Major Labels and Indie Record Shops in Dispute Over Global Weekly Release Date

There has been some contention in the international music industry because the industry just can not agree on a common weekly album release date.  Major labels are requesting Fridays, but North America’s indie record shops want the new standard to be on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

Michael Kurtz (a spokesman for the trade group Department of Record Stores representing 100 small record store chains in the US and Canada) said…

“Friday is the worst [possible] choice.”

Many believe that the rest of the world should adopt the current North American model and release records on Tuesdays.

So why is this even an issue?

The UK is the second-largest world market, so under this plan they’d need to delay their release date by 24 hours.  This would be far more disruptive for other countries like Germany, Australia, and Ireland because their release dates are all planned and set for Fridays.  This could ultimately cost a lot of money to make these changes (across music and retail industries, warehousing, transport and record shops) and it can also lead to a decrease in sales.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (the world’s principal trade body) is concerned with piracy because Monday and Tuesday record sales can be cannibalized by music that leaks the Friday before.

Nothing officially has been announced yet, but the new global street date is not expected to be implemented until July 2015.