£21,000 - the average lifetime's bill for music
Oct 19 2005
Tryst Williams, Western Mail
IF MUSIC be the food of love, pay on.
Because the record-buying habit is costing the average consumer an astonishing £21,000 throughout their lifetime, new research reveals today.
The equivalent of about 2,000 CDs may seem out of tune with most people's spending, but that figure includes everything from music equipment, concerts, festivals, downloads and the cost of nightclubbing.
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Roger Ramsden, a director at insurance company Prudential, which carried out the survey, said, "Most people would describe themselves as a music fan of some sort or another, but what is really amazing is just how much money people find themselves spending on it - £21,000 is a staggering amount of money."
Yet while that may seem excessive, real enthusiasts end up spending more than double this figure.
Of the 1,188 people surveyed last month, about 11% described themselves as diehard fans who will spend more than £44,000 during their lives.
That figure is made up of £1,432-worth of equipment overall, as well as up to £550 on CDs, £291 on gigs and events and £46 on magazines during each of their peak record-buying years.
For the typical music fan, researchers said the spending amounted to £891-worth of music-playing equipment and up to £425 a year on CDs, gigs and magazines.
Meanwhile the 50% of the population who claim they do not spend much on music still manage to get through nearly £250 a year.
Ellen Davies, marketing manager for Welsh record label Sain, said, "Those figures wouldn't surprise me taken across a lifetime. On average I buy about two CDs a month and then there's concerts and weekends and so forth."
And forget the stereotypes - it's not just teenagers and twenty-somethings who are spending their cash on the latest tunes.
Sain's records are bought by the slightly older music fans of singers like Bryn Terfel and Aled Jones, in addition to the younger crowd catered for by the company's sub-labels Crai and Rasal.
"Record sales are still the main part of our market - the CD is the main product we sell," she said, before adding that the company was looking to expand into download services and ringtones in the near future.
Meanwhile, the survey also revealed that seven out of 10 people go to a musical event every year. Nightclubs were most popular among the under-34s, while people aged over 55 preferred concerts and musicals.
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