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French recording revenues continue to decline
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 6 May 2009
The value of the French wholesale record industry fell by 16.4% year on year in the first quarter of 2009 which, given that French record sales have been slumping for years so were pretty miserable to start with, is rather depressing. Physical sales were down 18.5% and, perhaps more worryingly for French record companies, digital revenues were down 1% too, though mainly because of a considerable slump in ring-tone sales.
Royalty revenues from online streaming platforms and subscription-based services both rose considerably though, and while they are still a relatively small part of the overall business at the moment, look like they could become increasingly important in the coming years.
Those services, of course, will presumably benefit in terms of traffic if the French government do, as promised, crack down on illegal file-sharing, cutting off the internet connections of persistent online copyright infringers who fail to head warnings. The legislative proposals to make that happen continue to work their way through the French parliament.
As previously reported, the initial proposals were delayed after being voted down in the French Assembly when government supporting MPs were few and far between because of the Easter break. The government is busy trying to push the proposals back through parliament, and while they will probably ultimately be successful in making the three-strike system law, there are likely to be more delays – discussions have already been pushed back because opposition MPs have filed so many amendment proposals.
