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January 14, 2010
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2009 U.S. Music Sales Increase 2.1% Vs. 2008
According to Nielsen's SoundScan, BDS, and RingScan data, overall music sales for 2009 were up 2.1% versus 2008, with a total of 1.545 billion units sold overall, compared with 1.513 billion last year. Sales of digital tracks increased 8.3%, from 1.070 billion in 2008 to 1.159 billion in '09, while total album sales (CD, CS, LP, digital albums) decreased 12.7%, from 428.4 million in 2008 to 373.9 million last year. The top 5 artists in terms of "albums sold" in 2009 were Michael Jackson (8.286 million), Taylor Swift (4.643 million), Beatles (3.282 million), Susan Boyle (3.104 million), and Lady Gaga (2.813 million). The top 5 artists based on number of digital tracks sold were Lady Gaga (15.3 million), Black-Eyed Peas (12.99 million), Michael Jackson (12.36 million), Taylor Swift (12.3 million), and Beyonce (9.26 million). [Full story: Nielsen SoundScan]
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 eMarketer: U.S. Digital Music Sales Will Top $4.5 Billion In 2013
Online research firm eMarketer predicts that U.S. consumer spending on digital music will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 11.04% over the next four years, reaching $4.56 billion in 2013, up from $3 billion in 2009. All of this growth is expected to come from the online segment, which comprises track downloads, full album downloads, music videos, digital kiosks, and subscription services. "eMarketer expects the tipping point between physical and digital formats to occur sometime in 2010," said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst. "While the first generation of U.S. digital music services was predominantly download-based, the next iteration is likely to be based around subscription models. U.S. consumers are growing accustomed to accessing digital content on remote servers via web browsers. Extending this paradigm to music files is a logical step, and one that content owners are determined to make work." [Full story: eMarketer]
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Appeals Court Revives Antitrust Suit Against
Record Labels 
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan this week (January 13) revived an antitrust lawsuit Wednesday that accuses major record labels of scheming to charge high prices. The original suit, which alleges that major record labels fixed the prices and terms under which music would be sold over the Internet, was had been dismissed by a lower court judge in October 2008. The lawsuit accuses record companies of conspiring to charge at least 70 cents a song on the Internet, even though their costs were much lower than in record stores. Further, the suit alleges that the labels signed distribution agreements in joint ventures that allowed them to communicate with one another about pricing, terms, and use restrictions. Defendants in the suit include Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group Corp., EMI Music North America, and Sony BMG Music Entertainment. [Full story: Business Week The Canadian Press]
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 Pandora Records Its First Profitable Quarter EverLast year Pandora CEO Tim Westergren predicted that Q4 2009 would be the company's first profitable quarter, and he appears to have kept his promise. The popular music recommendation and online radio service this week announced it has recorded its first quarterly profit, and now is striving to be profitable for a full year. "We became profitable for the fourth quarter of 2009, and now we're shooting for profits for the entire 2010 [period]," Pandora's Chief Technology Officer Tom Conrad commented. Breaking that profitability barrier - even for a quarter - is an accomplishment for the ravaged digital music sector. [Full story: CNET]
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NCR, MOD Launch MP3 Retail Music Kiosks NCR Corp. and MOD Systems, two "pioneers" behind digital movie kiosks, this week launched a new kiosk format that offers 5 million DRM-free MP3 downloads to SD cards, USB drives, and even directly to portable music players. "We're going to roll this out very widely in 2010," MOD Systems Chairman/CEO Anthony Bay announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "We'll be putting these out faster than we did the movie kiosks." The kiosk incorporates a touch screen that allows users to browse, search, and select music, which then - after a credit card swipe - is downloaded onto the user's device. "The rate of decline in CD sales is consistent with diminishing retail shelf space for music, which drives consumers to look online for music purchases and takes retailers out of the digital music growth opportunity," Bay observed. [Full story: Home Media Magazine]
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 eMusic Signs Licensing Deal With
Warner Music Group Despite the rumor that eMusic is up for sale, the digital music company continues to sign licensing deals with major record labels. The latest was this week's pact with Warner Music Group that allows the company to begin selling tracks from WMG's catalog to its U.S. users. The agreement includes titles from WMG's Atlantic Records, Rhino Records, and Warner Bros. Records, as well as from independent labels distributed through WMG's Alternative Distribution Alliance. The deal will make 10,000 catalog albums from artists like REM, Depeche Mode and Aretha Franklin available for downloading, but does not include newer hit records. eMusic says it currently offers more than 7.5 million tracks, and that it has sold more than 350 million music downloads under its current ownership. [Full story: Washington Post]
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UMG Sues Grooveshark Over Copyright Infringement
Grooveshark is a free online music site that relies on users to post their own recordings, then makes them available to anybody else who visits the site - a business model that puts the company in a "legal gray area." Last October the company discovered just how gray that area is when it settled a copyright infringement suit filed by EMI. Now Grooveshark is facing another suit, this one filed by Universal Music Group, which alleges that the firm maintains on its servers illegal copies of Universal's pre-1972 catalog. In the filing, Universal claims that Grooveshark "paid nothing" to use these songs without permission, and claims that Grooveshark refuses to provide copyright filtering software because its "business plan is based on copyright infringement." [Full story: CNET]
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 Crowd-Sourced Online Programmer Jelli
Raises $2 Million Despite the scarcity of funding for new business ventures, Jelli has raised $2 million to develop its "crowd-source" programming and to make its sales process more efficient. Last October Triton Media signed a deal that gave it exclusive U.S. rights to syndicate two of Jelli's daily programs, "Top 40 Jelli" and "Rock Jelli" through its Dial-Global division. Triton also is using the basic Jelli online infrastructure to create customized audience-controlled programming features for its various affiliates. Jelli entered into its first partnership with a traditional radio broadcaster last year with San Francisco's KITS Live 105, which offers a "crowd-sourced" show on Sunday evenings. [Full story: MediaPost]
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Al Bell Presents American Soul Music
If you're into classic and contemporary Soul, R&B, Blues, Gospel, Jazz, Hip-Hop Soul, Rap Soul, and Neo-Soul, we invite you to listen to Al Bell Presents American Soul Music. Former Stax Records owner and Motown President Al Bell personally has programmed this awesome radio station online, presenting your favorites from the 1960s and '70s, some of the best new music that's being released today, and some real gems you haven't heard in a long, long time. Come to www.AlBellPresents.Com and hear it for yourself!
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Al Bell Presents:
Chairman/Chief Executive Officer: Al Bell
President: Jonathan Bell
COO (and Digital Music Digest Editor): Reed Bunzel
Director/Special Projects: Emmanuel Sheafe |
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