The tiny e-book industry keeps growing—Simon & Schuster reported a quadrupling of its small e-sales in ’08, as Random House did.
And a survey from the Consumer Electronics Association, mentioned earlier, might also underline the potential for digital books. While e-books are catching on, the consumption of audio just might be declining. The news release for the survey says:
Overall audio consumption—whether music (73 percent), television shows, news or information sources (68 percent)—is a large part of consumers’ day-to-day lifestyle. But, the study found that consumers appear to be listening less than they were three years ago. The percentage of consumers reporting daily consumption of music has fallen to 73 percent from 91 percent while TV show audio listening has dropped to 68 percent from 81 percent since 2005. Only audio from playing games has remained stable at 34 percent.
So is this just because of the multimedia approach that many consumers are turning to? The next paragraph of the release in fact mentions the move away from single types of content on a single device.
Whatever the case, is there an actual falloff in sales, too, not just use? Seemingly. As reported by Bloomberg earlier in the year, CD sales are falling so quickly that even an increase in digital music revenue can’t make up for this. Could piracy be the main factor? Or are we really talking mainly about a decline in sheer consumption?
Related: RIAA graduated response plan: Q&A with Cary Sherman, in Ars Technica.
Image credit: CC-licensed photo from Terren.
I must say, this is a weird sort of statistic to keep track of. I wonder how many people in theaters, for example, are now sticking their fingers in their ears in order to ‘consume’ less ‘audio’ while they watch the pretty pictures flash by? (Actually, some movies are better with the sound off: the silly ‘The Avengers’ movie with the sound off reveals better the full glories of its fx and production design, which the dialogue and stupid story mar.)
I’m also a bit surprised to see no prominent mention of podcasts in this.
As for music, one of the big problems is the demise of radio here in the USA. The stations are all syndicates, chain-programmed from a single HQ, with none of the local flavor and idiosyncratic tastes of the dj’s. Nobody will buy the music they don’t know they like, especially if they don’t even know it exists.
Comparing the CD sales is also tricky: what we need are metrics on total number of songs sold, or even minutes of songs sold, to get that right. Actually sales revenue is another orange to the Apple (so to speak).
How many of us watch YouTube videos that have sound, or stream internet radio while we surf?
> I must say, this is a weird sort of statistic to keep track of. I wonder how many people in theaters, for example, are now sticking their fingers in their ears in order to ‘consume’ less ‘audio’ while they watch the pretty pictures flash by?
Exactly, Pond! The mysteries go on. Perhaps the survey and/or summary should have been focused more on buying habits. Audio CDs and movie DVDs are indisputably different creatures. Ideally we could have read language like, “Consumers spend X minutes listening to audio-only purchases.”
Thanks,
David