Forrester Research: MP3s beneficial for music biz

[TankGirl]

The Register has a story on a fresh survey by Forrester Research. 1000 music customers were interviewed, and the conclusions are interesting:

"The idea that digital music is responsible for slump is completely false," concludes Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff.

Forrester attributes the 15 per cent slump in music sales to a number of other factors. The economy is in a slump, there's much more competition from games, from DVDs - which saw an 80 per cent rise in sales - and most interestingly - from the "limited playlists" rotated by commercial US radio stations.

Forrester notes that one company, ClearChannel controls 60 per cent of radio, so new artists don't get the opportunity to be heard.

"Playlists are very short," it notes.

Check also Forrester's own summary in here.

- tg