Crunching Numbers

Here are a few statistics that you may find interesting about the music industry from the past eight years:

• Sony BMG Music Entertainment experienced a 11.9% profit decrease last year.www.BMI.com/news
• In 2007 Sony BMG also eliminated 25 jobs in the physical distributions department, 8 in the finance department and eliminated over one half of the retail coordinators staff. www.billboard.biz
• 2006 saw a 16% decline in album sales.www.BMI.com/news
• In 2005 ring-tone sales exceed $500 million. Album sales barely reached $19 million with an overall 7.2% decrease .http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2006-01-25-ringtones_x.htm
• 2005 also saw 150% increase in digital downloads.www.BMI.com/news
• 2000-2004 showed a 21% decrease in physical album sales.www.billboard.biz

As album sales steadily continue to plummet, it seems as though buying or collecting albums will become a novelty similar to what vinyl collections were when we were kids. www.rollingstone.com

You may be thinking, 'so what, at least people are still buying it.' and that is true. But when you look at the bigger picture there are disadvantages to digitally purchased songs or albums. For examples, album art, which was once viewed as a fine art is now reduced to graphic design. There is no longer the novelty of flipping through the inside cover to discover goods the artist may have packaged. Lastly, sound quality doesn't have the depth it did with analog recordings.

Although the numbers make the industry's future seem bleak there is still hope as the industry continues to figure out ways work around the obstacles.