N1:
IPod users like Scott Willyerd could soon be a CD store owner's worst nightmare.
AX1: Willyerd
I can't even remember the lat time I bought a CD. 00:03
N2:
Willyerd travels the streets of New York scanning through his portable M-P-THREE player. [AMB 1: clicking of iPod scan wheel] The 22-year-old grad student says he has become a huge fan of downloading music.
AX2: Willyerd
It's so convenient and easy for me to just click "download" and "buy now" and it comes right off my credit card and it's much easier than traveling to the record store to actually pick up the CD. 00:10
N3:
Thanks to downloaders like Willyerd, digital music sales are steadily increasing. Surprisingly, some local CD store owners are optimistic about runningtheir businesses in the download age. Chris Vanderloo, co-owner of Other Music in Manhattan credits the iPod with helping his CD sales increase last year.
AX3: Vanderloo
In 2004 we saw an increase in sales because I really think from the iPod itself. It's almost like when CDs first happened - when CD players first came out. They actually got people who hadn't bought records in a long time back into the store because they thought it was the coolest thing, that technology. The iPod's kind of got people excited about music again. 00:15
N4:
Vanderloo's store is doing well currently, but he acknowledges that other stores are having a harder time. He says some businesses feel forced to offer their customers other products to draw them into the stores. Vanderloo says it's become rare to find a CD shop like his that profits mostly from music sales.
AX4: Vanderloo
Nowadays you hear a lot about stores selling more and more extra stuff like T-shirts. In the more suburban stores sell all kinds of stuff other than music these days. I talked to some friends of mine who have stores in suburbs and it's getting harder and harder definitely to be just a music store. 00:17
N5:
On the Upper West Side at Kim's Music and Video, customers can purchase CDs, music DVDs, and books on a particular band or era of music. Manager Howard Flax says the store's selection of multimedia products is not there to compensate for sales lost to digital downloads. Flax says the business is catering to music lovers who just aren't satisfied with a CD anymore.
AX5: Flax
I think right now music is more of a visually engaged medium as opposed to the 70s or 80's or even early 90's where it was just selling compact discs. Now people are interested in getting a CD and also having a DVD to watch and maybe a book. We're doing the same thing. We're just kind of going with the changes in the market. 00:15
N6:
This week, Apple unveiled a new iPod with video player capabilities that caters to those same interests. Soon, MP3 players could prompt a surge in digital video downloads as well. I'm Lindsay Thomas, Columbia Radio News.