Phasing out of Compact Disc

CD's won't go away with a whisper or like a thief in the night. Like all changes that'll not likely be well received by everyone it will be a sudden announcement made unilaterally (by the powers that be) - and Then everybody will scream the sky is falling...

Within just 6 months after the initial introduction of the CD in 1982, 50% of the existing LP manufacturing plants in North America had closed their doors - and they had done so at a time when CD sales still made up only a small fraction of the remaining music media sales. More LP closures were to follow after that. Apparently the LP did not die because of "sales" actually, but because of a calculated decision to shut LP production down, having the effect of giving the masses no real alternative but to switch to CD's.

The unanswered question in my mind has been whether or not the early shut downs (in the face of the still rather large LP share of the market at the time) had become, in fact, largely contractual? Or was it simply a result of the industry "come-to-Jesus" meeting that undoubtedly would've occurred before and as the CD was being launched (and the LP manufacturers simply saw the writing on the wall and *voluntarily* closed their doors in the face of expectations of plummeting sales and mounting [internal] industry hype).

But, I am curious as to why so many LP makers caved as early as they did. Were they paid or compensated to close their doors when they did?...in order to facilitate a speedy changeover to CD that otherwise, were it left to be sales driven in a free market, might have dragged out longer than industry backers of CD might have been financially willing to accept?

Can I get a "kickback" here??

Might there be similar deals brewing behind closed doors now in respect to downloads or streaming? I'm thinking yes, but we'll see. Happy listening.

I, too, think the cassette format (as it existed in from the late 70's to the mid 80's) was vastly underrated. It's just that I never met a prerecorded cassette that I liked, and you have to have a format you can record from (besides radio).

Martykl,

"I don't know the contractual dynamics behind the decisions to shut LP production facilities in 1982/1983, but I do know that LP sales had been essentially flat for a decade by that time. Over the course of that same 10 year period, cassette sales went from less than 10% of the market to more than 50% of the market (units sold, long play capacity)".

Agreed, certainly.

"The opportunity to resell the catalog in the new format was surely compelling...".

Could be...but I'm not so sure. We take it for granted any more that such a formula is tried and true, however at the time it may have seemed a little more risky to those involved, than today. What if it flopped?..and all that. I even suspect that the more record plants that closed early on the more incentive was created for the remaining ones to stay open and play for the money that they believed was left on the table as a result, but that's just a suspicion of mine.

"I'd still characterize the dynamic as cassettes killing LP and CD killing cassettes (especially once CD gained usable recording capability in the early 1990s)".

I'd say all that had to be a contributing factor...however, due to copyright problems, CD recording actually never got off the ground sales-wise and still hasn't...but, if I recall, the perception, at least, that it would allow users to make "perfect" copies was in the air in those days.

O_holter, yeah, I suppose it's possible I could be nuts on all that, but I just haven't come across anything that I could say that fits the facts any better for me, so far anyway. But, that sort of thing is fairly typical of big money. (Rush fans remember that song??)

I do remember my first CD player: a 2nd-generation Pioneer 6-disc changer in '83. All the magazine articles I'd been reading had been shouting: "Do CD's sound better than vinyl, or worse?" and never really seemed to pick a side. Excited and eager to unwrap and take my first listen, it took all of about 5 seconds to realize in my mind that it was all apparently a pretty sad joke, Lol. And I recall my vinyl rig at the time (also a Pioneer), with cartridge, weighed in at about $250. But, somehow I decided to be a trooper and carry on...maybe someday they would improve things with it. Very recently I believe I've now persisted in getting CD to sound as good as, or even better in most ways, to vinyl (not without a Ton of electronic noise reduction, though)...but, that has only taken me, what?...about 30 years?...Lol!