Domestic Acts Boost French Market

PARIS-Despite a poor third quarter, domestic repertoire has enjoyed historic sales levels in France during the year to date, offsetting an otherwise flat market.
According to labels' body SNEP, from July to September some 9.5 million singles were shipped, compared with 10.2 million in the same period last year, a drop of 6.9 %. Album shipments fell by 7.2% from 25 million units in the third quarter of 1998 to 23.2 million units. Total trade value of all sales in the quarter dropped 5.2% to 1.48 billion francs ($240 million), compared with 1.56 billion ($254 million) last year.
September was the worst month, with a dip of 14% to 573 million francs ($93 million); August was flat at 502 million francs ($82 million); and July was up 4% to 404 million francs ($66 million).
The good news for the local industry is that during the first nine months of 1999, local productions' share of the French market rose by 7.7% to 55.2% of total sales. International repertoire dropped 6% to 38.2% of the total during the same period. Classical music made up the remainder.
Industry executives view as an added positive sign the fact that these figures have not only come from sales by such established acts as Francis Cabrel, Patricia Kaas, and Myl'ne Farmer, but also from newcomers like Zebda, Pierpoljak, Sergent Garcia, and Manu Chao.
SNEP general Herv Rony links the French figures to a wider European trend. "The rise in local repertoire is a European phenomenon based on record companies' strategy of investing in local repertoire-and on a greater demand from the public," he says.
Nonetheless, the overall market is still suffering. "Without the dynamism of the French catalog, the market would be plummeting," Rony notes. Over the first three quarters, sales dropped by 1.1% to 4.7 billion francs ($765 million) at wholesale price compared with the same period last year. In unit terms, singles sales dropped 10.1% to 27.1 million units, compared with 30.1 million for January to September last year, representing sales of 596 million francs ($97 million), down 7.9%.
Universal Music France president/CEO Pascal N'gre says, "The drop in singles sales is probably linked to the development of home copying with CD-R burners." However, he also offers another reason: "Singles are too expensive."
The CD-R threat is being taken seriously by the industry here. Over 300,000 CD-R players were sold in France over the past two years, and consumers bought over 20 million blank CD-Rs during the first half of 1999.
The albums market showed modest growth in unit terms, rising 2% to 74 million units, and in value terms, up 0.5% to 4 billion francs ($651 million).
"The album market is pretty steady compared to some other European countries," says Rony, who points out that domestic acts have monopolized the top of the French album chart since the beginning of the year. "It reaches a point where one asks, "Where have the international productions gone?' "
The continued application of domestic music quotas to French radio stations has clearly given local production a boost. Universal's N'gre believes radio stations now have no excuse not to play local acts. He says, "The 40% quota law is fundamental and useful for the [music] industry-but when 55% of the market is dominated by domestic repertoire, the quotas should be easy to respect."
However, some more specialized formats contend there is not enough quality domestic material available in certain genres. Michael Gentile, managing director of Paris rock station Oui FM, says that for a format like his, the math doesn't work.
"It's difficult to say that there's 40% of French domestic production falling into the rock genre," he explains. "There's a real need for more relaxed regulation. We play more new talent than we are required to, and that should be taken into account."