Book Publishers Mourn

by erica ~ July 30, 2008

… the death of the cassette tape that is. Popularized in the late 70’s, cassette tapes are now seeing the white light at a number of book publishers. Hachette Publishers, for example, just threw an RIP party to remember a “dear friend.”

Book publishers have been mainly releasing cassette tapes for their audio books. With sales that have been dramatically decreasing, many publishers have ceased the production of these tapes. Newer and better ways for consumers to listen to these audio books will cause cassette tapes to eventually disappear from the scene. This should come as no surprise to our iPod crazed nation. Most books are now available with audio that you can download onto your iPod or listen to on your computer.

Today’s New York Times claims that the audio book cassettes are not the only ones hurting. “Last year, only 400,000 music tapes were sold, representing one-tenth of one percent of all physical and digital music sales, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.” Cassettes are also rare to find in newer cars these days. “Only 4 percent of vehicles sold in the United States during the 2007 model year had factory-installed cassette players, according to Ward’s Automotive Yearbook.”

Surprisingly, you can still find cassette players on sale today.  Sony alone offers 23 tape players, from the Walkman to boomboxes. And of course you can find the players online on websites such as Amazon and EBay. I don’t even remember the last time I listened or even saw a tape in action. Soon enough the VHS tape will be following the cassette tape’s footsteps! So long, ancient technology.

Erica Berkovich is an Associate Account Executive at Mediashop PR. She is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Corporate Communications at Baruch.