GLOBAL RELEASE DAY:
THE STATE OF THE ARGUMENT

As the dust starts to settle on the IFPI’s announcement of Friday as a global release day, the state of the conversation can more or less be summarized thusly:

• Virtually nobody argued that there shouldn’t be a global release day.

• The choice of Friday as that day has raised several objections. Among these:

1. Switching the U.S. to Monday or the U.K. to Tuesday would’ve accommodated a majority of the world market and been minimally disruptive, and that choosing Friday to align the world with Germany and Australia makes little sense.

2. Re-stocking becomes much trickier. If demand outstrips supply, there's no time for stock correction during the weekend. This could have substantially negative implications for physical retail, as stock outages drive consumers online for music.

3. Analysts and other industry folk will have to sacrifice much of their weekends.

• Chart reporting weeks would have to be adjusted to allow more than two or three days for new releases to accumulate sales for a #1 record. Meanwhile, how might this affect radio and video add dates?

• The independent sector largely feels this choice was dictated to them without consultation, despite the IFPI’s claims to the contrary. Some have even described the organization’s tone as imperial. The statement below from CIMS echoes many of the complaints voiced by Beggars Group ruler/indie music crusader Martin Mills and other indie players:

Greetings,

So apparently the official announcement has been made by the IFPI that the new global street date is Friday worldwide. I think it's hilarious that the group states that after consulting with retailers worldwide they saw support for this move. Well as Martin Mills states in the attached story, the independent sector was not consulted with, we were simply told how it was going to be. Does that seem responsible to you, to ignore what your customers are telling you and proceed on a policy against their wishes? Let me tell you that if we retailers acted against our customers wishes out here in the real world, we would soon be out of business. Below I have listed the groups who spoke out against the release date being Friday, does this seem like we were consulted in this policy change to you? As the people most invested in the selling of music in the world’s two largest music markets, our voice is apparently not valued—very sad.

Alliance Entertainment Corporation (AEC)
Alliance of Independent Media Store (AIMS)
American Association of Independent Music (A2IM)
Amoeba MusicAssociation of Independent Music (AIM)
Coalition of Independent Music Stores (CIMS)
Department of Record Stores (DORS)
Entertainment Merchants Association(EMA)
Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA)
Hastings Entertainment Inc
National Association of Video Distributors (NAVD)
Newbury ComicsRedeyeRough Trade NYC
Rough Trade UKSC Distribution

Michael Bunnell
Executive Director
Coalition of Independent Music Stores
ThinkIndie Distribution
The Record Exchange