Declining Music Sales: It's Not All Downloading

from the more-studies dept

A new study looking into the root causes of the slide in CD sales has found that, while music downloading does have some impact, there are many other reasons why people are buying less music - with the main one being that they simply don't like what's out there. For people over the age of 36, especially, the lack of selection is really killing sales. They make up 45% of record sales, but aren't buying because they can't stand what the labels are putting out these days. According to the study, only 10% of the decline in sales from this group is due to people downloading songs. Of course, the music industry is likely to take this study and spin it as "here's proof that lost sales are due to downloading".