|
|
Related ArticlesRIAA Source Data -- RIAA's statistics are available in pdf format at the RIAA.org website. RIAA Statistics Don't Add Up to Piracy (Dec. 2002) RIAA Claims Royalty Imbalance (Dec. 2006)
|
The Numbers Game -- RIAA Statistics from 1982 to 2007If you've ever looked at the RIAA's statistics and read the accompanying information that they provide, you know that they can sometimes be confusing, if not outright contradictory. This section is an ongoing effort to make this information as easy to understand as possible.
Deflating Music's Mythical StatisticsThe RIAA claims to have shipped out about $10.5 billion in physical goods in the U.S. in 2005. As recently as 2002, the RIAA's year-end data didn't bother to explain where the "dollar value" of these shipments came from. 2003 revealed that "Dollar Value reflects the total suggested retail list prices of shipments", followed in 2005 by the further clarification that "Retail value is value of shipments at recommended or estimated list price." Side trip for evidence. Take a quick glimpse at Amazon's top seller list. The "list price" is the price that always gets scratched out. Nobody pays full list price. The discounts range from 21 to 58 percent on the page as it appeared as I wrote this, with the average discount for the top 25 albums of the moment at 37%. So that $10.5 billion probably looks more like $6.6 billion in reality, which still includes the retailer's cut. As we know, pirates stole the "missing" billions that were never really there. Of course, that's just an estimate based on how many CDs were packaged and shipped out. For the reliable statistics on sales you have to go to SoundScan, which will charge you a small fortune to learn what their estimates are. For all of the scanning and electronic transaction technology we hear so much about, only a fraction (size unknown) of retail outlets report to SoundScan and they interpolate this data into national sales. It's an educated guess, but when you come right down to it, it's still just a guess. Fans the Industry Forgot -- Or NotBy George Ziemann -- November 24, 2006 Jeff Leeds of the Los Angeles Times has written a piece about the AARP and its rather new association with the music industry.
As someone physically old enough to be on AARP's list of potential members and still mentally young enough to be horrified at that prospect, I'd like to know what the hell that 25 percent is buying because I'm not hearing anything worth plunking down cash for. This became even more mystifying when I looked at the RIAA's 2005 Consumer Profile, which is seems to be the source of Leed's info for that particular paragraph, and saw that rock accounted for 31.5 percent of sales. This struck me as odd because I can only think of about five rock albums released last year. Then I noticed that this set of "sales" statistics didn't even come from the RIAA's usual unreliable sources (the record labels' accounting departments), but was the result of a telephone survey. In this case, it would seem to be more accurate to ask Nielsen SoundScan what actually sold. Until you actually look at Nielsen's numbers. So let's compare...
When I started writing this column a couple of hours ago, I had a point to make. The starting point was the paragraph quoted at the beginning. Having looked at the RIAA source information and comparing to Nielsen, it's pretty clear the RIAA can't tell what is being sold, much less who they're selling it to. Attempting to draw a reasonable conclusion from the RIAA's survey is an exercise in silly. So, as Emily Littella would say, "Never mind." |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||