There’s an interesting piece in Billboard that says that the recording industry is considering Friday as a worldwide release day for albums. Currently, Australia releases on Friday and the UK street date is Monday. In the US, albums, software, books and home video are all released on Tuesday.
The reason for the consolidation? Combating global piracy, of course. 🙂
According to Billboard, not everyone agrees with the idea of a Friday street date:
While sources say that digital music service providers like the Friday street date, not all physical merchants have given the change their blessing; some indie labels and indie merchants are opposed to having the global street date on Friday. They say they like the concept of having street dates early in the week because they feel it helps sell more CDs — devout customers of an artist will come in on Tuesday while others will come in on payday, which is usually at the end of the week. Yet, in the end, brick-and-mortar stores and indie labels may not have much say in picking which day of the week functions as the global street date.
If adopted, the new street date would probably begin in 2015.
While I am not sure about the plan that the labels are proposing, it is encouraging to see things moving in a more universal direction. We live in a global economy now, and it would be nice to see new releases available to all fans at the same time, no matter where they are in the world. What do you think?
–Glinda
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