Soundbite: the the online music market revolution

Here’s a good soundbite about the revolution going on in the music industry that I read in the Times. In the past three years UK sales of CD singles have almost halved, down from 26.5 million in 2004 to 13.6 million last year. Your job may not be perfect, but at least you’re not running a CD-making factory.

But, and here’s the killer fact, sales over the internet doubled last year alone, to 65 million. In other words, the music market is actually exploding in unit terms. The extra 32.5 million downloads more than make up for the 13 million loss in CD singles. People are buying and listening to more music.

If we needed it, this is a powerful illustration of just how big a change online is making in our lives. It makes it all the more shocking how many ad agencies I still see presenting a 30 second TV script as the start of their creative presentation!