Media and content digitization benefits consumers, but revenues lag behind
Digital spending - the acquisition of media products in digital format - tripled from 2006 to 2010 worldwide, with the recording music sector now achieving 30% of its global sales in the digital market. The digital success of the music sector contrasts other media and content industries, which are moving at a slower pace towards digital with distribution. Only 6% of film/video, newspapers, magazines and book sales were digital, according to the Joint Research Centre's (JRC) report on "The media and content industries. A quantitative overview", which represents an important contribution to the Commission's recent initiative to boost growth and jobs in the cultural and creative sectors. Sectoral studies on production, distribution, pricing and consumption in cinema, music, newspapers, videogames, book publishing and broadcasting have contributed to this overview, whose findings will be discussed at a conference today in Brussels.