So today, like every other morning, I wake up, open the laptop, and check my news sites. The headlines were more of the same, and I skimmed over most of the "War moves on" and "This week J.lo did this..." stories. Than I see a little article on Wired's website titled UMG Forced to Face the Music.
Here is a brief summary of what is happening over at UMG:
Sales are down (still blaming file traders...) CD Prices are high (both wholesale and retail) Executives are not making cash hand over fist (Declining album sales)
Instead of the typical "It's all due to Napster" argument we have been hearing over the past couple of years, UMG decided to take a long hard look at itself, and discovered the awful truth in declining record sales...they cost too much.
For the past two years several of my friends and I have talked about this phenomenon, of not accepting the realtively simple notion that with CDs costing as much as $20 each, people are turning away from buying them. This in addition to the decline in the QUALITY of music being released seemed to be the logical reason for declining record sales.
But the RIAA pressed on, "it's not low quality music, it's not too expensive, the problem is with Napster". Finally today UMG woke up to what most of us already know. " You could make downloading music go away tomorrow and the industry would still face challenges. All the data suggests that quality and price are major factors to the equation.", Sean Baenen, managing director of Odyssey, a consumer marketing research firm in San Francisco. (Taken from the linked article)
It is about time the Record Companies started to look at themselves as the root of their own problems. Considering the money flying out the door prosecuting College students for hosting the newest 50cent mp3 on their server (Check details and links here), all revenues are down. Perhaps the other big Music Industry Players will follow suit and look at their own business practices before casting the first stone.
