Crappy, expensive, annoying “bleep bleep bleepy bleep” ringtones are set to beat the sales of CD singles, it was reported today. Ringtones are now more profitable to record companies than singles!
Ringtones already fleece mobile-phone users to the tune (tune… geddit? Eh? Eh?) of between £1.50 and £3.50 for the latest pop hits. Companies make huge profits from these sales, and on-line downloads – plus machines in pubs which allow “over the air” download after payment are more popular than ever. This is set to rise even further with the advent of polyphonic midi tunes which offer a more “realistic” version of popular songs.
My personal view on this is probably already known. I hate the fact that kids – especially teens, have to fork out almost 4 quid for a crappy “bleep bleep” ringtone for their mobile phones. The drop in sales of CD singles doesn’t surprise me either, as record companies have increased the price of these and reduced the number of tracks. A few years ago you could pick up a CD single with the original tune, 4 mixes plus one or two other tracks for around 2.99. Now you get two or three tracks – all of which usually mixes, for 3.99 or 4.99 – sometimes 5.99. It’s not surprising that sales have dropped, whilst ringtones have sold better.
If you have made “the jump” and ditched your shoddy Nokia / Samsung in favour of a Smartphone, you can use WAV files to play real samples of songs, instead of some “bleep bleep” version which always has most people saying, “What tune is that meant to be?”