Are The Beatles responsible for music's digital growth in 2011?

Nielsen announced yesterday that music sales in the US are up 1.6 percent in 2011. That might not seem like a lot, but for the embattled music industry, any growth is good news. Interestingly, Nielsen seems to ascribe the growth of music sales to The Beatles' deal with Apple. As Nielsen says in its report, "Catalog album sales are up 5.4 percent in 2011, thanks in part to a long-awaited 2010 deal allowing digital distribution of The Beatles' albums for the first time." The Fab Four's music exclusively went on sale on iTunes in November to much fanfare.

I, for one, hate when someone can't admit when they were wrong, so let me say that I myself didn't think The Beatles news was that big of a deal. If Nielsen is right, it looks like I was very wrong. However, Peter Kafka at All Things D does seems to come to my rescue by saying that he has "a hard time believing the 'Love Me Do' bump extended into March and April," six months after The Beatles' debut on iTunes. But with the music industry the way it is, maybe The Beatles did help fuel a turnaround.

Other interesting stats from the Nielsen report include a decline in physical album sales year-over-year while digital album and track purchases increased 16.8 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively, and digital retailers, like Apple's iTunes, received more than half of all music transactions.

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Source: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/cue-the-music-d…

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Nielsen announced yesterday that music sales in the US are up 1.6 percent in 2011. That might not seem like a lot, but for the...

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Josh

The Beatles release on iTunes was a significant release in terms of digital releases. This marked the first ever digital release of the beatles collection. I know several people who purchased iOS devices and started iTunes accounts simply for this reason. I also know a number of people who had iTunes but were really unaware of the content and ability to access that content until the Beatles release. I was personally stoked to see them come to iTunes and in the end the numbers don't lie! Increases in online/digital media consumption are obvious. Is this increase directly measurable by the Beatles release? Seems to be related. At the end of the day if you're not a Beatles fan do you really care? I don't know but the hype got you talking about it...

May 13 2011 at 12:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

TM_M

No. The Beatles Suck

May 13 2011 at 12:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Thomas Platt

The Beatles haven't been responsible for anything since sometime in the 70's. Their music, their culture, and their worldview, on the other hand, may have something to do with stuff and junk. I know I'm just splitting hairs, it's fun when you have no life, so don't judge, please. :P I miss George and John... :(

May 13 2011 at 12:12 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

big.boss

any growth is good news - that's true. That is all that is necessary to say
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May 13 2011 at 7:23 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

hackmack

"No one will by Beatles Albums online. Everyone already owns them!" Lol

May 13 2011 at 6:25 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

pcmann

Enough said.

http://youtu.be/kTQVVDyIiQc

May 12 2011 at 10:23 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

spikepoint

It's anecdotal at best, but my retired mom had me set up her iTunes account so that she could download Sgt. Pepper's when I visited her for Christmas, and now I get an email from her every few days talking about this or that record she's gotten.

May 12 2011 at 8:45 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Josh Zytkiewicz

It could be that a big announcement like The Beatles introduced more people to the concept of buying their music digitally. They may not necessarily be buying The Beatles, but the large amount of mainstream news coverage probably resulted in a lot of people checking out iTunes that may have never used it before.

May 12 2011 at 8:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Moose

Fanfare.

May 12 2011 at 8:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply