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Business News Labels & Publishers Retail
Record industry considering global street day for new releases
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 13 August 2014
Record industries worldwide are being encouraged to adopt a standard release day, to simplify things for global digital platforms and to remove frustrations amongst consumers in countries where new releases go on sale later in the week.
In each country, most labels put new releases on sale on the same day, for example Monday in the UK, Tuesday in the US and Friday in Australia. Pre-digital the inconsistencies from country to country didn’t really matter (indeed releases wouldn’t necessarily always be in the same week worldwide anyway), so each market picked a day of the week that seemed to perform best in terms of sales, and which complemented local marketing, media and chart strategies.
But some argue that in the digital age regional variations in release times don’t make sense, because even if marketing campaigns are still managed on a local level, online hype is global, and differing release dates make social media messaging confusing. Plus some argue that in countries with later in the week release days, piracy is higher because as soon as tracks are legitimately available in the UK, they start circulating via unofficial channels in countries like Australia, where fans are pissed off they can’t currently access tunes via iTunes and the streaming platforms.
According to Billboard, a universal release date of Friday is currently preferred by the majors and most of the digital music platforms, and some insiders reckon that could become the global street date by next summer. Though word has it some high street retailers and indies in countries with an early-in-the-week release day are not so keen on the idea, because they benefit from a flurry of hardline music fans, eager to get the latest releases first, early in the week, with more casual music consumers following at the weekend.
One label exec admitted to Billboard: “This global streetdate is necessary for the industry but unfortunately it will be awkward for the physical retailers to change their ways of doing business. Now, they could have two-thirds of their sales in one day”.
