Want to see something interesting? Hop over to Wikipedia‘s page on the list of best-selling albums in the US. There are 104 that have been certified 10x platinum or better (having sold 10 million units or more). Of these only six were released in the 2000s, and none appear after 2004. All six of these sold in the 10-11 million copy range. By way of comparison, there are 52 albums that have sold 12 million copies or better. We haven’t had a real “monster hit” of an album since Garth Brooks released “Double Live” in 1998. I don’t need to draw much of a line here between the dropoff in album purchases and the rise of internet music downloads. We buy songs now, not albums. We don’t buy “greatest hits” anymore, we make our own lists.
So why should this interest us? Because people are now buying and streaming their own TV shows. Just as I can make my own music playlists, so can I make “The Steve Network” of programs I want to watch. If your business is dependent upon a night of network programming, you need to see this trend for what it is, and find solutions that involve creating popular, original, local programming for every platform out there.
