Capn Design Archives: Shape up, Music

Shape up, Music

January 29, 2003

In 2002, there was interesting numbers.

According to Box Office Mojo, film ticket sales were up 5% and the total gross was up 8.6% from 2001. The ticket sales have increased in the last two years and the gross has increased every year since 1991. Things look pretty good.

According to NPD Group and via Gamespot, video game sales are up over 10%. Sales of games (not hardware) are up 15%. The industry grossed $10.3 billion, compared to the $9.1 billion grossed by the movie industry. Very impressive.

According to MSNBC and Soundscan, album sales are down 10.7%. They were down 5% last year. I couldn't even find the total gross, but I guess you could just multiply the albums sold, 681 million, by $15. Oh, country sales were up 12%.

So does this mean the music industry is right? Is our cd-burning sending the industry down in flames? I'm not sure, but you can't ignore the fact that their sales are down while the other two industries are clearly up.

Comments (2 comments so far)

Comment #1:

Quality of movies? Up! (Yes, there was crap, like any year, but many well-promotoed movies were excellent in 2002).

Video Games? Not bad either?

Promoted music? Ah...now we hit the wall. Music on the radio, the primary advertising medium for the industry, simply blew last year. With a few exceptions (liek the White Stripes finally getting airplay), it's trealcy crap coldly calculated for radio demographics. That doesn't result in srong album sales, especially when 99% of radio-played albums these days are 1 good song with maybe 3 decent and 12 mediocre. Who wants to pay twice the price of a movie ticket for that?

That said, I'd be curious to see the numbers on singles sales as opposed to album sales.

By the way, I didn't know you were a Chicagoan! Come back - it's nice and snowy here.

Posted by Joseph J. Finn on January 29, 2003 at 9:31AM

Comment #2:

maybe if the music biz made a good cd more than once a year that is massively marketed, people would buy it.

Posted by the sheriff on January 30, 2003 at 1:40PM

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