[Al Skierkiewicz]

Ben,
Exactly my point! The author more or less agress that CD sales have been hurt in terms of number of units. He goes on to state that the total revenue is up because of higher pricing but it is not keeping step with inflation. Musician cost of living keeps rising while revenue remains flat and sales continue a downward slide. One should also note that the article is undated but quoting four year old statistics and an RIAA data sheet from 2001.

The author goes on to try and attribute some reasoning behind the numbers by trying (without the benefit of sound demographic statistics) to classify the CD buying public and show that there is a perceived change in buying habits among the different population types. If you were to look at later data (the most recent RIAA data which displays through the end of 2005) you would see an even more significant drop in sales units. Now that gas is at an elevated level, the shipping costs are starting to skew for even less profit. I am sure this will be reflected in the dismal numbers for 2006 as well.