by George Ziemann

Did Peer-to-Peer kill the singles market? Maybe, but it had already been dying a slow death for a decade.

Commentary is almost unnecessary here, but I'll explain both of these graphics just to be safe.



U.S. Singles Market -- Unit Shipments

The industry's combined market for singles (all formats combined) has never exceeded 120 million units, with 1999 barely exceeding the 1990 benchmark.

No data is available from the RIAA for shipments prior to 1990.

Prior to Napster's appearance in mid-1999, the market for singles had already dropped more than a third from its 1997 peak.



U.S. Singles -- Market Share

The RIAA is also the source for the data at the left, which illustrates the percentage of units shipped and purported value of those units compared to the total U.S. industry totals for the same year.

Once again, data prior to 1990 is not available. Despite this, we can see that relative to the rest of the music market, the singles had been in steady decline since 1990, making it no surpise that the industry had intentionally tried to hasten its demise in 1998, when artists were first told that the singles were no longer a viable market.

Ironically, when the 2003 figures are released (usually late February), we'll see that there has actually been an uptick in singles sales this year.

Looks like we're not needed here, the RIAA is going to be destroyed soon if I read that data right.

Happy day!

very well done George. You're a man of many talents. I'm sure the RIAA has a whole different view on the same figures.

Cool beans it's showing their decline way ahead of downloading music! It looks more like it declined even worse when it took out Napster.

tasadar atleast we can push them into their grave sooner and kick them while they're down in it b4 we throw the dirt on them

Remember that this is just the singles market.

My next post will be an overall view of the entire market for recorded music -- also according to the RIAA's numbers.

Good job, George. The graphics are good and you explained them well.

:-:~ Phantom

It's no secret that the industry intentionally killed the singles market. There has been a lot of arguing within the industry over this topic. More singles have been released lately as the industry flounders for a solution to their problems. Retailers are especially pissed about the death of the single because singles drove in traffic that might purchase a full length while they are in the store for the single. I spoke with a regional manager of Trans World last year and he told me that Trans World was going to record an issue their own sound alike singles and then play them in store and give them good positioning. They were hoping to force the labels into bringing back singles. But it seems that they never went through with the plan. Too bad, it would have been a nice battle to watch. : )

"It's no secret that the industry intentionally killed the singles market."

Except perhaps to Jay Berman of the IFPI (International Federation of Pirate Incriminators), who was still blaming the Internet as of April.

That's why he gets the big bucks. : )

wth? 2 mroops?

I was in the DVD design business 2 years ago. One question concerning all of us was whether to spend our time investigating the CD enhanced market. (Which is by far the dominant format in Asia and the world)--- This had already killed us back in 1997, but compression had vastly improved. I still prefer enahnced CD's to DVD, for reasons of flexibility and mouse control.

So we got a visit from Radio & Records, the traditional industry hit newsletter. they explained, "Gavin has already bankrupted, and we're next!" They asked us to put rock videos as an extra value placement along with the song on a CD.

The way Clear Channel works these days, they have internal statistics & charts. They are a nation state in themselves. They could care less what any other 3rd party businesse desires. That's why they resigned from the NAB, and killed the 150-year old Amusement Billboard magazine (bookings and concerts)

Clear Channel simply sees no reason to share market stats with anyone who is a potential competitor in a scorched-earth business. In fact, CC demands payment for their figures.

Tasadar24- there are many mroops. Just search "User" for "mroop" and see what you find.

The RIAA, would doubtless, hotly contest George's interpretation of their figures.

:-:~ Phantom

What killed singles was the pricing structure (big surprise there). For the cost of 3 singles, you could buy the entire CD. Nowadays that wouldn't be a problem since there's rarely more than 1 or 2 songs worth listening to on any given CD.

BTW George, nice ski slopes on those charts. Interesting to note the industry in 2002 shipped just as many CD singles as vinyl singles - & cassette singles? What're those? ;^)

Well, thats confirmed what we all knew. The existing business model is biased towards albums because they are just more profitable, and singles can cause album sales to drop considerably if not overpriced by a similar factor.

The cost wasn't the ONLY thing that killed the singles market. Who do you think priced the CD singles so high? And why? To kill the singles market and make everyone buy the whole CD for one song. The record labels deliberately raised the price of CD singles to get rid of the single altogether.

And they wonder why everyone looked for a new way to get singles? This decision should go down in history as the reason the RIAA and its labels are dying, not the invention of Napster. If they would have kept the CD single alive and reasonably priced, this website probably wouldn't be here right now.

I can't believe they killed the 3" CD. It was a perfect vehicle to distribute singles with. But the industry assumed we were to STUPID to figure it out. Funny how things change. Now the industry is too stupid to figure out the internet.

i have to support prior argument-if cds were a quality good, whod need a single?
singles are tacit admission that the riaa is selling crap, and were culling their own product.
it defies description that this business model has lasted as long as it has. just surreal...

~time flies~

The smoothed line on the first chart makes it look like a negative amount of cassettes shipped in 2001.

Obviously the fault of dirty P2P users...

It WAS a negative number in 2001. They got back more in returns than they shipped out.

Net result for 2001 was -1.5 million units. In 2002 it was -0.5 million.