Death Of The Download? Digital Sales Continue To Slide
It’s the circle of life. Downloading massacred CDs sales and now digital revenue is being gobbled up by streaming. Admittedly, I have a flair for the dramatic, but the scenario is backed up by facts. This week The Chainsmokers and Halsey‘s “Closer” topped Billboard’s Digital Songs Sales chart with a fairly meagre tally of 84,000 copies. That’s the least a song has had to sell to reach number since Hinder’s “Lips Of An Angel” (another classic) was downloaded 75,000 times to top the chart dated October 28, 2006.
As Billboard points out, there are some mitigating factors. “Closer” has been the best-selling song in the country for 12 consecutive weeks and was selling 200,000+ copies per week as recently as September. (The song’s total sales tally of 1.7 million isn’t too shabby either). But the trend is clear. Digital song sales are down 25 percent in 2016, according to Nielsen, while the most recent figures for streaming show an 83 percent increase. At this point, it looks like The Black Eyed Peas’ digital sales record — “I Gotta Feeling” sold a whopping 8.7 million downloads — will never be beaten. At least we went out on a high, guys!
[Via Billboard].
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