Is the UK Music Industry Sleepwalking into a CD Crisis?

An upfront note: though this post focuses on the UK market, the principles, as you will see, apply across most music markets. At first glance the UK recorded music market isn’t in too bad shape: album sales declined by a not too worrying 5.6% in 2011 and digital grew solidly, including 26.6% growth in digital [...]

The Music Format Bill of Rights

Today I have published the latest Music Industry Blog report:  ‘The Music Format Bill Of Rights: A Manifesto for the Next Generation of Music Products’.  The report is currently available free of charge to Music Industry Blog subscribers.  To subscribe to this blog and to receive a copy of the report simply add your email address [...]

Why The Access Versus Ownership Debate Isn’t Going to Resolve Itself Anytime Soon

Earlier this week I was at 7 Digital’s Annual Media and Partners Meeting.  At the start of the year 7 Digital hit their 7 Year mark, which in Internet Years is probably equivalent middle age.  7 Digital now have 3 million registered paying customers (of which 30% are active) but what is most interesting is [...]

iTunes Pass: First Take

So Apple finally gets into the music subscription business….well sort of. Today Apple announced the first of its iTunes Pass offerings, in partnership with EMI and 80’s electronic music pioneers Depeche Mode. In return for $18.99 a month buyers get   “…new and exclusive singles, remixes, video and other content from their favorite artists over [...]

Where Now for Music Retailing?

UK media retailer has just announced that it will buy 14 retail stores from its struggling competitor Zaavi, which is currently in administration, following the collapse of media distributor EUK, which went into administration following the collapse of its parent company Woolworths which was also a key music retailer. Domino effect anyone? OK, things might [...]

Mamma Mia: How Universal Are Using Music from the 70′s to Build a 21st Century Business

Universal Picture’s ‘Mamma Mia! The Movie’ has just become the most successful film musical of all time with 2.25 million first day US sales and previously 1.6 million first day UK sales (which in per capita terms means that British sales were three and half times more successful.)  UK 1st week sales peaked at 3.5 [...]

HMV Interim Results and What they Mean for Music Sales

Interim results are out for HMV, always a good litmus test for the state of music and media sales.  I’m not a financial analyst so I’m not going to discuss the financial fundamentals, rather what this means for the music industry.   HMV stores sales (i.e. excluding Waterstones) are actually up over period.  But technology [...]

Could the Distribution Crisis in the UK Drive Digital Growth?

Hot on the heels of leading distributor EUK going into administration, Pinnacle follows, supplier of CDs, DVDs and games to the likes of HMV, Amazon and WHSmith. Could this squeeze on physical distribution be a boon for digital sales? The music retailers are certainly covering their bets: Zavvi announced the planned rapid launch of a [...]

Amazon Launches MP3 Store in the UK. First Take.

Amazon just sneaked up on the UK music market with it’s stealthy launch of the UK version of its MP3 store.  Why the quiet launch?  Amazon promised back in Midem that they’d launch in Europe before year end.  It seems to have to taken them longer than expected to make this happen and the quiet, [...]

Why the Music Industry Needs Zavvi Back Online

UK high street music retailer Zaavi (formerly Virgin Megastores) has suspended trading on its online store due to the collapse of Woolworth’s, which owned Zaavi’s distributor EUK.   Negotiations are underway to secure a buyer for EUK.  The UK music industry has got to hope that happens soon.  Don’t underestimate how important a quarter this is [...]