Try it with a horizontal line rather than a circle.

People can't easily grasp the change in area of a circle..they tend to just look at the diameter.

The area difference from the first circle to the 2011 circle is very dramatic, but we don't really see it.

In a horizontal line, we would see it and be much more astounded.

Actually, now I see you DID just change the diameter. But that has math issues as well.

Area = pi * radius * radius

Anyway...you made your point. :)

In these figures I would like to see where vinyl steps in. It might be small market, but it surely takes its own spot in the industry. Figures show it's growing, it will never become the standard, but it will not leave the scene. It would be good to see that here as well.

You don't see it?

It's that little pixel on the left!

Vinyl although interesting is less than 2% and is unlikely to grow because there simply are not enough manufacturing plants and insufficient growth to merit building new machines...

The latest stats indicate that vinyl is starting to taper off.  Let's see how it goes.

Uh-Oh: The Vinyl Train is Starting to Slow...

/paul

It's all good for music listeners. With multiple ways to record and distribute music, that were not possible in years past, artists of all kind can make and distribute their music, and that huge bureaucracy of music executives and middlemen are no longer needed for people to be able to listen to music. It's now possible to have a more direct link between artists and their fans. Of course, with the abundant supply of music, prices, and thus "recording industry" profits, should naturally decline - that's just economics 101. But how can anybody complain. There's a cornucopia of music available to listen to, whenever you want to listen to it, and on much smaller device than were available years ago because of the advancement in technology. Don't let these complaints about the Recording Industry decline fool you. The "music industry" is as good as it's ever been, with a lot more music available than what I was able to listen to when I was younger, and in much easier ways to listen to it. The only thing that's in decline, and should be on the decline, are all those no talent record executives who've spent years ripping off their recording artists. Bye bye moochers, you're no longer needed, and it's about time!

argued like it's 1999, from a grateful dead fan

So we got rid of a handful of executive moochers, for 2 billion illegal-downloader moochers. Happy times.

redistributing the wealth...

Id like to see a similar chart but of Manufacturing and Distribution costs. Surley those have been shrinking as well. We can then put the two together and find the operating income % which perhaps will give us the good news of industry moving toward a leaner and more efficient model. 

It's true that a picture says a thousand words.

Ouch. Powerful to see this depicted visually.

I'm afraid this is an infographic fail. Your circle goes down to around a quarter of its original size to represent half of the value of the industry. It's clearly not right.

If you're representing the physical/digital split as a pie chart then it only makes sense to scale the total area of the circle. As the first commenter said above, you appear to be scaling the diameter of the circle. While that might give more dramatic results, it's quite misleading.

I agree. It's clearly diameter that is being flexed rather than area, yet we visualise the 'size' of the pie as its area. Would be interesting to see it reframed. 

Right.  It is the diameter being adjusted, I can resize based on pie x r-squared for a more accurate adjustment.

/paul

I'd suggest visualization of the shrinking total annual revenue could be better demonstrated if an outline of all previous years' circle graphs was included as the years advance. One could then see and compare the original size versus the shrinking subsequent years. It's unfortunate that the actual financial losses to piracy are an unknown. It becomes more of a struggle for artists to survive every year.

And with population increase, plus increase in listening outlets/devices per capita, the circle should probably be getting bigger, not smaller.

Do you know if the majors were hit disproportianately hard or is this taken from stats across the board?

Ok, we can pick at the pie... however, it is disturbing just to see how the overall income generated by the music industry has declined. The number of artists has exploded, along with the digital sales of music. So, that being said ... musicians, don't quit your day job!

..eekkk!

cry me a river, you guys don't have jobs now off other people's talent and the music people are now like the rest of the art world: painters, sculptors, etc. back to a fresh slate. how does it feel to be an artist? pretty good, to me, since none of you are in the picture any more.

It doesn't come as a surprise when looking closely at all the benefits to consumers the digital market offered.

And does somebody know the progression of live music revenues (concerts, ...)? My impression is that there was never so many (expensive) sold out music tours or festivals these days.