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canopic jug [soylentnews.org] writes:

Kim Bayley breaks down UK spending statistics to show that superfans buying old school physical media are providing for 15% of the UK's total retail music market, even when streaming is counted. She asserts that curtailing the availability of these physical storage media will damage not just retailers, but the overall health of the music industry itself. In doing so, she presents a strong economic case for why the music industry should treasure its vinyl and CD superfans [musicbusinessworldwide.com].

Naturally it would have a clear financial cost: according to ERA’s research those 157,000 vinyl Superfans spent between them £63m on vinyl in 2017, equivalent to more than half a million – 525,000 – premium music subscriptions.

In other words, lose a town’s worth of vinyl buyers the size of Chelmsford and you need a city’s worth of premium music subscribers the size of Manchester to make up the loss.

When it comes to CD, the impact is even greater. ERA’s researches show that in 2017 an incredible 292,000 Britons spent £400 or more on the format. That’s equivalent to buying a CD virtually every week.

Ed: So if streaming is not about money, then I may ask what is streaming really about?

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