Turning Heads: Cassette Tape Sales On The Up
5:34pm UK, Friday May 15, 2009

Matt Smith, Entertainment correspondent


Three years ago, everyone was predicting the end for the humble cassette but something surprising is happening. Instead of withering - sales of blank tapes are on the up.
TDK, the market leader, said it had sold one million blank tapes in the first four months of this year alone.

"We're pretty surprised actually because tape sales seem to be holding up very, very well," TDK's Craig Hill told Sky News.

"We thought that they would tail off dramatically, year on year. In the last 12 months, we've seen a resurgence."

Tape players were everywhere 20 years ago. In the home, in the car, even on the move. Tapes were where we put our music.

By 1988, we'd bought over three billion of them. But the CD had been invented and pretty soon, it took over.

In 2007, sales of blank tapes had plummeted from 50 million a year to just 5 million.

Naturally, everyone thought by now the format would be dead and buried and the factories shut.

But instead - demand is increasing.

There are a few reasons for the rise, but the main one is lots of people still have players either in the car or at home.

They haven't upgraded because of the credit crunch (or simply because they can't be bothered) and so they need blank tapes to record their music on.

It means business is good for tape sellers like Andy Borthwick from aandcaudio.co.uk.

He shifts around two thousand blank cassette tapes every month from his warehouse in Dunfermline.

He said: "Cassettes for us over the last few years have actually increased in sales, for various reasons.

"There's a lot of people looking for them and they're not available on the High Street, so they're coming to specialist companies like ourselves."

Another sector still relying on blank tapes are the police.
Lawyers don't trust digital technology for interviews - so cassettes are still the industry standard, all adding to sales.

So the format that everyone had written off - for now at least - keeps on rolling.

Tape comeback!

I had posted this link before, in the "vinyl making comeback" thread.

Good stuff!!!

Too bad nobody is making top shelf audiophile grade fourmulations anymore, though. TDK SA/SM or Maxell XLII made in Mexico are the only two "decent" tapes on the market now. No metals!!!! whaddupwiddat?

I guess it depends on the recording industries such as Studios.