February 25, 201114 yr Author From what I understand, album download sales are still very low, though I don't have figures. That's how the Hurts album can be top 10 all week on iTunes and not top 30 in the midweeks. Not *that* low - AIUI they are now about 1/6th of albums sold. I can't see them ever dominating the album market as they do the singles, though.
February 27, 201114 yr But where does the download element of album sales come into this - it's not like *they* need shipping... :P Well it doesn't come into it, certifications are just based on the shipments of physicals to the stores - which aren't sales, which is all download albums are, sales based.
February 27, 201114 yr Just one question: maybe I'm really stupid, but how do you 'ship' a download????
February 27, 201114 yr In addition to my last reply just now, I mean for singles - if downloads account for about 98 per cent of sales, how can the likes of Rihanna's singles be 'shipping' enough copies for her to grab silver, gold and platinum awards for recent singles (forwhich she has done)?
February 27, 201114 yr Not *that* low - AIUI they are now about 1/6th of albums sold. I can't see them ever dominating the album market as they do the singles, though. Forever is a long time... I think it will take several years, but it WILL happen.
February 27, 201114 yr I posted this earlier in the year, but no-one seemed to know anything about it. In the first week of this year (I think, or maybe second) all singles in the top 75 were shown with their correct sales awards in that particular issue of Music Week, but the following week they were all stripped off again (except the titles which already had awards prior to this). I take it no-one knows what was going on there? It was kinda nice to see the chart littered with silver, gold and platinum award symbols - just like them old days...
February 27, 201114 yr Author Forever is a long time... I think it will take several years, but it WILL happen. I cannot agree there - in the run up to Xmas especially, the market for physical albums is far too big to disappear - and you can't put a download in an Xmas stocking... :P
February 27, 201114 yr I posted this earlier in the year, but no-one seemed to know anything about it. In the first week of this year (I think, or maybe second) all singles in the top 75 were shown with their correct sales awards in that particular issue of Music Week, but the following week they were all stripped off again (except the titles which already had awards prior to this). I take it no-one knows what was going on there? It was kinda nice to see the chart littered with silver, gold and platinum award symbols - just like them old days... I saw the same thing, it did look good. Shame it was a mistake. MW should really put that info out anyway for the magazine (paid for or not by the record labels)
February 27, 201114 yr I cannot agree there - in the run up to Xmas especially, the market for physical albums is far too big to disappear - and you can't put a download in an Xmas stocking... :P iTunes vouchers ;)
February 27, 201114 yr Author iTunes vouchers ;) How many Michael-Buble-loving grannies do you know who have an iPod? ;)
February 27, 201114 yr This topic is currently raising a number of interesting points about BPI awards. BPI certifications for singles are available to all BPI-member companies on the basis of total physically-shipped copies, plus downloaded copies. Prior to about March 2005 only copies actually shipped to the retailers (trade deliveries) were eligible. There is no charge levied by the BPI for certifications. The right to apply for official certifiations to the BPI is part of the membership subscription package. Actual presentation discs do cost, of course. It's not clear why many record companies rarely, if ever, certify singles these days. Maybe someone on here can say how easy or difficult it is for a record company to know how many copies of each of their tracks has been downloaded at any moment. Obviously this information comes through eventually as they need to know what royalties are due as they do for physical copies, but royalties are paid quarterly in arrears so the information from the various sites need not be instant, and perhaps it isn't. Certainly the implication in 2005 was that OCC data would be used when adding downloads to physical sales when calculating whether a single was eligible for certification, and OCC would be likely to charge for that information. Maybe that's not applicable now. Beyond that, there may be a feeling at some record companies that singles are not worth bothering with for certifications. Many albums thse days have a different producer or production team for every track. All the producers are eligible to receive presentation discs for certified albums. Maybe record companies don't want to present a separate disc to the one producer for a single when the album is seen as a project to which everyone has contributed, so everyone gets the same prize in the form of the album certifications. Yes it's a shame that what Music Week printed wasn't reality and was presumably based on translating the known defined-universe sales into the awards that the singles were qualified for. But they can't do that for real because it would make it hard to distinguish the actual certifications with the 'imagined' ones, and would probably kill off the real ones as well if it was a regular feature. Maybe, that's the real problem. It's easy to find out how many copies a single has sold these days. So many companies maybe don't feel the need to spend the money on the discs to tell us what we can already work out if we want to.
February 27, 201114 yr Ta for the info there MFR - I actually didn't realise downloads counted towards BPI certifications!
February 27, 201114 yr I sometimes thought the record companies didn't realise, but I think all the majors have applied for singles awards using downloads at some point since 2005, just not very often in some cases.
February 28, 201114 yr I posted this earlier in the year, but no-one seemed to know anything about it. In the first week of this year (I think, or maybe second) all singles in the top 75 were shown with their correct sales awards in that particular issue of Music Week, but the following week they were all stripped off again (except the titles which already had awards prior to this). I take it no-one knows what was going on there? It was kinda nice to see the chart littered with silver, gold and platinum award symbols - just like them old days... I guess I received a revised issue... neither my first or second week issues have this error. :(
February 28, 201114 yr Aww, poor you - you don't know what you missed! Hey, maybe my issue will become a collector's item and in 20 years I'll be able to sell it and make millions! :-)
Create an account or sign in to comment