Understanding the Momentum of the Digital Music Market
There have been plenty of misleading headlines lately about the strength of the digital music market. I’m glad Billboard took up this topic before I did. They say it better than I could have.
The data should create the narrative, not the other way around. A number of journalists have ignored this rule in recent weeks. If you stay current on music industry news, you may have read some articles that will give you the wrong impression about the size, shape and momentum of the digital music marketplace.
The articles arose from Nielsen’s release of SoundScan and streaming numbersfor the first half of the year. Nielsen’s press release showed four things: download sales no longer have high growth rates, track sales are in negative territory, digital album sales growth is still positive and streaming activity is experiencing strong growth.