More than half of lost music sales can be attributed to file sharing; however, 60% of music consumers with access to the Web have not downloaded any music for free, and sales to those customers are off by as much as 7%.
"Without a doubt, file sharing has had huge negative impact on music industry sales," said Russ Crupnick, VP of The NPD Group. "But our research shows that even if digital file sharing were to disappear tomorrow, the record labels and retailers would still need to overcome important underlying causes of recent market declines."
While there are many root causes for lost sales, one important view is uncovered by looking deeper into the demographic segments of music buyers. NPD research shows steeper sales declines among consumers aged 36 and over, than among younger demographic groups. Nearly half of these adult consumers report they are purchasing less music, because there's less music they're interested in buying. Plus, fewer than 10% of this age group report purchasing less music because of downloading.
"It's important to note that this group of mature consumers represents 45% of all CD sales," Crupnick said, "and near-term population growth trends should stand as a warning to the industry to reach out to older buyers, because the core teen and college market population is not expected to grow over the next five years."
The primary data source for the preceding findings is the NPD MusicWatch panel, and online tracking study that surveys music buyers on an ongoing basis throughout the year. For calendar 2002, the NPD MusicWatch panel contains over 100,000 consumer music transactions.
THE MUSIC OF CLIVE COMES ALIVE AT CARNEGIE HALL
That's what friends are for. (5/1a)
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THE NEW UMG
Gosh, we hope there are more press releases.
TIKTOK BANNED!
Unless the Senate manages to make this whole thing go away, that is.
THE NEW HUGE COUNTRY ACT
No, not that one.
TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN PLAYLIST
Now 100% unlicensed!
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