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Music Labels Turn to 'Ringles' to Save the CD

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

September 10, 2007, 1:34 PM

Looking for new ways to keep sales of CDs afloat, the music industry will begin selling "ringles," which combine three songs with a ringtone from a specific artist.

The original version of the song, plus a remix and an older song would be combined with a ringtone download for a single price. While the RIAA has approved the "ringle" term and plans to push for it industry-wide, only Universal and Sony BMG have signed on so far.

Industry executives believe adding a ringtone download to singles will help keep the format alive amidst competition from digital downloads. Sony will have about 50 ringles ready by November, with Universal releasing about 10 to 20 during the same period.

CD sales have seen a sharp decline since a peak in 2001. Sales are already down 14 percent this year when compared with last year. This was preceded by a 4.9 percent decline from 2005 to 2006, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.

Discs that would have easily sold millions of copies several years ago are now having trouble even reaching one million. So far, the best selling debut this year was Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight, which sold only 623,000 copies.

Ringles will retail for $6-$7 USD, and it is believed that stores will pay around $4 per disc to carry them. So far, Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and Amazon have all agreed to sell the discs, although it was not clear if all would support the format immediately after launch.

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By Mystiqq

posted Sep 12, 2007 - 3:58 AM

LMOA. Ringles? I wonder who came up with that?!

Score: 0

By skua

posted Sep 11, 2007 - 3:05 PM

They promote crap. It sells for a while but sooner or later the people catch on. Artistic quality has continued to decline. Do they promote anything decent? No they promote the pablum... the quick buck. People are buying less of the crap. So they raise prices. Now they want to sell lower quality audio for full-audio prices? Hell the next GREAT idea will be to re-master the back-catalog to 8-bit mono and process it through a cell-phone! Yeah THAT will save our greedy short-sighted asses.

Pathetic. This idea will sell a few copies to the cellphone-kiddies and then die out quickly.

We can only hope.

Score: 0

By shicaca

posted Sep 11, 2007 - 8:44 AM

"Ringles will retail for $6-$7 USD, and it is believed that stores will pay around $4 per disc to carry them. So far, Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and Amazon have all agreed to sell the discs, although it was not clear if all would support the format immediately after launch."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You've GOT to be kidding me. I knew the RIAA and their idiot marketing firms were out of touch with reality, but if we refuse to pay for a song STILL at $0.99, what makes them think they can sell them to us for $2 - $2.333/song?!

Wow. They need serious reality checks.

P.S.- The first time I read this, I definitely saw "shingles" (it's late for me, I just got off work, back off :P ). All I could think of was, "Who the HELL would be that dumb!?"

Score: 0

By ogman

edited Sep 11, 2007 - 6:33 AM

CD's? Waste of plastic.

3 songs for $7.00? Idiot food.

Score: 0

By bobthegoat2001

posted Sep 11, 2007 - 4:47 AM

If they want CD's to sell more, lower the price. I know if they lowered it to like $6.99 they'd still make a pretty good profit. But I know the greedy a'ss bastar'd RIAA won't do that. It's impossible.

Score: 0

By psycros

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 8:22 PM

Industry guys, its so simple. $1 a song, no limits of any kind. If you buy an ALBUM, you get two free ringtones from the artist (most albums have at least two decent tracks on 'em). You also make the ringtones available seperatly for the same price as a song. Wanna keep selling CDs? Fine, sell them with both Redbook and protected digital versions of the music included, plus the ringtones and any videos that debut with the album. And make em' $12.99. Thats your only hope, boys..you'll never be as rich as you once were, but you'll still be sitting pretty and keeping the latest pop tramps in pills and ex-husbands. Oh, and you might consider putting a couple kiosks in the record stores with USB ports for us to grab all the digital goodies from, payable via major CC or debit card.

Score: 0

By Neoprimal

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 7:35 PM

OR....you could just make a ringtone out of the music you buy, whether on CD or MP3.

Ofcourse, the first thing to do would be to not buy a phone that LOCKS you into purchasing ringtones (like the iphone tries to, as well as some other carrier branded phones), you're best bet for an almost carefree device in concern to ringtones are devices that are WM5/6/Palm OS *Smartphones* and devices that play Mp3s (though a rare few don't allow you to use them as ringtones.
Secondly, not be completely lazy, it does after all take about 10 seconds of effort to clip 20 seconds from your Mp3 to make ringtones.
Finally, not wish to be wasteful with money. Many of us have lots of it, and don't really care. Some of it have enough or it, and want to save it for 'better' things.

Score: 0

By jessshaun

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 5:53 PM

$6-$7?! For 3 songs and a ringtone. Sorry, I'll keep my digital downloads from Napster, Wal-Mart, and Itunes. I sold all my CDs a few years ago. They are a waste of money.

Score: 0

By frankwick

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 5:21 PM

I still like CDs - call me old. The sound quality is much better than every song I have ever downloaded from itunes. I know most ipod users don't care about sound quality, but it is one of the feature points that matter most to me. With the CD, I can rip my own files at a high bit-rate.

Score: 0

By elftyrrell

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 5:25 PM

And you can encode them in any format you want. It would be nice to see downloads in FLAC (or something else that is not lossy) - but that will never happen on a large scale.

Score: 0

By mrow

edited Sep 10, 2007 - 5:14 PM

$6-$7 dollars for the song, a guaranteed s hitty remix, an old song and a ringtone? Give me a f ucking break. For three dollars more I can go buy the whole album on eBay or iTunes, and if I go buy the CD on eBay, I can make the ringtone myself for free.

Score: 0

By ZenWarrior

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 4:51 PM

If I didn't know better, I'd swear this was a joke.

As for the "ringles," they should be stocked right beside the widgets.

Score: 0

By kbsoftware

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 4:48 PM

Wow that's a dumb idea. It has no chance of success. But that's ok the RIAA won't have to admit it was a dumb idea, they will just blame p2p for it's demise :)
Fortunately new rounds of lawsuits will supplement the income lol

Score: 0

By imafurby

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 4:11 PM

Jeez, people aren't buying record company corporate sludge anymore? In this case Apple and the ipod can take a bow. It's given us all a choice in what we really want to listen and buy.

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 4:28 PM

"record company corporate sludge"

CDs are record company corporate sludge?

They're a lot better quality than iTunes songs.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Sep 11, 2007 - 9:07 AM

Shouldn't it be "CD Company"?

Not many companies pressing records these days...

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Sep 11, 2007 - 3:56 PM

Stay in school, kids. You might actually grow up to have something better to do than this guy...

Score: 0

By terminalx

posted Sep 12, 2007 - 10:00 AM

Well, they do say, Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I think he has a man (or would it be boy?) crush on you.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Sep 12, 2007 - 11:03 AM

Okay. Now I'm going to be ill...

Score: 0

By imafurby

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 8:20 PM

When people talk about "the music industry" in this case I believe they are talking about the typical weasel types, who typically think stupid things like this up. I could be wrong though. My many musician friends who enjoy making and listening to the original (and heartfelt or not) stuff they create, might in some far out parallel universe of stupidity, come up with a concept like "ringles", I'm not sure.
When we're talking about quality, as in fidelity or if you like, compression of audio data as it relates to Cd's vs mp3's, I don't really think that for the average schmuck, or schmuckette he or she is going to know the difference. Once again I could be wrong. What I do think I know is that vinyl is probably superior to either of those formats, and believe it or not, there was plenty of record company sludge on those too.

Score: 0

By dp619

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 4:01 PM

Stickers... that's the solution. Cool album art and stickers.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 4:02 PM

Sticker tats. laced.

That'll get 'em hooked on CDs again. ;P

Score: 0

By ZenWarrior

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 4:52 PM

Laced with just what, exactly? :^)

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 5:31 PM

I don't know about where you live, but when it was "in" 'round here, it was LSD.

Score: 0

By elftyrrell

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 5:22 PM

Laced with Ecstasy. Of course the RIAA and music labels will have to do some market research and focus group testing first.

I mean they will have to see what works better, Nicotine, Oxycontin, or even that oldie but goodie cocaine.

I sincerely believe they'd do this if they could get away with it.

Score: 0

By ogman

posted Sep 11, 2007 - 6:34 AM

"market research and focus group testing first."

Where do I sign up?

Score: 0

By tankist

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 3:50 PM

*shakes head.
yep, that will sureley do it...

apparently no one had the balls to criticize the big wig boss who put the idea on the table at that "what do we need to do to save the CD" meeting... sad.

Score: 0

By arq_carlos1

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 3:27 PM

This move will "kill" CD`s instead of saving them.

Score: 0

By dougau

edited Sep 11, 2007 - 4:17 PM

Gawd! two versions of the same song plus a older song for $6-$7? "It's dead Jim!"

I wouldn't even pay the $4.00 the stores are expected to pay.

Why not encode the same song 3 times as a 8kbit/s mp3 on the "Ringle"(TM) and include two ring tones for $21.00?

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 3:12 PM

Obviously, this is the final nail in the coffin for Sony

*evil grin*

Score: 0

By WeezulDK

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 2:49 PM

I smell desperation... it's like fear...

Score: 0

By Altman

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 2:31 PM

This will die fast. 3 songs for $7 or buy them on Itunes for $3. I don't know how they think raising prices will help. If people won't buy this crap music at the price it is at, why would they pay more for it?

Score: 0

By hiyoag

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 2:29 PM

and the lawsuit from pringles starts in four...three....two.....

Score: 0

By Latz !

edited Sep 10, 2007 - 2:34 PM

Do people actually buy ringtones? It's just a little sound clip, rip your favorite song and make your own for god's sake. As for this idea I don't even know where to begin. Even the name is retarded, and charging that much for a few songs and a "ring tone". CD singles already flopped years ago for obvious reasons, and that was back before CDs had been replaced by mp3 players. Why these idiots think adding a ringtone and a goofy name will change that is beyond me. Dear RIAA, you're done. Clean out your desks and go away.

Score: 0

By terminalx

edited Sep 10, 2007 - 1:59 PM

ROFL!

Really? 6-7 bucks for 3 songs + ringtone are you serious?

"So far, the best selling debut this year was Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight, which sold only 623,000 copies"

Maybe, if artists stopped releasing crap more people would buy it, the new LP was a huge disappointment and they joined the ranks of sounding exactly the same as 100's of other bands out there.

Sales have been in a sharp decline because artists release maybe 1-2 good songs on a CD and the rest is filler. Hence why Itunes does so well, because at least you can pick what you want out of that mountain.

Score: 0

By pitdingo

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 4:48 PM

No, piracy is to blame, not the crap music.

Score: 0

By terminalx

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 5:38 PM

Its a combination of both, Napster gave people the idea that it was ok to download music, because of this people found they no longer had to pay for music, but then it was deemed this is illegal, so the majority of people stopped downloading or downloaded to test the cd out and if it was good would purchase it and the other half just flat out stole it. The part that would purchase it started buying less cds as they saw from downloading that a lot of their favorite artists make crap for music. Thus, the decline of the cd and the rise of the single (digital) song.

Score: 0

By Araxen

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 2:38 PM

Well that's of course if the label doesn't block you from buying the song instead of trying to force you to buy all the track's on the album.

Score: 0

By Alex Stevens

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 1:58 PM

That's stupid.

Score: 0

By Araxen

posted Sep 10, 2007 - 1:53 PM

$7 for 3 songs? what a rip-off!

Score: 0

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