Last Canadian Music Chain Closes

ET Canada has posted a Vancouver Sun article on the last Canadian Music Chain closing it's Brick-and-Mortar Store and moving on line.

Essentially, I see this as a sign of the times... while studies have shown that P2P downloaders buy more CDs because of their wider exposure to all the artists out there, the CD publishers are still charging way too much for physical music albums.

Last Canadian Music Chain Closes
Music World shutting its doors, but new owner says business will move online

Music World, the last Canadian-owned national music store chain, is under bankruptcy protection and will close its stores, the latest victim of a rapidly changing music business.

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Music World has 72 stores and was previously owned by the Pindoff family, which founded the business more than 30 years ago and sold it to a group of investors last week.

An "orderly wind down" of operations is planned by Music World's new owners, according to court documents, including the immediate liquidation of inventory in order to take advantage of the holiday shopping season.

All 648 employees will be laid off by Jan. 31.

HMV Canada is interested in buying some of the Music World stores, said president Humphrey Kadaner in an e-mail, but has not yet determined how many or which ones.

The U.K.-based HMV is the last chain standing, with more than 100 stores across the country.

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Canadian sales of CDs, music DVDs and other physical music formats (such as cassettes) have fallen about 20 per cent since last year, according to the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

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It's a shame to see the market slim down like this, but I don't agree that only the 'chain' stores are to blame. Although, I must also admit that I rarely 'handle' my CDs any more. I have the majority of them ripped into MP3 so that I can listed them on my Palm (or my new MP3 player).

Make sure you click through to read the whole article, it's an interesting read.