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November 11, 2009

A Long Look at the Long Tail of Digital Sales...

Billboard | Read Full Story >

Billboard:

Overall, album sales don’t look that different from five years ago, at least in terms of the demand curve. The most significant change has been the overall decline in album sales: 32% from 2004 to 2008. As everyone in the industry knows, it’s tough all over.

As “The Long Tail” predicts, the most popular albums fared the worst, losing market share to less popular titles. From 2004 to 2008, sales of the 5,000 albums that make up the head of the demand curve dropped 40.5% while sales of the million-plus albums that make up the tail declined 27.4% And not only did sales of popular albums decline more than those of others, the most popular ones declined the most. Unit sales of the top 1,000 albums of 2008 dropped 41.7% from their 2004 levels. The second thousand most popular albums dropped 36%, the third thousand fell 33.2%, the fourth 31.2% and the fifth 30.9%. Five years ago, the top 5,000 albums represented 74.4% of total sales; in 2008 they accounted for 70.2%. Some of this comes from the sheer number of albums that now make up the end of the tail.



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