In your FACE digital!

It's because HITS still drive the bulk of the business, and HITS are sold at Walmart, Best Buy, Target, etc. Get below the Top 200 titles and I bet this graphic looks very different.

I'd like to see what % the Top 200 titles account for that product mix. I'm sure the indies are seeing a very different story.

I wish there was more backend demographic info on this....

There is additional data surrounding these purchases, some of which I have access to.  But I'm afraid the juiciest part - ie, what type of person (age, location, genre preference, etc.) -  I do not have.  

/paul

Ahhhhh,

Yes, they never tell you the good stuff. 

I'm wondering how many of those CD's came from Wal Mart and Target, or even :gulp: Starbucks. Also how many of those sales were Major Label released and terrestrial radio broadcasted..

Wouldn't be surprised if the lions share of the physical sales were courtesy the Big 3 and Clear Channel...

Blasting into 2012, not that much has changed. 

Staggering!

is this Alexi?

I think that this just goes to show that  a large number of consumers / Jo Public still wants physicality when purchasing music, a download just does not cut it as you cant touch, smell or have a download on display and whilest the CD is sure to be doomed to the annuals of history other trusted physical formats such as USBs are already beginning and ready to take its place.

www.Aderra.co.uk 

I feel like this is missing some important contextual information.

First, while physical CDs are still dominant as album sales, how are albums sales doing overall, and as a percentage against individual track sales?

Secondly, could this be because people have stopped buying digital albums because of the profilieration of the streaming services? If that was the case, this information is a bit of a red herring. 

I don't know the answer to these questions, but I think that type of info would help give this some meaningful context. Is there a way to get that info?

Thanks!

Jeremy

Editor, thinklikealabel.com

Consider the source too. Nielsen - an old line "analog" company.

The CD Still exists. How is anybody at Digital Music News surprised by any part of this?

I'll bet any money the demographic for this is the 30+ group, they are the only ones still paying for music.  They have been conditioned to crave ownership or possession of a tangible object, such as a CD for their money.  The future generations have evolved beyond this 'sense of ownership', so they have no problem pruchasing permission to play, rather than an actual CD. And you can't really track what didn't sell, so this chart ignores the elephant in the room: pirated music is the fastest growing, if not the largest percent of the music 'industry' today, and most certainly tomorrow. If you take the percent of CD sales over the last ten years or so into account,this chart really becomes a tracker of 30+ buying habits, not indusrty-whole demo's.   Ironic really, because, as we are seeing, you can't have an industry based on no revenue.  Hence, the recording industry has been replaced by the multi-media, live performance-oriented industry. Sorry, but it's true. :-(

Let not forget the terrifyingly large Baby Boomer generation that's now well into middle age and twice the size of any other group in the past 30 years.

Sound like they're not as ready to give up their Discman just yet. 

They will run this country till they're 120.

You people refer to CD-purchasers as dusty old farts. CDs aren't exactly 8-tracks. Sure, they're not the cutting edge anymore, but I think it's naive to say that it's a bunch of seniors who say "You what?" when you say "iPod".

Maybe I'm a dinosaur myself - I'm 29 and I still buy CDs from most of the artists I listen to. I download some. I like collecting. I've moved away from the idea of having to have every disc out there, and so I do enjoy the idea of purchasing downloads too, mainly because it reduces waste. I do think the move to digital is a positive one. Those collectors who will always want a physical product will, in all likelihood, be presented with the option of buying "special" editions with booklets, photos, bubblegum, whatever. In the end, I think it's win-win - for CDers and digital users, as well as for artists and consumers. Labels, for that matter... screw 'em.

Hopefully this evolution in the music industry ends up cutting out the middle men to the greatest extent possible. Seems like they're becoming obsolete, which I think is a good thing for (good) music.

This blows me away.

Heck yes!

Are these based on sound scan numbers only?

If so its in-accurate.

It's entirely based on Nielsen Soundscan.  Here's the report, please check my math but I think it's all correct. /paul

Thou shall not forsake the pressing of CDs.

I'm surprised that four million vinyl album were sold!  :)

There are no dollar figures in any of the hundrds of stories that the release of the Nielsen data has spawned. Unit sales are up, but dollars amounts will be down, as they have been for most of the decade. As the saying goes, we lose money on every piece we sell, but we make it up in volume.

It just depends on how you read the data.

Good to know!

CD still dominates!

...but revenue down.

This probably overlooks album streaming and downloading.  And Generation Ys.

PS: who are these people?

The Medium Is the Message.

I like physical product myself...

Paul! CNN has the same total sales you cite (331 M), but they say digital topped discs? What's the deal?

http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/05/technology/digital_music_sales/index.htm

That article is also accurate, it's just that CNN is referring to overall sales - across albums, singles, streams, whatever.  So, add all of that up, and physical is now less than 50%.  

This article just refers to albums.  Hope that clarifies.

/paul

I would point out, "still"

It's not over yet!

i must be missing something, or is this not the "real" story? quote/link below lifted without permission from a cnn/time story used recently by billboard.

are these figures accurate and from riaa? total digital track sales = 1.27 billion?

<<in 2011, digital music sales climbed past physical sales to take a 50.3% market share of all music purchases. In a continuation of a multi-year trend, digital sales increased by 8.4% from 2010, while physical sales declined 5%.>>

Read more: http://moneyland.time.com/2012/01/06/digital-music-sales-finally-surpassed-physical-sales-in-2011/#ixzz1iiXuHii7 

edit: after posting saw yours and others comments/clarifications re the cnn piece. 

@rkt88

I'd argue that the CNN story is actually the wrong area to focus on, and misleading.  We've been hearing the 'digital trumps physical' story in some form or another for years, because at some point, the tables inevitably tilt towards digital.  With albums, we have something different: a consolidated package with a premium markup that is still dominated by physical (ie, CDs with a revival in LPs).  To me, that speaks far more volumes about this disruption than the digital/physical ratio.

/paul 

ok, but the fact physical still trumps digital in a long playing ( LP/CD ) format is an hourglass quickly running out. that adele did great full length digital numbers, is the exception, not the rule. i suppose a rather weak case could be made that, ( though many have tried ) that if people made "better" LP/CD's that this downward spiral of the LP/CD format might be slowed. but that is specious, given technology and how folks "seem" to want to consume music, which is primarily, a la carte. a good couple of full lengths may sneak through, but thats about "it".

as you say, all sales are inexorably leaning toward digital, but the tipping point has been reached, and this story doesn't change that at all. so for me, a maker/marketer/schlepper of music, in a business that has for decades been built to operate within and around the LP cycle, the news that digital sales in ANY config, has outpaced physical, is indeed, the real "story". given that single "tracks", have been the overwhelming choice of digital sales to date, and continue to be where it's going, really spells the end of the LP/CD format as a whole. to me, the LP/CD as a format ( or any long playing collection of works ) whether physical or digital in the popular realm, other than niche, is dying. clearly. for me, that's the point these stories drive home.

We tried a number of times to point out the incorrect statements in  the CNN article and they censored them.

As we are on the Nielsen Soundscan phone call via NARM.com these numbers are no suprise as they have been changing since fall of 2009. 

If you want a breakdown companies that are part of NARM all have them.  

Off the top of my head.  CD outsold Digital Albums more then 2-1. The Top sellers while big are not as big as before for the total persentage of units sold.  So that means that non-top 10 albums are selling more since we sold more overall music this year then any since 2004. 

The biggest suprise is that Deep catalog was up over 12.5 percent and IMHO it's because the kids hav it digitally now they want it physically.

As for the vinyl that is the least suprising since we said that it would be over 3 percent for the year climbing from only .07 back in 2008.   As for why.  The consumer never said give them basically an analog event only in digital format 

Who would've thought?