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Why DVDs are thriving while CDs tank (1 Viewer)

Mickey Brown

Stunt Coordinator
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Feb 4, 2001
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114
I am just throwing something out here:

There are millions of people who pay $10 a month to play the internet game Everquest.

Here's what I might do if I am Sony Music...

I put all my albums on a couple of Napsteresque servers. I charge people $15 to $20 a month for the service. If they want, for $5 plus shipping and handling, I will email them a CD of their choice with mix and matched songs. You can sell cards with access numbers to the servers at any convinence store or retail cd shop, ala phone cards.

I would pay $20 a month to get good quality mp3's. In one centralized place sorted out by category, etc.



BTW, I have a HUGE problem with high school kids charging people for cd's they stole off the net. But I don't have a problem with someone downloading a tune onto their portable mp3 player for a jog... I wonder if I'm the majority or minority..
 

Ken_McAlinden

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An online, pay distribution method is a possible addition to album sales, but most of you are missing a very important aspect of the industry, which is promotion.
Does anyone honestly think that an online service would not promote certain artists via ads on their portals and frequent e-mails to subscribers. Amazon and other e-tailers have certainly figured this out. :)
I presume they would use subscription services, monthly billing, and/or bulk up-front payments (one charge for 10 downloads, another for 50 for instance) to get around the small credit card transaction issues. All it takes is a little creativity and the willingness to experiment until they get it right.
Regards,
 

GlennH

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I also find it interesting that, while the majority of people in this forum would fight to the death to have a movie director's vision presented in its entirety, that the same folks want to be able to edit a music artist's work to suit their fancy.
Not commenting on the merits of your overall arguments, Jeff, but I don't think this is a very good analogy. You can't compare a music album to a movie. An album may have an overall theme and be arranged in a certain way, but still, the basic unit of recorded music is the individual song. Some you like, some you don't. Maybe you like enough of them to buy the whole album, maybe you don't. It doesn't violate any artistic intent to listen to only part of an album.

A movie is different. The basic unit is the whole thing. Nobody goes out seeking to buy individual scenes from movies.
 

John Berggren

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Nobody goes out seeking to buy individual scenes from movies.
Although I agree with your argument, this statement is not true. Evidence in "Ultimate Fights" and the Horror Movie compilations. I'd also love to pay a fraction of the cost of "The Time Machine" just to grab the moon-effect shot (and throw the rest away).

However, as long as groups provide boxed sets, greatest hits, allow songs onto movie soundtracks, and otherwise remove their work from their ALBUM, the ALBUM is not inviolate. I used to refuse to skip through tracks on a CD. This was before I started buying CDs with crappy tracks.
 

Damin J Toell

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It doesn't violate any artistic intent to listen to only part of an album.
Then clearly you don't represent every single artist on the face of the earth. Some artists do intend for an album to heard only as a whole. For example, Skinny Puppy's "Ain't It Dead Yet" live album.

You may not believe that albums should only be seen as a whole, like films, but some musicians certainly do.

DJ
 

GlennH

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As the previous two responses illustrate, there are always exceptions. Thanks for keeping me honest guys.
My apologies to the Skinny Pups. :)
 
Joined
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While I feel that the ethics regarding downloading music are an interesting subject, I don't think that downloadable music is the sole reason causing the differential between CD and DVD sales growth. I agree with several of the reasons expressed earlier, including:

1. A new user base building their respective collections.
2. DVDs present a newer, and therefore more exciting, technology.
3. The recording industry putting out C-R-A-P.

I was an early adopter of DVD (early 1998) and have purchased over 300 of them in that time. During the heyday of the internet deals, I purchased over 60 DVDs in one month for under $300. I am a bit more selective now that the prices have increased and my collection has grown to include a large portion of my favorite movies. Most of my purchases now are either indie films that have received a good buzz by members of this and other forums (i.e. Run Lola Run, Amelie, etc.) or new movies that I did not see in the theater.

I own nearly 1000 CDs, collected over the past 14 years. I used to go to a used CD store at college where you could listen to the entire CD before you bought it, and I purchased several each week. After graduation in 1995, my purchases slowed to around 6 CDs PER YEAR. When Napster came along, I actually purchased more CDs while it was in operation than I had in the previous 3 years combined. I was able to sample albums and found several that I never would have purchased otherwise.

However, I think that the reason DVDs have been so successful is also because of the perceived entertainment replacement value. Here's what I mean by that. Everytime I have been to the theater to see a movie over the past year and a half, I continually come to the same realization - I was unhappy with the presentation. The sound is too low, people talk, they don't focus properly, they don't retract curtains to display the proper aspect ratio, the print is faded, etc. And this is at first-run theaters. My home system (via DVD) provides a net result that is a superior overall experience TO ME. And it costs $15 for the movie and $4 for enough popcorn to feed the neighborhood. It cost me over $50 to take my girlfriend, one niece and one nephew to see Lilo and Stitch. And I missed half the movie because I was either fetching drinks/popcorn or trying to ignore the people babbling behind me, and I'll have to pay the same amount to watch it again. CDs are inferior to live music, and I can go to a local jazz club with my girlfriend for $5 cover each.

Finally, DVDs are much more social than music. Tell me the last time that you sat down with your kids, wife and/or girlfriend and friends and listened silently to a CD and then talked about your opinions on the subject matter of the music. In closing, with XM radio, satellite radio, etc., music is normally the background soundtrack to whatever event you are engaged in at the time - driving, talking with friends, eating, whatever. DVDs ARE the event and therefore have a higher perceived entertainment value for the same (~$15) price.
 

SusanO

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Allow me to jump in and comment.

I work in the music and movie 'biz' for a small independent music (and now movie) seller who has been in just about every media biz there has been out there (ie radio then music the home video then music and now a combination of music, music memorabilia and home video). I am also a longtime collector of CDs (I have 6000+ in my collection and have been seriously collecting since 1991). Personally I love CDs and rarely download but I can see the future of music and it's gonna be predominantly free of jewel cases, CD booklets, rear inserts and shiny silver discs with only music on 'em.

I have had the opportunity of having access to the ear of the number two executive at Atlantic Records for many many years (he's a hardcore vinyl hound and yeah we still carry some of those behemoth discs) and even for a relatively young and enlightened guy, if he's typical of the majors execs, the future's not looking good for big record companies. We have been telling him they've *got* to go back to the old models of the 1950s and 1960s - it's all about singles again and not albums. He has admitted that the retooling of the record industry in the 1970s up to now was about moving high volumes of pricier LPs (ie artists these days must sell around 300,000 copies of their latest album or get dropped by the majors because the label's not breaking even) to support bloated operations and that there's a lot of fat in the company payroll and expenses, some of which has been cut, but along with the dead weight some big name artists (like Tori Amos and Collective Soul, two of his finds) got dropped this year. It's time for these folks to get their feet off the brakes, hang up their cell phones and drive their companies into the future and not off a cliff.

The majors have two big things going for them - massive catalog and a killer promotion machine. Tori Amos and Collective Soul wouldn't be who they are today without all that expensive non-Internet exposure, but I suspect that if they listen to guys like Roger McGuinn (formerly of the Byrds) they will make more money on smaller volumes of 'sales' than they did when they had big deals (McGuinn testified before Congress last year that his royalty rate thanks to downloads is 50% of sales rather than the 5% or so the majors paid him even though now he only has downloads from his website in the tens of thousands on his biggest Internet hits). But they can't release hits like 'Silent All These Years' or 'Shine' online - those belong to Atlantic...hmmm...I smell money here for Atlantic (for two tiny examples)...

Money can certainly be made on singles but the majors have to rethink everything they do. For one why sign 20 new unknown artists knowing that maybe one or two of them will hit? For another why squander their precious manpower doing half-hearted campaigns for all 20 of the newbies - why not pick one or two who have a prayer of selling something and *really* push them? And if a newbie only has two good songs, why not just record those and go to a pay per download model instead of wasting time and money in studios, commissioning artwork and pressing up CDs, shipping them around, etc? Spend that money on getting the best technology to put out downloadable music so ripping for consumers is like making casette tapes on a beat up boombox - ie a waste of their time money and effort. And for God sakes the music divisions need to take a page from the movie division's book and start uploading good quality catalog recordings to the net so that say the legendary Atlantic Jazz and Blues and R&B titles are easily available to us all to hear when we're online and so that they can actually make great money - heck I'd pay for all my Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin CD box set tunes in something better than some crappy 96kbps file so long as the price was right (say 50 cents each or $5 per 20 songs). Back in the early 90s I happily paid somewhere between $8-$10 per 20-25 song disc so to me that would be a bargain - that material is worthy of the musical equivalent of Criterion Collection treatment online and could be a major cash cow.

The reality is that the recording industry has been sitting on its laurels, kicking and screaming trying to resist doing what every other business has had to do since the introduction of the personal computer and the commercialization of the Internet - adapt or die. They keep asking for federal legislation to try and forestall their fate, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised to hear them beg Congress for corporate welfare soon because 'music sales are bad'. I think even the denizens of the Hill are smart enough to realize that the majors have only themselves to blame by not taking the initiative and embracing yet another format from which they can make money (think of how mich they made when LPs were dumped in favor of cassettes and then when cassettes were traded off for CD versions). They have cried wolf now for a century every time a scary new technological advance came along (in the 1920s the majors wanted to kill off radio arguing that no one would buy records if they could hear music for free via the radio but look where they are today...spare us all please...). Just because something's hard or expensive to do doesn't mean you can't try, especially when you have an eager market waiting for you to get off your duff and put stuff out. Old stuff, new stuff, quality files preferably of quality stuff with decent audio software - the majors can do this if they decide they want to do it. But whining gets them nowhere with the people who count: the consumers.

Pricing of course will always be key - I'm so glad I bought tons of CDs when Best Buy, Circuit City etc had pricing in the early 90s at $8-$10 per CD. Now I'd download a ton of high quality favorites to my hard drive if it didn't cost me more than a buck a song so long as the quality of the download was at least half as good as my CD recordings. I take the $200 - $400 a month I used to spend regularly on CDs and get DVDs most of which sell in that magic under ten bucks price range and some for as little as $6 each new (last week I just reached the 200 DVDs owned mark thanks to the reasonable pricing). I just hope that in a few years when more than 50% of Americans have DVD players the DVD prices don't follow the trend of CD pricing and kill yet another golden goose - we'll see what happens.

Personally I can't wait to see quality movie downloading too but first things first. To quote the song...it's now or never.

Oh and in the meantime it would be nice if they put out a CD or two with some appeal to this 30-something (my last buy was The White Stripes latest), you know, those of us who cut our music buying teeth on CDs who will spend if you try to sell us something that's priced fairly and has some appealing tunes (say at least 3 out of 18)
 

SusanO

Agent
Joined
Jun 14, 2002
Messages
32
I also find it interesting that, while the majority of people in this forum would fight to the death to have a movie director's vision presented in its entirety, that the same folks want to be able to edit a music artist's work to suit their fancy.
Gee how many radio stations these days play albums in their entirety starting with track 1? Or for that matter how many artists and/or labels *insist* an album be played that way anymore? It's been ages since album oriented rock ruled the airwaves (this Clear Channel 'play the same darn 20 songs or less all day long' model isn't an improvement though I must say. Boooor-ing!)
Singles sell themselves *and* albums. A&R (artists and repetoire) and promotion people are looking for a single or two to hook the consumer (remember 'Money' by Pink Floyd???).
Oh and about teen pop - it's spooky what people will pay for say Leif Garrett memorabilia (we once sold a video from 1978 for over $250!). I think it's about recapturing one's lost youth, but I shudder to think what teenaged girls of 2002 will pay in 2022 to rebuild their boy band and pop tart collections ;)
 

Dave Hensley

Auditioning
Joined
Jun 10, 1999
Messages
12
There are other problems with the $1-3 download model, one of them being the cost of the transactions. Small purchases are extremely expensive to manage using credit cards. Also, depending on how high quality the tracks were, you are looking at some very serious delivery bandwidth issues. At 5M per track, even if each song was only downloaded once, you'd have huge bandwidth issues. Now apply that to a single that alone could generate a million or more downloads...
Actually, some of the new realtime micro-transaction technologies can profitably handle transactions into the sub $0.05 range--As a matter of fact, I'm working on one of these ;) They can also keep your teenager on a budget...
As for the bandwidth issue, this might just be the killer app that rejuvinates the network equipment and telecommunications industries--God knows we need one right now.
Cheers.
 

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