So Long, CDs — Billboard Boots All Physical Sales Data from ‘Market Watch’ Following Vinyl Removal

The latest installment of Billboard’s weekly “Market Watch” sales breakdown is here – minus figures pertaining to CDs and all other physical formats, which have been removed from the commercial snapshot.

As many already know, that U.S.-focused commercial snapshot consists of data provided by Luminate, which elicited strong indie-retail pushback after retooling its sales-calculation methodology at the top of 2024.

Followed by additional pivots in the wake of further opposition, this recalibration (at least according to critics) effectively excluded a number of record stores’ sales from the appropriate calculations – and spurred the creation of a rival indie-sales chart.

While substantial, that controversy was in retrospect only the tip of the iceberg. Previously, we explored in detail an apparent discrepancy between Luminate’s view of the Market Watch data and the way the relevant stats had been laid out by Billboard.

In a nutshell, the latter was pointing to a massive year-over-year decline in stateside vinyl sales – a stark contrast to, among other things, RIAA data and the wider resurgence often attributed to the format.

After DMN Pro tracked an ugly disagreement between higher-ups at the companies (which share a corporate parent), Billboard booted vinyl figures, presumably temporarily, from Market Watch altogether.

And last week, we noted that the “weekly national music consumption report” showed a 19.1% YoY decline for CD sales, once again contrasting stats from the RIAA and others.

Now, the curious episode has taken yet another strange turn: As initially highlighted – and as things stand – CDs and physical music sales generally are no longer part of Market Watch.

As a matter of fact, the entire “Album Consumption Units by Format” section, previously featuring CD, vinyl, track-equivalent, audio-on-demand-equivalent, digital, and “other” data, is absent from Market Watch for the week of October 24th.

Predictably, when they were live, all those categories save audio-on-demand equivalent displayed material YTD sales declines from 2023, a Wayback Machine screengrab indicates. Similarly, Billboard’s “Album Sale by Age” analysis of Luminate data, likewise absent from Market Watch at present, suggested sizable sales falloffs for both current and catalog releases.

It’s unclear exactly how the increasingly involved episode plays out from here – but given Luminate’s reach in the sales-data space, a statement (and an eventual formal update to Market Watch) would probably be a good place to start.

Due in part to the benefit of hindsight, we can see that it definitely wasn’t a great idea to spring for year-over-year sales comparisons amid Luminate’s above-mentioned methodology changes.

Even in the current Market Watch installment, Billboard maintains that “the new modeled methodology more accurately represents the independent retail market” – simultaneously emphasizing that “there is not available comparable historical data to provide an accurate year-over-year trend regarding physical sales, including vinyl.”

When it comes to Luminate data, then, that leaves a couple main possibilities, and neither is exactly encouraging for the figures in question. Most conspicuously, the adjusted approach to measuring sales might actually be more accurate – which, in keeping with the aforesaid YoY falloffs formerly displayed on Market Watch, would mean historical stats could have been inflated.

Furthermore, beneath this top-level consideration, Luminate may be registering, to some extent, a genuine sales slip.