Two-Thirds of Music Consumers Still CD-Only

When browsing the ASCAP Daily Brief, I found the article titled "Two-Thirds of Music Consumers are still CD Only". This immediately sparked my attention because it came as a total shock to me. This is because for myself, I personally haven't purchased an actual CD in over 4 years. I can't remember the last time I even thought that I would have to drive to an FYE or a Sam Goodie to purchase an album. I figured all of those stores had gone out of business. The Sam Goodie in my home town turned into a shoe store about 2 years ago, and I remember only going there to buy Alternative Press magazines. To find out that two-thirds of music consumers still buy CDs is a surprise to me. 

The article points out that we are a nation of "Traditionalists", and that we are misreading how MP3 players have changed our nation. He also points out that the dominant ways of listening to music are still AM/FM radio players, and NOT CDs being played on a computer. As someone who is always in their car, I can understand this one, but personally if I do not want to listen to the radio, it is surely easier to browse my ipod while driving than to be changing CDs on the road. He goes on to say that we are still on the bell curve with our iphones, streaming radios, and ipods, and for most people, it's CDs or Radio all the time.

As surprising as this is to me, he also mentions that this is bad news for the music industry, because even though two-thirds of consumers are buying CDs, they are buying 20 million less than they did even in 2006, and that some are just done with acquiring music all together. It seems that people are satisfied with the collections they already have, and are hesitant to care for new music. He ends the article by saying; "so the pressing question for the music industry is how to get those musically apathetic dropouts back into the habit of purchasing new music". Check it out :http://www.appscout.com/2009/02/twothirds_of_music_consumers_a.php