[MEDIA] VARIETY HEADLINE NEWS

Album sales continue to slide in '08

Music industry down 14% from last year

By PHIL GALLO

A depressed holiday season pushed the recorded music industry deeper into its continued slump as sales of albums -- CDs and downloads combined -- hit only 428.4 million, a 14% drop from 2007.

It’s even more staggering when compared with 2005 numbers, when 618.9 million units were sold.

The music business did find consumers were interested in three things during 2008:

• digital downloads,
  
• concert tickets and
  
• vinyl LPs.

The holiday season -- Nov. 17 through Dec. 28 -- is counted upon to deliver nearly a quarter of the year’s business and it was down 19% from 2007 (80.1 million album sales vs. 98.7 million a year ago).

Data released Wednesday by Nielsen Soundscan further drove home the notion that the marketplace has shifted to digital tracks, sales of which were up 27%, hitting 1.07 billion. Downloads now account for 32% of all music purchases.

The concert industry, meanwhile, saw a 7.8% bump from 2007 to $4.2 billion in box office revenue, according to Pollstar, the trade publication that tracks live entertainment data.

Source:Variety