gregb@hpgrla.UUCP (gregb) (05/03/85)
Any ideas on how long any given title on CD will be available? Greg Brake / Hewlett-Packard hpda!hpfcla!hpgrla!gregb
greg@olivee.UUCP (Greg Paley) (05/07/85)
> > Any ideas on how long any given title on CD will be available? > A couple of months ago I saw an article on this subject in Gramophone. The article centered on the CD manufacturing process and there were comments by one of the managers of the Polygram plant in Hanover. CD demand has apparently far surpassed the expectations of the manufacturers. In Europe, in particular, many record companies were convinced that the high price would restrict CD's to a relatively elite crowd. This has not been the case. In many areas record stores are suffering from a glut of vinyl LP's that, if their program material is also available on CD, are just not moving. People are either buying the CD or else waiting until they will be able to afford the CD. This has made it difficult for the manufacturing plants to meet the demand. Therefore, companies are forced to give priority to the "hottest" items. What this means in terms of CD availability of a particular title is that it depends on the company's estimate of the market impact of that title. If they count on a heavy moneymaker, the CD will probably appear simultaneously with the LP, if not before. Generally, new titles will be given higher priority than material which has been out for a while on LP, since sales on most material reaches a peak shortly after initial release. As far as CD issues of older material, digitally mastered items are likely to appear first except in the case where an analogue recording was an unusually good, solid seller. If the availability of a particular older, analogue recording on CD in the absence of certain digitally mastered material seems puzzling, you might need to consider that the U.S. may not have been the target market. For example, recordings by Toscanini on RCA and Furtwaengler on EMI dating from the 40's and early 50's have been best sellers in Japan for the last 15 years or so. This accounts for their presence on CD, even though they are mono and (particularly in the case of the Toscanini) by no means representative of the best sonic achievements of their time. If you are anxious to see a particular recording on CD, it might not hurt to write to the company and express your feelings. If their is enough feedback of this sort, it is bound to enter into prioritizing decisions. Otherwise, you have to depend on the company's marketing staff. - Greg Paley
rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) (05/16/85)
[] A further four cents worth on this subject: 1) I noticed in a source which I have forgotten that CD runs tended to be very small compared to vinyl runs so that with a fixed production capability, a large number of titles could be produced. This accounted for the observed fact (at least last year) that titles came and went and when they went, they didn't come back. Also that trying to order through any normal channel (record store) was futile. 2) More recently, an industry source I am not at liberty to name advised a small group of which I am a member that the big record mfrs have discovered that pop-rock titles sell like hotcakes in CD. So, you take your typical pop classic with sales of 21 million discs and you divide by your plant capacity of 400,000 per month, and then you tell all the classical discs waiting for production to get lost. This explains why, when I visited Sam Goody last night I found little classical stock and prices higher than ever - oh yeah, and the classical stuff pushed to the back of the store, while up front theres this big section of pop-rock CDs. Oh, yes. He also observed that no one was putting any more money into increased CD production because it takes two years to start and then another year to get yields up to an acceptable level, plus some number of millions which I have forgotten (37?). The mfrs don't want to risk all that loot when technology may completely change the market in that time with,say, digital cassettes or something else. ...Sigh... -- "It's the thought, if any, that counts!" Dick Grantges hound!rfg
phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (05/18/85)
In article <1160@hound.UUCP> rfg@hound.UUCP (R.GRANTGES) writes: >Oh, yes. He also observed that no one was putting any more money into >increased CD production because it takes two years to start and then >another year to get yields up to an acceptable level, plus some >number of millions which I have forgotten (37?). The mfrs don't >want to risk all that loot when technology may completely change >the market in that time with,say, digital cassettes or something else. Yeah, man, it's a bummer. They should try making semiconductors... -- What do you do the day after a peak experience? Phil Ngai (408) 749-5720 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.ARPA