At the Warner Music Group, Atlantic’s parent company, digital represented 27 percent of its American recorded-music revenue during the fourth quarter. (Warner does not break out financial data for its labels, but Atlantic said that digital sales accounted for about 51 percent of its revenue.)More info at NY Times.
With the milestone comes a sobering reality already familiar to newspapers and television producers. While digital delivery is becoming a bigger slice of the pie, the overall pie is shrinking fast. Analysts at Forrester Research estimate that music sales in the United States will decline to $9.2 billion in 2013, from $10.1 billion this year. That compares with $14.6 billion in 1999, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
As a result, the hope that digital revenue will eventually compensate for declining sales of CDs — and usher in overall growth — have largely been dashed.
Music downloads getting more popular, music market shrinking
Posted on Thursday, November 27 2008 @ 9:26 CET by Thomas De MaesschalckMusic label Atlantic Records, a unit of Warner Music Group, says half of its music sales in the US are now from digital products. However, the bad news is that the overall music market is shrinking fast and that music labels have dashed hope that digital revenue will compensate declining sales of CDs.
