Classical Charts!!

[Gordon]

This is from Norman Lebrecht's regular blog:


Hilary Hahn's In 27 Pieces was the top-selling classical album in the US this past week. It sold all of 341 copies, a new all-time low ( I feel I know half the people who bought it).

In second spot on the Nielsen Soundscan charts is Barenboim's New Year concert from Vienna. Just 260 sales.

These are shocking stats. There is not much point in making records for so indifferent a market.

Well that's a bit of a surprise to say the least!! Maybe Classical Music is dead after all!!

[french frank]

Well, you know why the record companies are desperate to have Radio 3 plugging all their heavily marketed new releases. I wonder how many sales it takes to get to the top of the Specialist Classical Chart?

[teamsaint]

Should I bother reading the article?

Right.
1. The sales figures really don't reflect the total volume of sales. In the UK , book sales figures mostly reflect sales through traditional channels plus Amazon. There are plenty of sales that are not reflected in the Nielsen stats. Markets are fragmenting, but that doesn't mean they are smaller in total.
2. The commercial imperative can quite easily be satisfied with quite low early sales figures. the company I work for survives quite well on average sales of around 1500 copies of a book, and we are the market leaders by a very long way in our most important genre.

I won't go on, but even if Norm has pointed out correctly that sales are falling, his conclusions may well be wrong.

[Petrushka]

Should I bother reading the article?

Right.
1. The sales figures really don't reflect the total volume of sales. In the UK , book sales figures mostly reflect sales through traditional channels plus Amazon. There are plenty of sales that are not reflected in the Nielsen stats. Markets are fragmenting, but that doesn't mean they are smaller in total.
2. The commercial imperative can quite easily be satisfied with quite low early sales figures. the company I work for survives quite well on average sales of around 1500 copies of a book, and we are the market leaders by a very long way in our most important genre.

I won't go on, but even if Norm has pointed out correctly that sales are falling, his conclusions may well be wrong.

I don't work in sales but feel that ts has it correct. Another consideration is that sales of classical recordings need to be measured long term. The New Year's Day concert was only three weeks ago and the CD has only just been released, for Heaven's sake! Any figures produced now are meaningless.

Lebrecht (and others) seem to want to believe that classical music is dead or at least dying, but I don't think it is. As ts points out, the market is fragmenting (just look at all the 'views' on youTube, for instance) and I know one or two people who are inching their way towards getting interested in classical because pop/rock just doesn't do it for them any more and it's easy enough to get into it via non-traditional routes.

[richardfinegold]

This is from Norman Lebrecht's regular blog:


Hilary Hahn's In 27 Pieces was the top-selling classical album in the US this past week. It sold all of 341 copies, a new all-time low ( I feel I know half the people who bought it).



In second spot on the Nielsen Soundscan charts is Barenboim's New Year concert from Vienna. Just 260 sales.

These are shocking stats. There is not much point in making records for so indifferent a market.

Well that's a bit of a surprise to say the least!! Maybe Classical Music is dead after all!!

I personally am doing more than my share to keep CD sales high on this side of the pond.

[french frank]

I don't work in sales but feel that ts has it correct. Another consideration is that sales of classical recordings need to be measured long term. The New Year's Day concert was only three weeks ago and the CD has only just been released, for Heaven's sake! Any figures produced now are meaningless.

Of course. Pop songs have to sell quickly, while they're being plugged and heard everywhere. After that, the sales fall off dramatically. Classical discs once released will sell as long as they remain in the catalogue. And after that too.