The trend that sales of music downloads are down in the US in 2014 is already well known, but the latest Nielsen SoundScan figures quantify it. In the first nine months of the year, digital track sales fell 12.9% to 848.5m – an acceleration in the decline given that digital track sales fell 5.7% in 2013. The trend now includes digital albums, though: sales of those fell 11.5% in the first nine months of 2014. Billboard notes that overall, it’s sales of ‘current albums’ – those released less than 18 months ago or older albums still in the top 100 chart – that have fallen most, by 17.7% compared to the 10.9% decline in catalogue album sales. Streaming is the likeliest reason for downloads to have tipped into decline, but the usual caveat applies to these figures: they don’t include revenues from streaming, and thus don’t show the extent to which those streams are making up for the decline in download sales. Although with CD album sales also down 18.9% in the first nine months of 2014, there’s a lot of making up to do. We’ll await the RIAA’s end-of-year figures for a properly-accurate picture of shifting revenues in the US market.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools :: We Are Giant
With “fan communities” being on every artist’s team’s mind, we’re fans of the fact that…