CD price cuts aimed at young buyers
By Kyle Munson
Gannett News Service
The world's largest record company, Universal Music Group, is slashing the price of its CDs in an effort to woo back young consumers it says have been illegally downloading songs off the Internet.
Yet some young consumers seem oblivious to the price drop.
"As long as there's a free option, it's going to be hard for someone like me to change," said Tyler Marciniak, a Drake University junior who regularly downloads his favorite songs using his desktop computer. Marciniak said it's been several years since he's bought a CD.
He and his friends live in a technologically savvy world where they can hear a new song on a satellite radio in their cars, find the song on the Internet, download it, and walk across campus listening to it on a portable digital player. It's that behavior the record company is trying to counteract.
Instead of downloading music for free, UMG wants consumers either to buy CDs or pay a fee for downloading songs.
Kay Palan, an associate professor of marketing at Iowa State University in Ames, wondered if the music industry's moves had arrived too late.
"My gut feeling tells me that it might affect some purchase patterns, but that it probably isn't going to be enough to change the trend," she said.
The music industry has unveiled ways to lure young consumers into legitimately paying for music downloaded from the Internet. Apple's iTunes (www.apple.com/itunes) service has sold millions of songs for 99 cents each. San Diego-based MusicMatch Downloads (www.musicmatch.com) offers its own 99-cents-a-song service to the much larger Windows market.
Meanwhile, major retail chains say they're still hashing out the details of UMG's price drop.
"We're very supportive of this move in general and think it will have a positive impact on customers ... and hopefully will drive some sales volume," said Anne Roman, a spokeswoman at Borders Books and Music's corporate headquarters in Ann Arbor, Mich. "Our intent is to carry that savings forward to customers."
