Inaugural Global Release Day gets a date

The first ever Global Release Day for the recorded music industry has been given a date.

Friday July 10 was confirmed to Music Week as the kick-off date.

While the date doesn’t affect Australia and Germany, which will operate as normal following the shift, it does mean big changes for the world’s largest music market, the United States, which issues on Tuesdays, and the UK, which currently releases on Mondays.

The UK has already made a move of preparation, last week the UK Official Chart on Radio 1 announced it would move to Fridays from July, to coincide with the Global Release Day shift. The UK charts will incorporate sales and streams across seven days, from 00.01 on Friday through to midnight on Thursday evening from July 10. The data will be compiled overnight on Thursday and delivered every Friday afternoon.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)’s decisionto synchronise the release day was made in February after consulting artists, musicians unions, record companies, retailers and download platforms. Consumer research by TNS across seven markets found that 68% chose Friday or Saturday as their release date of choice.

Locally, the Australian Music Retailers Association (AMRA) applauded the move with Executive Director Ian Harvey stating: “The decision to move to a Friday release day in Australia was based on the belief that retailers had to meet the needs of their customers and that for those customers Friday, Saturday and Sunday are shopping days. Why wouldn’t you have your most attractive, most in demand product available in store when consumers are actually shopping?”

Michael Gudinski of Mushroom Group toldI that while he supported the move, it may prove difficult for companies wanting to release singles for newer acts in different formats and adhere to different timelines.

“Some countries won’t even release certain things, there might be a strategy in the set up but the pros are that it standardises everything but I think they’re going to have major problems with single releases purely because it’s a different strategy to new and breaking artists as it is to established artists.”

:: Australian industry weighs in on 'global release day'

Martin Mills of the UK’s indie Beggars Groupargued against the move. He said: “I have concerns about the proposed global release day. Whilst I acknowledge the needs of a digital world for coordination, it seems to me to be crazy to throw away one of the trading week’s two peaks, and the ability to re-stock and rectify errors before the week’s second peak. And it astounds me that the major labels are not listening to their customers [the retailers], their interface with their artists’ fans.”