Sales Trilogy Part Two: Catalog Is Cool, Again

Sales Trilogy: Part One showcased the final week of 2011 and some of the basic indicators for country music’s sales performance. (Read it HERE.) Sales Trilogy: Part Two will put the year’s achievements in perspective across genres, by artist, by sales format and by market share.

Regular readers know that the source of this year-end data, is Nielsen SoundScan. Special thanks to Scoop Marketing’s Anna Loynes who is instrumental in compiling and distributing the coveted information.

For those living in a units-based world, it was a good year. Total album sales rose 1.3% to 326.2 million units and if we include TEA (track equivalent albums) in that tally the increase was a healthy 3.2%.

Genres posting the highest gains by percentage were Jazz (+26%; 11.07 million), New Age (+16.2%; 1.93 million), Electronic (+15%; 10.05 million) and Classical (+6.8%; 9.57 million). Coincidence or not, these high-growth genres all qualify for “Long Tail” niche status. Are we seeing a shift in buying habits or is this a reflection of increased availability of catalog due to digital formats? Either way it is something for marketers of these diverse genres to watch.

Formats suffering the slings and arrows of negative growth were Soundtracks (-19.4%; 13.23 million), Latin (-4.3%; 11.81 million), R&B (-4.2%; 55.44 million), Christian/Gospel (-2%; 23.73 million) and Country (-1.8%; 42.92 million).

As expected, Digital track sales (+8.5%) and Digital Album Sales (+19.5%) continued to erode physical format dominance. Digital albums as a percent of Total album sales are now 31.2% compared with 26.4% for 2010. (country digital albums as a percentage of total country album sales are 19%.) This means that over 68% of album sales are still in physical format.

Some “Did you know?” party chatter—In 2010 and 2011 there were 13 albums that sold one million or more units and 35 albums made it into the 500k-999k category both years.

Catalog was an important element in carving out the positive 2011 sales landscape. Looking at overall album sales, deep catalog jumped 12.5%, regular catalog increased 8.9% while current sales fell -4.2%. That trend was most pronounced in the digital arena. Deep digital catalog skyrocketed 23.1%, with overall catalog rising 19.8%.

Market Share
The album market share discussion is colored this year by the knowledge that UMG (29.85%) and EMI (9.62%) are planning to integrate in the coming year. This would give the new combined entity almost 40% of the total sales pie leaving Sony Music (29.29%) and Warner Music Group (19.13%) as distant challengers.

Billboard Top Ten Artist Airplay Based Upon Nielsen BDS (2011 calendar year)

Artist Stats
And now to the artist discussion. Whatever question is asked, guess Adele and her album 21, and odds are almost 100% you will be correct. Adele sold 6.744 million units and in the process earned the No. 1 position for Top Selling Album and Artist. Her track “Rolling In The Deep” was top Selling Digital Track (5.813 million). Nashville, unfortunately was mostly MIA with regard to the various top ten sales lists. However, on the Top Selling Album List Jason Aldean was No. 5 (1.576 million) and Lady Antebellum placed No. 10 (1.2 million). In the Top Artist sweeps Lady A, Jason and Taylor Swift placed in positions 6, 8 and 9 respectively. (see above chart)

 Factoids
>>For the second straight year, Lady Antebellum finishes the year as the biggest selling group of 2011 with more than 2.1 million album sales.

>>Garth Brooks continues to be comfortably the best selling artist in the Nielsen SoundScan era with more than 68.5 million album sales; 5 million sales ahead of the Beatles.

>>Katy Perry ends the year as the most played artist over the airways in 2011 with more than 1.4 million spins; edging out Bruno Mars by 17,000 spins.

>>In 2011, 31% of all albums purchased were through a digital service like iTunes, Amazonmp3 or eMusic, an increase of 5 points from 2010.

SiriusXM Adds 1.7M Subscribers in 2011

Sirius XM Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) announced yesterday it ended the year with nearly 21.9 million subscribers, reporting approximately 540,000 net new subscribers in the fourth quarter and approximately 1,700,000 for the full year 2011.

“Based on preliminary subscriber data, we are very pleased to announce that SiriusXM exceeded its subscriber guidance for the year. Our subscriber growth accelerated in 2011 as net additions grew approximately 20%, delivering our best year for net additions since the merger and demonstrating the strong continuing demand for our unmatched audio content,” said Mel Karmazin, Chief Executive Officer, SiriusXM.

SiriusXM broadcasts more than 135 satellite radio channels of commercial-free music, and premier sports, news, talk, entertainment, traffic, weather, and data services to its subscribers.

Davidson, EMI Renew Publishing Deal

Hit songwriter Dallas Davidson and EMI Music Publishing have entered a new co-publishing deal, extending their four-year relationship. EMI Music Publishing will continue to represent Davidson’s catalogue and future works on a worldwide basis in partnership with Davidson’s Two Chord Georgia Music.

Davidson’s recent hits include songs recorded by Lady Antebellum (“We Owned The Night”), Luke Bryan (“I Don’t Want This Night To End,” “Country Girl Shake It For Me”), Blake Shelton (“It’s All About Tonight”) and Montgomery/Gentry (“Where I Come From”). He was crowned this year’s BMI Songwriter of the Year and was awarded BMI’s Song Of The Year for “All Over Me” (Josh Turner).

EMI Music Publishing Nashville Executive Vice President Ben Vaughn said, “Dallas is a talented, driven, world class songwriter who writes songs that sell records and radio plays. Our entire EMI team could not be prouder to have partnered with him during his rise to the top of the charts many, many times. He cares deeply about his friends, his music, and he’s a great guy to go hang out with at The Cracker Barrel.”

“Today is a big day for me,” added Davidson. “I’m very excited to be moving forward with the EMI team. Ben Vaughn is the reason that I came here four short years ago and he has done everything he said he would. I believe in loyalty and friendships in this business and with EMI I have both. On the business side of things I see EMI, Ben Vaughn, and Big Jon Platt as the best of the best. Together we are extremely productive. Why in the hell would I wanna be anywhere else?”

Since his breakout 2006 hit “Honky Tonk Badonadonk” (Trace Adkins), Davidson has racked up 16 top 20 singles, including 12 No. 1s, a few of which include “Start a Band” (Brad Paisley & Keith Urban), “That’s How Country Boys Roll” (Billy Currington), “Rain Is A Good Thing” (Luke Bryan), “Gimmie That Girl” (Joe Nichols), “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away” (Justin Moore) and “Just A Kiss” (Lady Antebellum).

Carrie and Faith Appear in Tony Bennett Special

Carrie Underwood performs with Tony Bennett

A host of country and Nashville-related artists will appear with the legendary Tony Bennett for the January PBS special Tony Bennett: Duets II, a behind-the-scenes look at the recording of his acclaimed album Duets II.

Joining Bennett for performances of his greatest hits are Carrie Underwood, Faith Hill, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, Michael Buble, k.d. lang, Queen Latifah, Norah Jones, Josh Groban, Alejandro Sanz and more. The special is being shown as part of PBS’ Great Performances Series, and features stars singing with Bennett on his greatest hits during the Duets II recording sessions. In Music City, several sessions took place at Ben’s Studio on 17th Ave. S.

Highlights include Bennett and Faith Hill on “The Way You Look Tonight,” as well as Amy Winehouse’s final recording on “Body & Soul.” Full song program is included below.

Released in September 2011, Duets II topped sales charts and earned heaps of critical praise. It is currently nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Traditional Pop Vocal, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s).

Tony Bennett: Duets II is scheduled to air Friday, January 27. Check local listings for time.

Song Program:

“The Lady Is a Tramp” (Lady Gaga)
“One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” (John Mayer)
“Body and Soul” (Amy Winehouse)
“Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” (Michael Bublé)
“Blue Velvet” (k.d. lang)
“How Do You Keep the Music Playing” (Aretha Franklin)
“The Girl I Love” (Sheryl Crow)
“On the Sunny Side of the Street” (Willie Nelson)
“Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)” (Queen Latifah)
“Speak Low” (Norah Jones)
“This Is All I Ask” (Josh Groban)
“Watch What Happens” (Natalie Cole)
“Stranger in Paradise” (Andrea Bocelli)
“The Way You Look Tonight” (Faith Hill)
“Yesterday I Heard the Rain” (Alejandro Sanz)
“It Had to Be You” (Carrie Underwood)

Gibson Guitar Announces Strategic Partnership

The Gibson Guitar Corp. is continuing to diversify its range of products, following the announcement of a strategic partnership with consumer audio leader Onkyo Corporation. The arrangement will add technology resources to Gibson’s Pro Audio Division, which also includes KRK, Cerwin-Vega! and Stanton.

Through the arrangement, Gibson will acquire a majority of Onkyo USA and become the corporation’s second largest shareholder. Additionally, Gibson Chairman/CEO Henry Juszkiewicz will join the Onkyo board of directors and Onkyo CEO/President Munenori Otsuki will join Gibson’s board. The two entities will create a Hong Kong-based venture to design and develop consumer audio products.

“Onkyo makes some of the world’s best audio equipment, and this partnership will give Gibson the ability to bring a deeper and more enhanced audio experience to music lovers around the world,” says Juszkiewicz. “While people may be listening to more music, they are listening to it primarily in a severely compressed format. The aural disparity between a real system and compressed sound is vast, and as a result, they are simply not hearing tremendously rich sounds. With Onkyo, our goal is to bring the same exceptional experience artists demand in the studio to a larger consumer base.”

The agreements are still subject to Japanese regulatory clearance.

In other Gibson news, the New York Times is reporting that rocker (and Nashville resident) Peter Frampton was recently reunited with the Les Paul he played on his classic Frampton Comes Alive album. The guitar was previously thought destroyed in a plane crash in Venezuela, but was apparently removed from the wreckage and sold to a musician in Curacao who has been using it since then. Currently the instrument is at the Gibson Custom Shop in Nashville for minor repairs.

Sales Trilogy Part 1: 2011 Country Sales Mostly Flat

Breaking: According to Nielsen SoundScan, Country album sales have ended 2011 down 1.8% compared with 2010.

Another country sales year is now in the record books and it was a sixteenth-note type finish. Not as close as this year’s Republican presidential Iowa Caucus (8 votes), but hopefully more memorable.

Country album sales ended 2011 down 1.8% representing a total deficit of 795,000 units. But additionally, country benefited from the sale of 148 million digital tracks. This was the first year that country track sales were broken out by SoundScan, so we are unable to compare the tally with last year. But since all-genre track sales were up 8% for the year, and knowing that country digital album sales were up 27% this year, it is probably a safe guess that country track sales grew faster than the average 8%. In that case, a quick wave of the TEA magic wand (track equivalent album; 10 tracks= 1 album) would indicate that overall, 2011 country sales were flat or even a wee bit up.

We’ll have a detailed analysis of the year’s performance later in the week, but for now here is the post-holiday wrap.

Lady Antebellum owned the top of the chart again this week shifting over 53k units, followed by Jason Aldean, who got to throw his kinda party ringing up over 24k units. In the third position it was cheery Scotty McCreery, with over 22k units and a clear as day view of Platinum goalposts in his near future. Filling out the Top 10 in positions 4-10 were Luke Bryan, Toby Keith, Taylor Swift, The Band Perry, Zac Brown Band, Miranda Lambert and Eric Church (now in Gold+ status).

If you haven’t heard country’s latest party anthem, “Red Solo Cup,” then you really should get out more. It took four writers (two sets of twins) to perfect this remarkable ode to the disposable vessel of choice for holiday toasts. But it was worth it. Under Toby Keith’s inspired tutelage, the song is the embodiment of a big fat hit. This week it added over 206k downloads to its track sales total which is now over 904k. That showing was enough to earn a No. 11 position on the all genre Tracks chart, but not enough to get to first place which was owned by LMFAO (Laughing My F****ing A** Off). LMFAO’s “Sexy And I Know It” was downloaded an incredible 416k+ times.

Returning to the country tracks list, Taylor Swift landed in positions No. 2 and No. 4 with her “Safe & Sound” collaboration (151k+) and latest track, “Ours” (92k). Lucky Luke Bryan’s “I Don’t Want This Night To End,” moved to No. 3 with 128k+ downloads.

Factoids

  • YTD Digital album % of Total Album Sales—31.2% (same week YTD 2010—26.4%)
  • YTD Country Digital Album Sales % of Total Country Album Sales—19.1% (same week YTD 2010—14.7%)

Pandora Tussles Traditional Radio Over Ad Revenue

As recently as three years ago there was little or no mention of Pandora at the annual country radio broadcasters event in Nashville, CRS. Now a public company, Pandora is very much on radio’s radar. Some would say that Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio online streaming app is a direct response to the streaming giant which saw gross revenues of over $50 million last year.

So it should be no surprise that a competitive tug of war is brewing between terrestrial and Internet radio as the two business models spar for success, and more specifically—ad dollars.

According to a Wall Street Journal article (12/22) there is “an intensifying dispute between traditional radio broadcasters and online radio service Pandora Media Inc. over how their audiences are measured.” Answers to this question will of course have a direct effect on ad revenues.

Arbitron Inc. is responsible for measuring and providing audience estimates for terrestrial radio, but doesn’t currently measure online audiences for Pandora or other services.

Advertising revenue is especially important to the Pandora business model since it must pay royalties on every stream/listener that is participating. This means that its profits do not scale as the service acquires more listeners. Therefore ad revenues are a critical component for success. One assumes that with that underlying motive, Pandora employed firm Edison Research to wrangle its online data to create an apples to apples metric comparing online listeners with traditional radio listeners.

Realizing what was at stake, traditional radio fired back by demanding Arbitron issue a report discounting the new metrics as not being directly comparable to Arbitron audience data.

If it all sounds confusing, it is actually very simple. Traditional radio has the largest piece of the ad revenue pie, and is determined to keep it. WSJ noted, “Pandora founder Tim Westergren said in an interview that Arbitron’s statements were part of a ‘concerted effort’ to keep his company out of the radio industry even as online radio becomes a credible competitor. ‘The broadcast industry does not want the world to know about us, basically, he added.”

Earlier in the week Clear Channel subsidiary Katz 360 cut ties with Pandora and said it would cease to sell digital ad time on online services like Pandora.

CoverGirl Gets Lashed For Taylor Ad

Thanks to her relationship with CoverGirl, Taylor Swift has brought her youthful visage to the pages of glossy magazines everywhere. But there’s a new advertisement with our beloved T-Sweezy that won’t be appearing in print in the near future. Super sadface.

According to the New York Times’ Media Decoder blog, the ad for CoverGirl’s NatureLuxe Mousse Mascara was “enhanced” to make Taylor’s lashes look even more full. Then those killjoys in the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division got wind of the doctoring and ruled it “misleading,” prompting CoverGirl owner Procter & Gamble to yank the ads.

The Times article explains that N.A.D. examined the ad’s claims and the implied benefits, determining that the enhanced photos wouldn’t provide an exact facsimile of Taylor’s lustrous lashes. Ads don’t typically get pulled for “airbrushing,” so it’s apparently a pretty thin line for what constitutes fraudulent advertising.

Which is strange, because let’s face it: advertisements, particularly in television, regularly “enhance” the truth in all manner of ways to exploit us. Like, oh no, can I really not get ripped abs without exerting any actual effort or thwart bank robberies using only a buffalo chicken sandwich? Now I suppose you’re going to tell me that it doesn’t work out between Kim Kardashian and what-his-name? Wait, don’t tell me. I want it to be a surprise.

In fairness, CoverGirl did add some fine print to the Taylor spot that reads “lashes enhanced in post production.” See? No harm done. I wonder if a generation of dudes wishes that Axe Body Spray had put fine print to the effect of “spraying Axe body spray will not make an army of scantily clad women cross the ocean for you”?

In other Taylor news, she gave fans an early Christmas present (via Instragram) last night (12/22) with the release of “Safe & Sound,” a collaboration with The Civil Wars that appears on The Hunger Games soundtrack. It is available for digital download in the iTunes store right now.

Also, these hamsters rule. Just sayin’.

Swift, Chesney Score Year’s Top Tours

It’s no secret Taylor Swift and Kenny Chesney had two of the biggest tours of 2011, and just-released year-end numbers show exactly how big.

Swift’s box office receipts totaled $97.3 million, and Chesney’s were $84.6 million, according to Billboard Boxscore, which tracked data from ticket sales between Nov. 1, 2010 and Nov. 8, 2011.

U2’s record-breaking 360 tour wrapped its final leg in 2011, raking in $293.3 million at the box office, and moving almost 3 million tickets, to become the year’s biggest outing, according to the report. Since launching in 2009 it brought in more than $736,000,000, and more than 7 million fans, all-time highs for the touring industry.

Subjekt TNT HeadPhones Offer Sonic Surprise

Earphones, headphones and over-the-ear phones have become an essential accessory in today’s digital life. But each device has its own personality and therefore no one style is the absolute best for everyone. That realization immediately launches the question, “Yeah, but which one is best for me?”

The answer depends upon how you use your listening device. In what kinds of situations do you listen, to what types of content and equally important, what are your expectations?

Personally, I do most of my music listening at the gym—lifting weights, running on the treadmill, stretching and spinning. (Yeah, it takes a lot of work to look this good!) So to me, the most important considerations are comfort and sound. I have found over-the-ear phones to be the best sounding style in general because they isolate your ears. But they are not comfortable. In fact, the idea of wearing my large “ear cans” in the gym simply never crossed my mind.

For the past year or so I’ve been using a $90 pair of ear buds with silicone noise isolation inserts. I was comfortable with these, so testing the Subjeckt T.N.T. low profile headphones didn’t immediately seem like a good idea.

I did however, finally consent to take ‘em for a work out. List price is $49.99 on these ear flaps which come in eight different bright styles/colors. My first question was, “Would they be comfortable for my needs?” Answer, “Yes.”

Very lightweight, they they fit firmly against my ears, but without pushing down on my head. That made them seem absolutely viable for use at the gym, although I wasn’t sure how the looser fit might translate in terms of the sound. (According to official specs, the range covers 20Hz to 20KHZ and features a 40mm Neodymium magnetic driver.)

I discovered something very interesting about the Subjekt’s DNA which I believe is intentional. They are bass heavy. Well, they would be bass heavy if you put your hands to them and pushed them firmly against your ears throughout your listening session. But of course no one does that. So given the comfort factor of this low profile design, the extra bass actually translates to “just right.” I also found that by altering the EQ on my phone I could adjust the sonic curve for different kinds of music.

So yes, here I am wearing a pair of headphones that cost about half of the buds I’m used to and frankly I like them, I like them a lot. There is an audio fatigue factor that travels with the buds that was thankfully missing from the TNT phones. Also a plus was the rubbery 4 ft. no-tangle cord and the bright colors which deliver a dose of cool.

So if you see me at the gym, you’ll note I’ve switched sound gear and am now wearing the white Subjekts shown above, and that’s probably the best way to sum up this review.