According to Richard Murray the CEO of JB Hi Fi the franchise is set to deliver improved revenues following the decision by the ABC to close their loss making ABC store operation.
Talking to ChannelNews Murray said “The ABC have some valuable properties from music and DVD’s to series like Doctor Who, it is only logical that we expand this franchise as JB Hi Fi is logical destination for the content that the ABC franchise is able to deliver”.
ABC Managing director Mark Scott claimed that a major contributor was declining CD and DVD sales, saying customers were now buying this content online. Scott admitted that the shops had been operating at a loss for the past year.
In Australia sales of music CDs in Australia have declined 72 per cent since 2005.
CD sales dropped from 46 million CDs in 2005 to 12.5 million last year, according to the Australian Recording Industry Association.
Even in 2012, about 27 million CDs were sold here, so the decline in the past three years has been particularly steep. The 2015 figures must be worse. Meanwhile digital album sales have increased from 91,000 in 2005 to 7.3 million albums in 2013. The number of music DVDs sold every year has dropped 83 per cent since 2005, from 4.4 million to 757,000 DVDs in 2014.
Sales of entertainment DVDs, such as movies and television shows, have dropped from a peak of about 90 million DVDs in 2008 to around 55 million in 2014, according to the Australian Home Entertainment Distributors Association.
Head of ABC Commercial Robert Patterson said that the shops won’t disappear overnight, but will have a “phased exit” from stand-alone stores in shopping malls as leases come up for negotiation.
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