Survey: 30% Of U.S. Never Use The Net
Can the music industry afford to ignore 30% of its potential customer base?
A new survey by The Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration shows that 30% of U.S. consumers do not access the internet, but for most it's not because they don't want to.
When asked why they have no Internet connection at home, "don't need/not interested" represented 16.7% of those surveyed, "too expensive" was the answer for 38.9%. And when dial-up net users were asked why they don't upgrade to broadband, "not interested "shrank to 7.3% and "too expensive" jumped to 41.3%.
Answers for the music industry:
One solution is certainly to support The Obama administration's efforts to spread affordable broadband access to poorer and rural areas. But another interim strategy could be to not abandon the physical format so quickly and – just as the experts preach in the digital realm – make the product available wherever the consumer spends their time.
If Wal-Mart want to shrink thier music section, would Dollar General make space for a brave rack jobber? Or what about music pop-up stores across from arena size concerts or at the county fair?
Read the full Digital Nation survey results. (pdf)
Certainly the music pop-up store concept is a good one. A simple extension to the internet cafe would be a CD burner/printer for on demand manufacturing, once the customer had sampled the whole catalog to their delight. This eliminates the whole physical distribution channel which is terribly wasteful.
Well, iTunes and amazon can certainly ignore these 30% because they never calculated with these people as a target audience in the first place. But indie labels and self-releasing artists would most certainly gladly take any income that interest in their product would generate from these 30% of potential customers.
It remains to be tried out if the on-demand physical CD-R store can compete with other solutions, but this concept offers the chance to self-releasing artists to really have their product for sale worldwide.
And when it’s a physical product like CD-R, why stick with the crappy mp3 compression? Lossless music sounds so much better. It’s about time iTunes turns to *.flac
That study doesnt take into account smart phone usage…which among minorities, the latino & black communities, are THE gateway to the net because they dont have computers in the household.
Nice headline though, definitely gives physical cd enthusiasts some ammo.
So which is it – The Music Industry is stupid for ignoring 30% of its audience, as in this headline … or The Music Industry is stupid for believing that CDs will last, as in last week’s Lucien Grange headline?
Fair point Believe Only. But Grange said CD’s would out live him and I’m assuming he’s got a a good 30+ years left.
Not ignoring the 30% is about leaving money on the table to.
See the diff?
I’ve worked in the Big System and I’ve worked with independent artists and can tell you that most artists and entities want to be able to sell to as wide an audience as feasible. The economics of physical distribution (as well as the shrinking physical sales base) mean that a number of independent artists (and select major projects) are making the decision to go digital-only; however if they could find a way to make sure that their CDs had a pretty good shot at selling through, and being in the right place at the right time for consumer demand, they’d be doing physical sales in a heartbeat.
Personally, I think (and it’s probably a bit stubborn but there you are…) that it’s quite likely that the CD – or at least SOME physical format – will survive for the next 30 years. Believe me, that 30% Not On The Net figure reverberated loudly around the halls of at least one major when it first surfaced a couple of years ago.
That is 90 million people, 90 million, they have always been ignored, people really think that everyone lives on the coast
This probably totally obvious, the significance of this depends entirely on your genre and circumstance. If you’re in mainstream country, I’m sure CD (and associated distribution chains) is king. If you’re a extra-fashionable indie rocker, vinyl might be more important than CD. But if you play live, having CDs is surely at least important as download cards or USB drives.