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The long, slow, and painful decline in physical CD sales has made some of the record labels take heed and embrace the future of music that it is digital distribution, and none have done more to listen to the public than has EMI.
It was the first and still only record label to offer its music catalog free of DRM restrictions on Apple's new iTunes Plus music store, for which it says "Early revenue indications for this initiative are encouraging." It's due in part to this bold initiative that revenue for digital music has leaped by some 26% in the last 3 months.But, in a bit of stinging reality check for EMI, and proof that digital distribution is the future of music, physical revenues, i.e. CD sales, dropped by a staggering 19.8% in just the last 4 months alone!
Financier Guy Hands, who is currently in the middle of a financing deal to take over control of the music group, blames the drop in CD sales on a poor release schedule, a reason also cited in EMI's Interim Management Statement for the quarter, though vaguely referred to as a "light" release schedule. Whether or not it was so "poor" or so "light" to account for a stunning 19.8.% decline in sales is the real question, and the one hopefully execs at the record label are asking themselves as we speak.
One things for sure, the CD is going extinct, and one has to go no further than a nearby sidewalk or streetcorner and observe the fact that nearly all passerbys are listening to music on iPods and other portable digital media players. Few, if any, will have a portable CD player in hand.Hopefully this recent decline in physical revenue will convince EMI to maintain its current course and continue to embrace digital music distribution wholeheartedly, and DRM-free content in particular.
