The Scotsman is touting the rebirth of the single in the UK as predictions have the UK single market over 50 million units this year, with weekly averages near 1 million tracks. What I find most interesting is this strikingly unassuming line from the article. "Download formats now account for more than half of all singles sales, and together, single-track downloads and bundles combined to more than compensate for declining physical format sales."
For all of you that have commented about the death of the full album, and how the lack of whole album sales can never be compensated for by increased "cherry-picking", I want you to pay special attention.
"More than compensate for declining physical format sales". Couple that with larger margins on digital tracks than physical CDs, and the sum of all parts becomes this; While they complain about piracy, the labels that make up BPI are raking in actual bucketloads of money on digital downloads.
My tounge is only partially in my cheek when I say that any day now, I expect to hear reports of a British record executive actually choking on his own bankroll.
[via The Scotsman]
[Photo credit: Gastonmag]
