08-11-2003, 10:57 PM
Quote:Replacing vinyl
According to the RIAA's own figures, over the last two years the US music industry has produced 25% fewer CDs.
The peak of production was in 1999 when 38,900 individual titles were released. But by 2001 this was down to 27,000. Releases grew again in 2002 but were still below the previous high.
Musician George Ziemann says if only 3,000 copies of each of the "missing" CDs were sold, the fall in sales would be wiped out.
For Mark Mulligan, an analyst with Jupiter Research, the music is weathering a hangover after the 80s and 90s boom, when everyone was buying CD versions of their old vinyl records.
"Now the CD replacement cycle has drawn to a close," he says.
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