Audio (4858)

73% of music fans prefer CDs

Physical format still has life in it yet

16 July 2009 11:11 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Despite reports of - and some statistics suggesting - that downloads of digital music will soon make CDs obsolete, recent research says that 73% of music fans are still happy buying the physical format over MP3s.

The Leading Question, a media and tech research agency, and Music Ally spoke to 1000 consumers in the Speakerbox survey that looks at the current state of music consumption in the UK.

While the overall figure that preferred CDs was 73%, a perhaps surprising 66% of 14- to 18-year-olds would opt for CDs over MP3s, while 59% of all music fans still listen to CDs every day.

"Digital is still the future but rumours of the death of the CD are premature. The continued popularity of the CD should be looked upon as an opportunity. We believe that labels and online stores could and should be doing more to build on music fans’ familiarity with CDs to provide them with additional digital content and to use the CD as a bridge into the digital world", says The Leading Question CEO Tim Walker.

"Music fans have spoken and digital is evidently not the clear cut replacement to the physical CD".

Interestingly, those who subscribe to a digital music subscription service, such as Napster, and those that stream music online, spend more on CDs than average consumers with monthly buys averaging out at £16.87 and £12.17 compared to the £11.37 average.

Full tags

Audio, CD, Music downloads, Statistics, Surveys, Biz, The Leading Question