Music Industry

The second-last report on Canadian music sale and streaming stats of 2020

Outside of the growth in streaming, it has not been a good year for the recorded music industry for all the reasons you’d expect. Nielsen has released its second-last report of the year, starting by comparing 2020 to last year.

  • Total albums sales, -33.9%
  • CD sales, -48.6% (It looks like fewer than 3 million units will be sold in all of 2020. Wow.)
  • Digital albums, -18.7%
  • Digital tracks, -25.8%
  • Vinyl LPs, -11.0%
  • On-demand audio streams, +15.9%

Okay, but are things getting any better during the pandemic? Let’s check the week-over-week numbers

  • Total album sales, +18.7%
  • CD sales, +23.8%
  • Digital albums, +24.7%
  • Digital tracks, +2.9%
  • Vinyl LPs, +24.7%
  • On-demand audio streams, -0.2% (1.857 billion streams in the country last week)

One more week to go.

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 38031 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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