New York Times says Digital Sales Surpass CDs at Atlantic
Atlantic Records says digital sales have finally surpassed CD sales. Most of their musics sales in the US are now from digital products – ala digital music downloads and ringtones.
“We’re like a college basketball team on an 18-2 run,” said Craig Kallman, Atlantic’s chairman and chief executive.
The future still looks clouded even though a milestone has been achieved – “While digital delivery is becoming a bigger slice of the pie, the overall pie is shrinking fast.” The hope has been lost that digital sales would make up for declining sales of CD’s. The music industry is now hoping to profit from other businesses including concert tickets and artist merchandise, but the live business is shrinking too. Unfortunately, only a few legendary artists can fill arenas and they are usually unwilling to share the slice of the pie.
The transition of moving to a digital business has made things more complicated. Of course others believe they found somewhat of a solution. “I think we’ve figured it out,” said Julie Greenwald, president of Atlantic Records. “It used to be that you could connect five dots and sell a million records. Now there are 20 dots you can connect to sell a million records.”
“Replacing compact disc sales are small bits of revenue from many sources: Atlantic Records’ digital sales include ring tones, ringbacks, satellite radio, iTunes sales and subscription services”. At the same time, record labels — Atlantic included — are spending less money to market artists. In the pre-Internet days, said Ms. Greenwald, “we were so flush, we did everything in the name of promotion.” Among the cutbacks are less spending to produce videos and to support publicity tours when a new album is released.”
“We’re like a college basketball team on an 18-2 run,”
What a giant crock! LOL!
A better similie would be “Like a pack of Tyrannosaurus Rexes trying to outrun a 6 mile wide rogue meteor.”
My experience with the music business… has been to believe EVERY single thing that comes out of their mouths.
I think its like psychological warfare with them… the more they lie, the more they believe what they’re talking about.
Did this summer not hold the highest grossing concert period on record? And it wasn’t just huge arcana acts, it was lots of smaller indie bands coming together. What the REALLY mean is the pie is getting smaller for the Major labels, because more and more people are getting bites.
I agree mostly with your take on music Jared, but it’s not warfare. They REALLY believe this stuff. If you’ve had experience in the industry, you’d know this. They’re convinced that they just KNOW better. Nothing is the fault of the label. The artist’s songs sucked, the single didn’t ‘hit’, the market wasn’t right, Mercury’s in retrograde, Ron Fair needs a new house, blah, blah, blah.
Obama “fixing” the economy is a lie for sale…with a side of fries. This is different.
There we go again.. someone spewing their political beliefs again…
blah..blah.. blah..
Phhht,
I completely agree with you. These labels really do BELIEVE that they are right, and you’re wrong no matter what. Then, when you start questioning why a certain decision was made, or why this tour wasn’t booked… or why we’re paying way too much for this producer that we DIDN’T want in the first place; they tell you how dumb you are and how smart they are. Genius if you ask me.
You have to know when you put an artist and a platform together, polictics inevitably come up. It’s like waiting for the tide to rise……..the only question is when.
And I think the Obama comment is fitting; that guy is a joke. Seriously, you want to know what we call a guy who hangs out with the kind of people he does? We usually refer to them as dictators. He has all the ingredients for one; with all of his socialist rhetoric. And it disgusts me how all of these musicians seem to have drank the kool-aid and embraced his propaganda….i mean, have you seen this guys posters? Some crazy shit that looks like it was ripped straight out of a marxist movement.
He’s not going to be able to fix anything; just like the labels will not be able to fix their predicament. Market forces will have their way; because just like in the music industry, the “constituents” have been lied to and stolen from for too long…….. and now people are taking power back for themselves. The music industry, nor America, will look even close to teh same in ten years. The question is whether or not that is a good or a bad thing.
Universal Indie Records, you have to understand who participate in this site/blog – Bill O’Reilly-slurping, ‘red state rock’-listening, mullet-wearing douchebags. Find the humor in it and have yourself a chuckle. What they don’t know about the music industry (or politics for that matter) could fill a warehouse.
stewie gots- youre a fucking idiot.
stewie gots to get laid. ’nuff said.
Stewie Gots..
Yeah.. I can see that. I mean the election is over. THe American people spoke AND they spoke in large numbers. These guys act like the Republicans have done such a great job the past 8 fucking years. Look at where the hell this country is at! The “old boy” network has done wonders for the economy.
At least give the man a fucking chance before you people start talking shit. Hell I gave Bush a chance.
It’s incredible!!!
Regardless… you people should focus on the fucking topic at hand instead of always trying to force your political beliefs down someone else’s throat.
It’s a MUSIC FORUM… not FoxNews/CNN….
how about it stay that way????????
this is all a big self gloating lie for the label to make people think that they’re doing fine with this change of the era.atlantic is one of thee worse rock labels ever
The point is, NO PRESIDENT can fix the economy…red or blue. No one man can. Had McCain one, I’d have used him. God, is anyone else on this board even IN the music industry? Or just me?
Had McCain won, rather. You people need to look at the metaphor more closely.
it doesn’t matter who won the election, both obama and mccain are puppets of the globalists. and music sales will continue to slump, digital and otherwise. sucks!
er…NWO..any chance you may know what happen to Art Bell ?