Turnover figures decrease rapidly. Finally the silver sound carrier really seems to fade away.
Three weeks ago two million readers found a CD in the "Mail on Sunday" of the musician, who today is called "Prince" again. "Planet Earth" as the current album was also presented at the entrance free of charge to the guests of his London appearance .
Now the extravagant publication methods of the dwarf from Minneapolis are as legendary as his early records. But obviously Prince again sharpened his sense of business: What is a CD worth after more than hundred years of recording? And after 25 years of digital self-destruction?
If even local bands do no longer sell CDs at concerts to not endanger their fan t-shirt business? What‘s a CD for 15 Euro worth, if a t-shirt brings 30 Euro and is produced in Bangladesh?
For years obituaries have been written about the CD. Now Robert Sandall who was Director of communication at Virgin Records during the crisis years from 1996 onwards is seriously singing the swan song so one can only comment: “It comes to an end”.
Sandall writes in the reputable "Prospect Magazine" that we are to blame.
In the 1982 CD rush nobody in the industry listened to Maurice Oberstein, Polygram boss at that time who said: "We are giving away our master tapes!"
The short term price duplication for CDs was followed by a disastrous decline in value. Musicians realised that concerts served no longer to promote CDs but the other way round.
The figures: In the first business quarter 2007, compared to last year, world-wide CD business again lost around 20%. Sandall writes about the German market: "82 million Germans converted into a nation of bootleggers, who are spending cents on albums, which did cost 40 DM in former times.
The once largest market of Europe today is not larger than the Dutch." The "Prospect Magazines" does not event count the percentage for Germany anymore. France went down 25 percent, Great Britain 20, America 15. The record store chain HMV halved its business within only a year. More severe than the numbers however are the conclusively voiced concerns about the future.
Robert Sandall thoroughly destroys exaggerated hopes that losses can be adjusted by an exploding download trade (40 percent growth in Germany). For him the download boom is hardly more than a proof for the fact that the music consumption changes and recorded music rapidly loses value.
One accumulates music pieces as rumbling files in cheap devices. CDs and MP3s are what musicians distribute for free, what sticks on magazines or falls out of Sunday newspapers.
In April “Mail on Sunday” was already delivered with "Tubular Bells" to the readers. An album, which established Mike Oldfield’s fame in 1973, above all however it established Richard Branson’s conglomerate Virgin, today a part of the EMI.
While canned music loses out, live performances seem to be moving very dynamically in the opposite direction and are experiencing a renaissance.
If even conservative music buyers, i.e. Heavy Metal fans use free download offers today in order to save their money for journeys to live festivals there is not much to promise to the old CD.
Translated from an article from Michael Pilz, published in the Berliner Morgenpost Newspaper on August 9, 2007.
Three weeks ago two million readers found a CD in the "Mail on Sunday" of the musician, who today is called "Prince" again. "Planet Earth" as the current album was also presented at the entrance free of charge to the guests of his London appearance .
Now the extravagant publication methods of the dwarf from Minneapolis are as legendary as his early records. But obviously Prince again sharpened his sense of business: What is a CD worth after more than hundred years of recording? And after 25 years of digital self-destruction?
If even local bands do no longer sell CDs at concerts to not endanger their fan t-shirt business? What‘s a CD for 15 Euro worth, if a t-shirt brings 30 Euro and is produced in Bangladesh?
For years obituaries have been written about the CD. Now Robert Sandall who was Director of communication at Virgin Records during the crisis years from 1996 onwards is seriously singing the swan song so one can only comment: “It comes to an end”.
Sandall writes in the reputable "Prospect Magazine" that we are to blame.
In the 1982 CD rush nobody in the industry listened to Maurice Oberstein, Polygram boss at that time who said: "We are giving away our master tapes!"
The short term price duplication for CDs was followed by a disastrous decline in value. Musicians realised that concerts served no longer to promote CDs but the other way round.
The figures: In the first business quarter 2007, compared to last year, world-wide CD business again lost around 20%. Sandall writes about the German market: "82 million Germans converted into a nation of bootleggers, who are spending cents on albums, which did cost 40 DM in former times.
The once largest market of Europe today is not larger than the Dutch." The "Prospect Magazines" does not event count the percentage for Germany anymore. France went down 25 percent, Great Britain 20, America 15. The record store chain HMV halved its business within only a year. More severe than the numbers however are the conclusively voiced concerns about the future.
Robert Sandall thoroughly destroys exaggerated hopes that losses can be adjusted by an exploding download trade (40 percent growth in Germany). For him the download boom is hardly more than a proof for the fact that the music consumption changes and recorded music rapidly loses value.
One accumulates music pieces as rumbling files in cheap devices. CDs and MP3s are what musicians distribute for free, what sticks on magazines or falls out of Sunday newspapers.
In April “Mail on Sunday” was already delivered with "Tubular Bells" to the readers. An album, which established Mike Oldfield’s fame in 1973, above all however it established Richard Branson’s conglomerate Virgin, today a part of the EMI.
While canned music loses out, live performances seem to be moving very dynamically in the opposite direction and are experiencing a renaissance.
If even conservative music buyers, i.e. Heavy Metal fans use free download offers today in order to save their money for journeys to live festivals there is not much to promise to the old CD.
Translated from an article from Michael Pilz, published in the Berliner Morgenpost Newspaper on August 9, 2007.
Its only a matter of time now, the end of CD production is a valuable step for cleaner enviroment.
ReplyDeleteIn the days of MP3 the CD has no room
Meeting industry Database