Tuesday vs. Friday!

On Tuesday I felt the impact.

Going all the way back to when I worked in a record store, I always looked forward to Tuesdays.

New music day.

The day when new album, cassettes and CDs were released.

When I worked for BMG Music as a Sales Rep. my favorite day to do store visits was Tuesday. Not only was it the day I’d first get to see the new product I sold to the retail outlet on the shelves, but I also got to see what else was new.

Over the years, the retail environment for music has changed considerably. These changes didn’t get in the way of my New Music Tuesday ritual.

My ritual simply shifted online.

Every Tuesday I found myself sitting at the computer, checking out what was new in the world of music. New music on Tuesday has always been something I always looked forward to. What else is there to look forward to one Tuesday? KFC doesn’t even do Toonie Tuesdays anymore. All I had to look forward to on Tuesday was new music.

This past Tuesday there was no new music. I was unable to go to my computer and see and listen to what was new and I felt empty because of this.

The music industry recently decided to change the official new release day from Tuesday to Fridays. This change took effect last week and being the fan of new music I spent a portion of Friday evening seeing what was new.

Sadly not much.

I was genuinely shocked. Switching the new release day for music from Tuesday to Friday is a fairly significant change. You would think that the record companies would try and have some fairly significant releases come out on that first Friday of the new schedule, to help entice people by new music on Fridays.

That’s what helped Record Store Day take off. Sure it’s great to support the little independent record store, but you can technically buy albums any time of the year. To make Record Store day that much more appealing, having unique releases that are only available on Record Stare Day drew in crowds.

I’m not aware of any activities done by any retail outlets, both physical and online to promote the new Friday release date. Apple sent out a variety of materials to help the stores…did they get used? What’s going to entice the general public to go into a music store or peruse iTunes on a day they typically don’t. The hardcore music enthusiast will make the effort, I already admitted I did, but what percentage of the target audience are hardcore music enthusiasts? What was being done to get John Q Public to check out new music on a Friday? Is that something John Q Public wants to even consider doing on a Friday?

One of the reasons given for the move was movies, video games, books, etc all tend to come out on Tuesdays and so new music was continually competing with these other products for a share of the disposable income wealth. Sure moving the release date to Fridays takes them out of the already highly competitive Tuesday market, but has the industry considered what consumers tend to spend their money on Fridays?

On Fridays people are thinking about what and where they are going to spend their money. Are they going out of town, going out for a movie, going out for drinks, for supper, do you have activities planned? Some people get paid every second Friday, so they may also be thinking about paying bills, mortgage, car payments, getting groceries for the coming week. Those are some pretty hefty important things that are most likely going to be priorities over new music.

When new release day was on Tuesday, chances are those hefty options where  no longer concerns. Once the weekend is done, the money that is left in consumers’ pockets is considered disposable income and that’s when they start thinking about purchasing items like DVDs, video games, books and music. When new music came out on Tuesday it was competing for disposable income. Consumers aren’t thinking that way on a Friday and new music runs the risk of getting lost.

As you've probably guessed, I'm not a fan of this change. It's just another example of the music industry making decisions based on assumptions instead of facts, focused on what benefits them not the consumer or their retail partners. Worst of all, making decisions without their target audience in mind. Aside from the labels, the only people I've heard say anything positive about this change.