Australia's music download charts launch tells us nothing new

April 10, 2006

Even though music download sales accounts for only a few percent of overall music sales, so far the sales of singles as downloads has taken over the CD singles for quite a while now. For example, in Britain singles sold as downloads account for about 3/4 of their overall sales of singles. Now, the Australian Recording Industry Association has launched their first official charts for download sales, much like with the charts for CD singles and albums.

Last year, music download sales accounted for 1.5% of the Australian music market. However, this still falls well short of the 6% of music sold as downloads for international music markets. In an aim to boost music download sales, the record companies have been making older music available for purchase much like they did when CDs were introduced originally.

Since the music industry began monitoring the sales of downloads from April 1st, they have found nothing new when it comes to comparing these sales against the sales of music in retail stores as the download charts turn out very similar to the CD single charts. The ARIA aims to merge the CD singles and download charts together by the end of the year, much like how Britain's singles charts takes both music download and CD single sales into account.

The digital downloading of music has been talked about for some years as the scourge of the music industry, and its saviour. Illegal downloads have been blamed for the five-year-long decline in CD sales worldwide. This sparked fears a new generation had learned to acquire their music through online file sharing or free downloading, which meant they avoided paying the record companies and in the long run the artists.

However, in the past two years the big record companies have sought to control the distribution of online music through legal channels, through their own online sites and online retailers, expecting that online sales of current and older - or catalogue - material will revive the industry, much as the introduction of the CD did in the 1980s.

So, has the download chart revealed a hitherto untapped market? On the basis of the first chart, monitoring sales from April 1 until close of business on Friday, April 7, it's safe to say downloaders are buying much the same music as those still walking into music stores.

As the cost of a single as a download is only a fraction of that of a CD single, it is really not that surprising to see consumers preferring to buy their singles1 as downloads. However, when it comes to albums it seems that consumers prefer to buy just the songs they are interested in from the album and would rather pay the full price on a full physical album, particularly since there is not as significant difference between the price of an album as a download than the physical CD. Unfortunately, it will be quite tricky to take album download sales into the charts, since it is not clear if buying a few songs from an album accounts as an album sale or three single sales, unlike buying an album in the stores where one must buy complete albums.

Source: FairFax Digital