Conference marvin::uk_music

575.0. "`High' price of CDs" by JUMBLY::OCONNOR (Fifty ways to leave a Notesfile) Thu Jan 04 1990 17:24

    This might interest someone. It's a report in today's Guardian about the
    `high' prices of compact discs. I'm still sticking with cassettes, one
    reason being that a lot of the `world' music I buy is not available on
    CD.

    BTW - I'm still on holiday - that's why I'm finding so much time to
    note today. (In Mervue, Galway actually).


 
                      ***PRICE OF CDs `TOO HIGH'***

CDs are a `rip-off' because `profiteering' record companies are keeping the
typical 11 pounds price artifically high, the Consumers Association claimed
yesterday.

Vinyl LPs cost almost as much to make but sell for at least 4 pounds less,
according to a report in Which? magazine.

About 40 million CDs were sold in Britain last year, overtaking vinyl LPs
for the first time. But only 15% of households have CD players and a survey
of 2,000 people conducted by the association last August, reveals a high
level of dissatisfaction with cost of CDs.

A third of CD player owners said the cost limited the number of discs they
bought, while around a fifth of those without players gave the high cost of
discs as the reason for not buying one.

The British Phonographic Industry, which represents the record companies ,
said CDs would cost about 17 pounds if they had kept pace with inflation.

But the Consumers' Association said manufacturing costs of the discs had
halved since 1983 and the market had expanded - conditions which have
enabled the companies to cut costs while retaining their profit margins.

"New products...tend to get cheaper as the market expands and manufacturing
techniques develop" said the Which? report. "Over the same period, the
price of CD players, for example, has more than halved".

The BPI claimed yesterday that the record companies had passed falls in
manufacturing costs to the record shops.

But the Which? survey said that this applied primarily to the smaller,
independent record companies.

The big record companies, with one exception, continue to charge the shops
7 pounds 30 pence for CDs.


			    The Guardian Thursday Jan 4th '90.  
 
    

    For a more realistic price of CDs look at the American CD & CDSWAP
    notesfiles.                                                   
                                                                  
    Similarly, LPs always were a lot cheaper in the U.S. - funny how the
    UK industry used to squeek about losing money on LPs and across
    the water they were about 40% less.
            
    Richard.