Our weekly check on Canadian music sales and streaming stats

December 15, 2020 Alan Cross 0 Comments

Another week, another health checkup on what’s happening with the Canadian recorded music industry starting with the ugly year-over-year comparison stats.

Total album sales, -33.9%
CD sales, -48.8 % (an improvement, believe it or not)
Digital albums, -19.1%
Digital tracks, -25.9%
Vinyl LPs, -10.7%
On-demand audio streams, +15.9% (82.5 billion streams so far this year)

But if we look at the week-over-week numbers, we can see the industry doing better despite the pandemic.

Total album sales, +1.2%
CD sales, -3.7%
Digital albums, +12.0%
Digital tracks, -0.9%
Vinyl LPs, -0.5%
On-demand audio streams, +2.2% (1.860 billion streams this week)

All figures courtesy Nielsen.

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.

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