

The REAL Death Of The Music Industry - harshpotatoes
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-charts-explain-the-real-death-of-the-music-industry-2011-2

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Isamu
Could anyone shed some light on the vast disparity between these figures and
the ones that come from Nielsen Soundscan?

These graphs come from the RIAA data which have always tracked shipments, not
sales (except, presumably, for digital) from the music companies themselves.

Nielsen Soundscan tracks data from actual sales, and shows sales of billions
less than the RIAA data. These tracked sales have been growing steadily for
the past 10 years.

Could the RIAA data include shipments outside the US? Could shipments be so
wildly out-of-sync with actual sales? How could the distribution channels be
stuffed with so many times more merchandise than is actually consumed?

Soundscan here: [http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/industries/media-
entertainment/...](http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/industries/media-
entertainment/music.html)

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harshpotatoes
I can't see the soundscan charts, but some of the later charts are inflation
adjusted, are you comparing those to Nielson's possibly non-inflation numbers?

Regardless, I think it's more interesting to look at the proportions from one
year to the next than to compare the dollar value.

