I’m not sure I remember the last time anyone I know bought a new album in CD format, but that’s not to say South Africans aren’t fond of kicking it old school.

I’m guessing here, and I could be wrong, but it seems CDs are still a very popular way of releasing an album for Afrikaans musicians.

Take for example Theuns Jordaan, a man I had never heard of until about two sentences ago. Jordaan’s latest album “Vreemde Stad”, according to a Rapport investigation, helped him rake in R1,7 million.

BusinessTech to crunch the numbers:

Jordaan received R8.33 from each of the 210,000 sold copies of his CD – which adds up to R1,749,300.

The biggest chunk of the R99 price paid for a local music CD goes to the retailer, while the music label, printing costs, distribution, and VAT accounts for the rest of the money…

Many local artists have said that CD sales do not bring in enough money to survive, and that they rely heavily on concerts and corporate gigs to make money.

We should consider that selling more than 200 000 copies of a CD is massive, given that gold and platinum CD sales were last year downgraded to 15 000 and 30 000 respectively according to eNCA.

An exact breakdown, then, of who makes what off of a R99 CD sale:

It’s quite alarming that a musician will only rake in just over R8 per album sold, and it’s easy to see why so many local acts rely on live performances to bolster the coffers.

They still tend to do better than local English fiction authors (HERE) though, many of whom struggle to sell more than 1 000 copies of a book.

Far more money in politics, especially if you know the right people…

[source:businesstech]