sitting in the recording studio? Now you find these shotty receivers that pump out out a measly 25w per channel and you need to buy speakers that individually plug in to get any real quality sound. I have a Pioneer receiver from the mid '70's and an old pair of Bose speakers that will destroy most sound systems today. Unless you pay top dollar today you lose so much on sound that we just used to take for granted.

lukin2006

Couldn't find any info regarding Canada HMV, UK HMV is apparently closing stores. The HMV at my local mall always seems to be busy.

As far as digital media, that what the kids of today want, they would rather just load up their music on an ipod than put a record on or insert a CD. That why the music companies are scrambling, they failed to stay on top of new forms of media.

BH304897

I don't think digital media is killing physical media, nor do I think that its ruining the entertainment industry (at least not the music industry), however I do think that it is changing the industry. Because of digital media and downloads there has been a resurgence in vinyl albums being produced and the technology has also allowed for the physical media of a ton of live albums that otherwise would never have been readily available. I do think its changing the industry and some of that is reflected in the ticket prices of shows, but really all it's doing is cutting out a bunch of middle men from the profits, not the bands. The "pay what you want" digital download of in rainbows made more money for Radiohead than any previous album and as far as I'm concerned the more money that goes to the band the better. I also like the fact that since cd sales aren't what they used to be bands basically have to tour not only to make money but in order to promote themselves. I buy cd's from certain artists in order to support them, but I also will burn cd's etc so that I get an introduction to some new bands. If the music is good I will support the artist especially through live shows. I guess I just don't feel too sorry for the promoters and suites that are no longer making millions.

Jeanwah

Byrnzie wrote:

Maybe this is why concert ticket prices have increased, which is o.k by me. I'd rather give my money to a band that can play live than to a bunch of record executives.

I disagree. For the $15 that can buy me a cd, I don't see how paying double in ticket prices could justify what artists lose.
Not to mention Byrnzie, that you've simply switched from paying the record execs a few bucks to paying the ticket execs even more.

know1

Paul David wrote:

edited thread title to reflect what I really meant. it's not just the illegal downloaders, it's digital media as a whole. back when blank recordable cassette tapes came out in the 80's, the industry were up in arms. what did it do to hurt the industry? nothing.

Automobiles killed the horse and buggy industry too. What's your point?