What HMV Tells Us About the Death of Physical Media Products
UK media retailer HMV (LSE: HMV) has announced that it will close 60 of its UK stores following very disappointing Christmas period sales (normally the most important sales period). Sales were 10 percent down compared to 2009.
The cold snowy weather has been blamed in part, but that is like blaming a common cold for a plague sufferer’s demise. The rot set in long ago and largely (though not entirely) due to factors outside of HMV’s control.
HMV is a victim of the Media Meltdown. Consumers are falling out of love with physical media products and unfortunately are not yet anywhere close to entering into whirlwind romances with premium digital products. The net result is declining sales across massive swathes of HMV’s product portfolio.
Of course consumers still love media. They’re even paying for a lot of it (e.g. Pay TV). But the Media Meltdown loosened the monopoly of control enjoyed by media companies and retailers. We are currently in the midst of a painful transition, and we don’t yet have a set of next generation media products that consumers will pay for on the scale they paid for physical products.
It may be that people will never pay directly for media products in such numbers ever again. It’s certain the media retailers will have a vastly diminished role to play on the high street and in the mall.Read the full story at Paidcontent.co.uk.
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