Posted January 2, 200817 yr Last Updated: Wednesday, 2 January 2008, 15:19 GMT BBC Entertainment News Music downloads double in a year The number of music downloads sold in the UK in the final week of 2007 was double the total of 12 months earlier. The popularity of MP3 players as Christmas gifts was partly responsible for driving demand, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said. In total there were 2.95 million downloads in seven days, the highest ever recorded for any weekly period. And when the whole of the year was taken into account, 77.5 million downloads were sold in the UK in 2007. 'Larger than expected' This compares to the 5.8 million download purchases recorded in 2004, the year in which the practice of legally downloading music took off. However, while more than 90% of the UK's singles sales are now downloads, CDs remain the overwhelming leader in terms of album purchases. About 95% of albums are still sold as discs rather than digital files. "Recent years have seen a boost in download sales in the week after Christmas but this was a larger increase than expected," said BPI spokesman Matt Phillips. Among the factors for this rise were the wider variety of tracks now available and the "ease and convenience" of legal digital music services, he added. Are you surprised by the success of legal downloads in the UK or not?
January 2, 200817 yr What I don't understand is that singles always seem to rise a lot on Single Release week... For example; Ida Corr - "Let Me Think About It" was something like 67 on downloads alone, yet on physical release week it managed to reach No 2... Surley the Physical Single can't of helped it that well. :unsure:
January 2, 200817 yr ^^^ The downloads only took off the week it got to #2. Oer they might have been released late the week before. Although dance songs are stronger on physicals than most other genres compared to their downloads.
January 2, 200817 yr Yeah, i still think the physical cd single still contributes to the chart and can really influence chart placings. I'm just glad cd singles are still here in 2008 when i remember a documentry that said they'd be surprised if physical cd singles would still be around in late 2007
January 2, 200817 yr Yeah, i still think the physical cd single still contributes to the chart and can really influence chart placings. I'm just glad cd singles are still here in 2008 when i remember a documentry that said they'd be surprised if physical cd singles would still be around in late 2007 IMO, as long as record companies insist on using DRM, the market for CD singles will remain significant.
January 2, 200817 yr Digital Rights Management. Something about limiting what you can do with a digital single
January 2, 200817 yr What I don't understand is that singles always seem to rise a lot on Single Release week... For example; Ida Corr - "Let Me Think About It" was something like 67 on downloads alone, yet on physical release week it managed to reach No 2... Surley the Physical Single can't of helped it that well. :unsure: Yeah its chart run was funny, it went from 64-5 on physical release i think but then it rose to 2 after a physical release. Popularity obviously grew a lot
January 2, 200817 yr Yeah its chart run was funny, it went from 64-5 on physical release i think but then it rose to 2 after a physical release. Popularity obviously grew a lot I think it was added to the download sites pretty late. That's why it was so low on downloads alone.
January 3, 200817 yr Well I'm hardly surprised. We have HMV and Zavvi left here in Leicester. Zavvi the last time I was in still had Timbaland 'The Way I Are' at #1 on their singles chart and HMV have about 5 copies of the week's new releases out stuffed away in a corner and that's it. I think the physicals do still influence the charts quite a bit but only with certain artists IE McFly/Westlife/Leona/Shayne amongst others.
January 3, 200817 yr Although dance songs are stronger on physicals than most other genres compared to their downloads. Probably why they aren't doing very well anymore
January 3, 200817 yr Well I'm hardly surprised. We have HMV and Zavvi left here in Leicester. More than we've got - in Preston, there's only HMV and a couple of independents left. (That's excludes the supermarkets - but I don't think they stock singles either - and Woolies. And they've got the Top 20 in a cardboard stand somewhere in the music section.)
January 4, 200817 yr What I don't understand is that singles always seem to rise a lot on Single Release week... For example; Ida Corr - "Let Me Think About It" was something like 67 on downloads alone, yet on physical release week it managed to reach No 2... Surley the Physical Single can't of helped it that well. :unsure: We mustn't forget that the 90% figure is based on every track sold individually - there'll have been a huge increase in the amount of old tracks/singles which are sold today - singles that you would never be able to buy in the shops. It would be interesting to know the percentage breakdown just for sales in the Top 75 which I'm sure wouldn't be as high as 90% downloads.
January 4, 200817 yr We mustn't forget that the 90% figure is based on every track sold individually - there'll have been a huge increase in the amount of old tracks/singles which are sold today - singles that you would never be able to buy in the shops. It would be interesting to know the percentage breakdown just for sales in the Top 75 which I'm sure wouldn't be as high as 90% downloads. Yeah I agree. Obviously the 90% figure relates to the market as a whole which means that there are a lot of singles at the bottom end that are entirely download with 0% physical. Therefore conversely there must be singles (at the top end of the market i.e. top 10/20/40/75 etc) where the download % is (significantly?) less than 90% with the physical % (significantly?) higher than 10%, with a sliding scale in-between. Anyone have any info?
January 4, 200817 yr In 2005 physical sales in the top 20 were quite level with downloads, with physical sales only just edging out in the top 10. Will be interesting to see what the stats are for 2007 :). It's not right seeing physical singles fade away tho :(, will be really missing the days I used to rush out into town buying the latest Feeder single at the time :(. Won't be the same sitting at a computer clicking on the "Download" button on iTunes.
January 4, 200817 yr Probably why they aren't doing very well anymore I remember Infernal's "From Paris to Berlin" doing really well on downloads cos of all those mixes, these days that sort of novelty will not be so popular.
January 5, 200817 yr Are you surprised by the success of legal downloads in the UK or not? Sort of BUT...... a conversation over the Christmas period where someone who had bought me the Katie Melua/Eva Cassidy CD said she had bought the same "as a little extra present" for all her other friends too, confirming that if it's easily available as a physical, it will picked up by the public. I noticed too when popping into Sainsburys that Leon's single is being sold with the albums. His physical sales must surely reflect this availability too(and that is no slight on Leon, I would have commented whoever 's single it was). Edited January 5, 200817 yr by dindy
January 5, 200817 yr Well I'm hardly surprised. We have HMV and Zavvi left here in Leicester. Zavvi the last time I was in still had Timbaland 'The Way I Are' at #1 on their singles chart and HMV have about 5 copies of the week's new releases out stuffed away in a corner and that's it. I think the physicals do still influence the charts quite a bit but only with certain artists IE McFly/Westlife/Leona/Shayne amongst others. At my Zavvi :wub: we have a CD singles stand at the end of the tills against the wall, with roughly 20 releases on (and hundreds of Spice Girls :()
January 6, 200817 yr In 2005 physical sales in the top 20 were quite level with downloads, with physical sales only just edging out in the top 10. Will be interesting to see what the stats are for 2007 :). It's not right seeing physical singles fade away tho :(, will be really missing the days I used to rush out into town buying the latest Feeder single at the time :(. Won't be the same sitting at a computer clicking on the "Download" button on iTunes. Yeh I agree with this. :( Though tbh the number of physicals I buy per year has dropped HUGELY since about 2004 when I was buying at least 1 maybe more on a weekly basis to about 13/14 the whole of last year and they're only for exceptionally good songs or artists I'm a huge fan of. I still like to feel I own a CD be it album or single of a favourite act of mine but I find download much easier. It's right there in front of you whatever you want and there's no queues or any of the other hassle associated with shopping.
January 6, 200817 yr I don't care about physically buying singles. I don't have enough room for them and let's face it, how many times do you actually listen to a single? Not many! Most of the time it's just ripped to your pc/mp3!
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