When's the last time you bought a CD? A recent survey conducted by Audio-Technica in the UK found that 40 percent simply couldn't remember the last time, while 20 percent reported downloading something in the last week.
So what about the rest? Nearly half (49 percent) felt that free downloading was perfectly acceptable, which probably means a much larger percentage actually felt that way. In the end, the once-stable British album is now starting to crash, just like the US so many years ago.
Here's the year-by-year change over the past few years, for combined physical and digital albums.
The current story in the US seems more tame, though deeply-discounted catalog albums are providing some CPR. Our recent projection found the format finally kicking the bucket in 2022, using conservative decline estimates.
