NYT: Labels Halt Downloads to Increase CD Sales

[Damion Chaplin]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/arts/music/09sing.html?_r=1&hp&ex&oref=slogin' target='_blank'>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/arts/music/09sing.html?_r=1&hp&ex&oref=slogin</a><br /><br /></div><i>"...Even though fans could hear [Ne-Yo's] "So Sick" on the radio for the last two months, they couldn't buy it at popular online services like iTunes or Rhapsody, or anywhere else for that matter. Breaking from the music industry's current custom, the singer's label — Island Def Jam — decided not to sell "So Sick" as an individual song before Ne-Yo's album hit stores last week. Label executives worried that releasing the track too early might cut into sales of the full CD — a fear that figures heavily in the music world's lumbering entry into the digital marketplace."</i><br /><br />Wow. Could not allowing the single to be downloaded until the day the album debuts actually cause the album to enter at #1 on the charts? Could it actually increase sales of the digital single when it does finally become available? It doesn't seem likely, but their numbers sure are interesting. Take a look at the article and let me know what you think.

[Felix Torres]

No shocker.
The same logic was used to kill the old 45rpm singles way back in the day.
(Or so I hear.) ;-)

Makes sense, too; folks that are only interested in hit singles won't buy albums unless they have no choice. Take the alternative away and album sales go up.
Doesn't mean you make more money, though; just that album sales go up. In exchange, you lose the singles buyers...

Delaying release of the singles is more of a short term solution; it merely steers the most trendy buyers to the album. Less lemming-like buyers will simply wait for the single to be release.

[Jason Dunn]

Less lemming-like buyers will simply wait for the single to be release.

And how many of THOSE are there? ;-)