Sales of CDs and DVDs
 

Blog linky

HMV I guess is the British version of Barnes & Noble. The company claims that its CD and DVD sales will only decline by 26% and 17% respectively by the year 2010.

I think they are wildly optimistic.

Opinions?

Re: Sales of CDs and DVDs
 

From the link:

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On the positive side small declines in large markets usually mean massive growth in the new markets that are replacing them - in this case digital music and video.

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Right but this is not necessarily monetizeable...

26% is probably their top-range forecast but is also fairly significant decline (taking into account an already sizeable decline over past 5 years). Don't think it's wildly optimistic at all for CDs.

The DVD number is much more difficult to forecast imo. My guess is the number is not too far off but we will see a rapid acceleration in decline post 2010.

-Al

Re: Sales of CDs and DVDs
 

I think they are wildly optimistic.

Re: Sales of CDs and DVDs
 

depends on a lot of things, I don't think they are too optimistic though, its less than 3 years, and it's not like tons of people that don't download music are gonna suddenly start in that time period. If a new technology comes out, then obviously its a whole different game.

Re: Sales of CDs and DVDs
 

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In the venture industry we get caught up in the inevitability of massive market disruption and these numbers are a reminder that even in a market as obviously doomed as CD sales there is still years to run.

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I used to work in venture and believe this is very true. I'm not very familiar with the music business, but work in TV and can tell you that people have been predicting the demise of Network TV since Michael Lewis' cover story in NYT Magazine in 2000.

A combination of aggressive growth rates (DVR penetration is nowhere near what analysts forecasted 6 years ago), public perception created by the cultural elite at newspapers and magazines, and frankly slow consumer adoption of new business models, tend to result in far too early forecasts of "the demise of a mass market industry due to technology paradigm shift".

-Al

Re: Sales of CDs and DVDs
 

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its less than 3 years, and it's not like tons of people that don't download music are gonna suddenly start in that time period.

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I don't think these numbers are too out of whack, but, uh, yeah i think we'll see "tons of people" start downloading that haven't.

Re: Sales of CDs and DVDs
 

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depends on a lot of things, I don't think they are too optimistic though, its less than 3 years, and it's not like tons of people that don't download music are gonna suddenly start in that time period. If a new technology comes out, then obviously its a whole different game.

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I'd imagine this technology being introduced very soon and then I can't imagine dvds not becoming obsolete.

Re: Sales of CDs and DVDs
 

I work for the largest wireless ISP in Indiana and we began getting letters from the government last year for terminating accounts of customers who were downloading copyrighted material via our network. The letters had the individual IP addresses for the exact users on our network. I had never seen anything like this before. Our engineers designed a few programs to block the ports the file sharing sites use and we no longer allow P2P on our network. I can see the government stepping in and completely putting the issue in the hands of the larger ISP's to hold them liable for any illegal downloading that happens on their network. We only have about 6,000 customers but the larger nationwide networks will turn off that switch as soon as they get sued for large dollars by the government. I doubt consumers will have the access online that would allow the file sharing to continue indefinitely. That said, I'm sure there will be new technologies coming out that will render individual CD's and DVD's obsolete for a consumer.

Re: Sales of CDs and DVDs
 

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its less than 3 years, and it's not like tons of people that don't download music are gonna suddenly start in that time period.

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I don't think these numbers are too out of whack, but, uh, yeah i think we'll see "tons of people" start downloading that haven't.

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For a significant group of new people to jump on these technologies they're going to have to become brain dead simple. iTunes is close, Rhapsody/Napster are further away, torrents aren't even in the ballpark yet.

Re: Sales of CDs and DVDs
 

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its less than 3 years, and it's not like tons of people that don't download music are gonna suddenly start in that time period.

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I don't think these numbers are too out of whack, but, uh, yeah i think we'll see "tons of people" start downloading that haven't.

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For a significant group of new people to jump on these technologies they're going to have to become brain dead simple. iTunes is close, Rhapsody/Napster are further away, torrents aren't even in the ballpark yet.

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Even today, only 70-75% of Americans have Internet access. There is a significant portion of the population that wants nothing to do with it.

Separately, I see CDs dying before DVDs. DVD files are much larger.