This One Chart Shows How Streaming Services are Taking Over the Music Industry

October 28, 2016 Alan Cross 0 Comments 0 min read

Every week I look at the sales figures for physical music media and every week the trend is moving down, down, down. Even as we head into the fourth quarter of 2016–Christmas season, fer crissakes!–the industry struggles to sell product. There have been many weeks where if you add up all the US sales of the top 200 sellers reported by SoundScan, you end up with a total of 800,000 units. That’s in a country of 320 million. Wow.

Fortune has been monitoring the situation–see the whole article here–and has summed up the state of music industry revenues in one handy graphic. Again, wow.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 40251 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross