MW article today regarding radio -

 

https://www.musicweek.com/opinion/read/unit...s-crisis/079321

 

Excellent article this!

I was thinking about this earlier and Coronavirus will be the death of physical media for the most part. I was talking to an older lady and her son had set her up a PayPal and Spotify account during the lockdown. People like that were holding up the physical market and I'd assume would have happily carried on buying a cd from Asda or dvd from Sainsburys.

 

Now they have almost been forced to access music and tv through streaming will they go back? I'd guess after coronavirus is over CD, download and DVD sales will be down massively on before the virus.

Will be interesting to see what happens with the physical market now.

 

Amazon are back to delivering entertainment items within a few days now and HMV are delivering as normal - I really hope after this that people that have rediscovered HMV stick by them.

I've purchased my first four physical purchases (not linked to a gig of some form) in years as I've started a vinyl collection, buying some records I've streamed a lot recently by smaller acts who need the support.

I was asking about stores in Ireland!

 

No, HMV closed in Ireland a few years ago. Golden Discs is our equivalent and have 14 stores here.

Music Week still publishing club charts. Given nobody is going to clubs it kinda shows that these charts aren't what people are enjoying in clubs, it underlines they are what DJ's like, or think people will like. Granted you can't actually ask people to put their hand up if they love a track, you can only judge by crowd reaction, but it's a bit weird having charts for something that doesn't exist currently.....

I finally started the vinyl collection I've been intending to start for ages yesterday evening and ordered:

 

Robyn - Honey

The xx - I See You

Sam Fender - Hypersonic Missiles

Damien Rice - My Favourite Faded Fantasy

The Lumineers - Cleopatra

Jamie xx - In Colour

 

Amazon have some well priced vinyl right now, so thought it was a great time to start! They'll feel like a present each time they arrive.

^^ Amazing choices, artists like Sam Fender, The XX/Jamie XX etc., sound so much better on vinyl.

 

I’ve bought more vinyl in the last 2 weeks that I have in the last 2 years! I’ve taken the downtime to order ones I’ve been meaning too for ages plus the HMV and Amazon deals have been amazing, I picked up some vinyl for £6!

I was thinking about this earlier and Coronavirus will be the death of physical media for the most part. I was talking to an older lady and her son had set her up a PayPal and Spotify account during the lockdown. People like that were holding up the physical market and I'd assume would have happily carried on buying a cd from Asda or dvd from Sainsburys.

 

Now they have almost been forced to access music and tv through streaming will they go back? I'd guess after coronavirus is over CD, download and DVD sales will be down massively on before the virus.

Interesting that paid for singles download sales are the highest they've been for a while though. Never thought I'd see the day I'd be impressed that two songs sold over 10,000 in the same week :lol: Granted there are a few charity songs but the Tik Tok hits seem to be doing well on downloads.

 

I've been streaming more myself but I've still been ordering CDs and vinyl and will continue to do so.

Interesting that paid for singles download sales are the highest they've been for a while though. Never thought I'd see the day I'd be impressed that two songs sold over 10,000 in the same week :lol: Granted there are a few charity songs but the Tik Tok hits seem to be doing well on downloads.

 

I've been streaming more myself but I've still been ordering CDs and vinyl and will continue to do so.

 

Charity songs are proping up the download chart right now though, half the itunes top 10 seems to be a charity song.

 

 

Excellent article this!

There's some concern that some radio stations are close to going to the wall.

 

https://radiotoday.co.uk/2020/04/government...ns-could-close/

 

At the moment it's the smaller, local stations who are in danger of collapsing but soon it will be the larger stations too. Advertising revenue has plummetted and this is having a knock on effect on radio. Some stations have laid off staff. Give it a couple of months and we could see even larger stations either going fully automated or even going under.

 

Even Radios 1 and 2 are feeling the pinch. There are fewer presenters and there may come a time where there isn't enough presenters to do individual programmes. Scott Mills seems to be keeping Radios 1, 2 and 5 Live going so I hope he's looking after himself.

 

From Music Week -

 

UK streaming consumption has returned to growth, according to Official Charts Company data.

 

It follows a dip in audio streams after a fortnight of Covid-19 lockdown. For the chart week ending April 3, Music Week revealed a 1.2% week-on-week decline.

 

But in the third week of the UK lockdown, ending April 10, audio streaming figures rebounded with a 7.1% increase on the prior week. According to the latest data, the total number of weekly streams was 2,245,383,032. That’s roughly similar to the 2,249,927,519 total for the week ending March 20, ahead of the March 23 lockdown.

 

The figures will be a welcome boost to the market, at a time when DSPs have urged labels to keep releasing new music. The UK government has indicated that the lifting of lockdown measures is not imminent.

 

The increase actually came during a quiet chart week in terms of new releases. A Bill Withers collection was the only new entry in the Top 10.

 

With physical distribution challenged by the lockdown, DSPs are driving consumption, albeit at lower volumes. Dua Lipa made No.1 with total sales of 16,080.

 

The mini download boom of recent weeks has stalled, while physical sales continue to slide. Physical artist album sales were down 7.4% week-on-week to 144,523.

 

Physical sales now risk heading into a single digit proportion of the album market. CD, cassette and vinyl accounted for just 10.7% of album sales last week, compared to 11.5% in the prior week and 12.4% a fortnight ago.

 

For all albums, sales (physical and digital) were down 4.3% week-on-week, while SEA-2 was up 6.2% week-on-week. Overall, all albums increased their weekly total by 4.3%.

Edited April 15, 20205 yr by ___∆___

There's some concern that some radio stations are close to going to the wall.

 

https://radiotoday.co.uk/2020/04/government...ns-could-close/

 

At the moment it's the smaller, local stations who are in danger of collapsing but soon it will be the larger stations too. Advertising revenue has plummetted and this is having a knock on effect on radio. Some stations have laid off staff. Give it a couple of months and we could see even larger stations either going fully automated or even going under.

 

Even Radios 1 and 2 are feeling the pinch. There are fewer presenters and there may come a time where there isn't enough presenters to do individual programmes. Scott Mills seems to be keeping Radios 1, 2 and 5 Live going so I hope he's looking after himself.

 

There are local radio stations??!! This is a revelation to those of us on the South Coast who can count popular music stations on one hand. And that's a hand that has had a nasty industrial accident and lost a finger :P :D

 

Honestly, to struggling radio stations, I'll present a show for free as long as I have control over the playlist :lol:

 

Soon as businesses have things to advertise it will pick up again, hopefully not too long to go and with limited damage.

 

Amazon are going so hard after the streaming market - I use Apple Music so wanted to try Amazon, I had a 3 months for 99p trail which I ended and now they have just emailed me with 3 months for £3, they are obviously taking full advantage of record shops being closed and converting people to streaming which is going to speed up the physical decline.

I think it'll be interesting to see how many releases will be inevitably pushed back due to them not being able to promote or produce videos for the tracks. Right now it feels like there's still some acts that have already recorded videos pre-lockdown but I wonder if we'll hit some sort of low of new releases once we hit late May/June/July.

Record Store Day has been postponed again and will now be later in the year split across 3 dates :drama:

 

https://www.musicweek.com/brands/read/recor...ge-again/079638