New that consumer music sales (seen here) is interesting but there is more in the detail.
For example the figures show digital sales as growing to a point of almost compensating for the slower cd sales. What did the cd ever do for us anyway? We paid more for a product that cost less and arguably offered less as a product (see article here)
However looking in more detail figures are misleading. To finally balance the books they have recently started to add sync licensing to the consumer market figures. They show an income for sync licensing which is a business music market earning not a consumer music market income. As we all know, sync licensing is only one of a number of business music market incomes.
Performing and compositional rights royalties are a significant income to societies who don’t really know what music businesses are actually playing so they guess. This means the chart toppers will be getting the majority of the income even if smaller local bands have their music played in local cafes and bars.
Whilst a return to the disaster that CD’s left the music business in there are still some hidden dinosaurs that the digital age is encroaching on providing the risk to the old guard and great new benefits to businesses and real musicians.