Record Store Day - It's a Niche

In January BBC News added to the hours spent predicting the death of physical sales and bemoaning the rise of streaming. We have also had the collapse and revival of HMV, and seen that also blamed on streaming. As it's Record Store Day again, and once again it's all vinyl, vinyl, vinyl. Time to look at some stats showing the current state of music sales and see how they measure up to the hype.

The headlines always focus on the decline in physical numbers of CD sales and the percentage growth of vinyl sales. In 2018 there were 4.2 million vinyl records sold new, about £60 million worth ^. CD sales were 32 million, while this was a decline in quantity, value held fairly steady at £450 million*.  Downloading took the biggest hit declining to £35 million worth, bearing mind that a lot of these"unit sales" are single songs rather than albums. Streaming music sales pulled in £829 million '. So overall music sales are worth around £1.5 billion. This is a decline of about 41% by value since the peak in 2000.

Some facts:

• The overall music business is worth about 4.5 billion, with live music, merchandising, exports, and publishing included. Allowing for inflation this is about the same as in 2000. So live music and the rest has grown significantly since then
• The death of HMV blamed on streaming was in fact about DVD sales collapse, which fell by 45% in 2018~. 
• The real vinyl revival is in second hand discs, which don't show up in sales figures. Talking to several record shop owners recently suggests that their sales are booming. But then so are their cd sales.
• Ebay, Discogs & Amazon Marketplace UK used cd sales amounted to nearly £500 million in 2018 ".

The biggest selling albums in the UK in 2018 accordnig to the Official Charts Company by physical & digital sales were:

What does all this tell us?

• Old folks buy cds, (vinyl in this context is next to non existent), young people buy digital, and Christmas (Now 101) makes a big difference. 
• Physical sales are more healthy than it seems on first inspection
• Physical media of all sorts are becoming a niche or hobbyist market. Knitting is worth about £400 million interestingly...
• HMV with £250 million of sales is critical to the survival of the market, Independent shops prop up the hobby end of the market but don't compete on volume sales
• The supermarkets (particularly Tesco & Sainsburys) largely exiting the cheap cd market has hit sales but not damaged value much. 
• The markets for streaming and physical media are almost totally mutually exclusive.
• Those in their 20s or younger consume music as they do video or games, it isn't "special" to them in the way it is to older demographics

So don't believe the vinyl hype CDs, downloads, and streaming all have their place. The big problem comes in a decade or so when us old people have all stopped buying physical media and the age of music as a mass market medium ends. 

^ Source  - The Vinyl Factory 4.1.19
* Source  - UK Investor magazine 3.1.19
' Source  - Music Business worldwide 3.1.19
~ Source - Variety 9.2.19
" Source - Den Of Geek 12.3.19