JeremyM

I don't know why I care, but does anyone know why they are releasing all new music releases tomorrow, on a Monday? Is this some kind of pointless experiment to see if it curtails bootlegging? It makes sense since they start SoundScan tallies on Mondays, but I see the next week everything is back to Tuesday.

DrStrangeL0ve71

So they are able to be considered for the next Grammy awards. If they come out after the 31st they have to wait until the following year.

Rocketdog2000

Specifically - Whitney Houston's new album.

Giles

it's an attempt at what the UK music industry has done for yeears... why Tuesdays? that's not the beginnng of the week in my mind??

Rocketdog2000

Why Tuesdays? Well, here's a few of reasons...

1 - Shipping. While stores do get some product that's being released on Tuesday early, this gives them one extra day to get it before it's released. When I worked in a music store, we'd get some of the new releases on Friday, but the rest wouldn't come in until Monday. Having Tuesday be the day they are actual put out for sale on the floor leaves enough time for them to arrive at the store, since there is no shipping on Sunday, and UPS and FED Ex don't usually deliver on Saturday, either.

2 - When does the week actually begin? Is it Sunday, or Monday? Due to the religious associations/applications of Sunday, and the fact that not all stores are open then, that rules it out as a viable day. And if it were Monday, well, because of Sunday, then you couldn't do midnight openings for new releases. Plus, there are a lot of Holidays (and Banker's holidays, which affect buisness) that fall on Monday, so that helps put it in the same category as Sunday. Lastly, see item #1 again.

3 - Monday is traditionally a very busy work day, so you don't need anything adding to that load. Tuesday, on the other hand, not so much - so having that be "New release day" actually gives it some purpose. The same could be said for Wednesday or Thursday, but if you want to get them out as close to the beginning of the week as possible, and Sunday and Monday are out, well, that leaves you with Tuesday.

Of course there are things that could be done to change some of this, but since it's been this way for so long and everybody's used to it, the people in power who make these decisions don't see any reason why to do so. Doing it once in awhile for "special occasions" or purposes, is not such a big deal, but to change it for every week, then it becomes more of an issue.

Giles

when I worked at a bookstore, mind you an independent bookstore, we got Tuesday releases on Friday and Saturday - we could have easily put new releases on Monday - but we didn't.

Personally I get so peeved at Best Buy (Tenleytown, DC) on Tuesday, the new release lady puts out all the DVD's/blurays at the busiest time of the day: lunchtime, I so want to ask her (well after saying "excuse me" five times at least).. "can't you do this say... at 10am?, you and all them boxes are in the fuckin' way"

Metrodub

I thought it had to do with Billboard coming out on Wednesdays, so releasing the album on a Tuesday gives the album a full week to produce sales numbers.

Dan

that too.

FatTony

Well, there's also the issue of "fairness" in adhering to the street date. Having worked at both Blockbuster and an independent video store, I can say the big corporate chain will usually have the upper hand. At Blockbuster, we'd get the new releases a full week in advance (sometimes 2 weeks), while at the independent store we only got them the Friday before release (and on a handful of occasions, we only got them the day before release). I'm sure the same holds true for music and books.

Weird, that's been happening to me more and more lately too, and not just with the movies but video games and CDs too. It's really irritating.

Decker

Wow, you're right. Only 11 months of eligibility for next year's awards. That doesn't seem very fair, does it?

TheKing

Tuesday was also chosen due to it being a typically slow day of the week shopping wise. releasing Music and movies on Tuesday increases store traffic during the middle of the week.

big whoppa

Wouldn't the store get in trouble with the record company for putting something on sale before the street date?

FatTony

That's the urban legend, though in my many years of working in video stores, I never once heard or saw any actual proof that studios/distributors actually fined violators.

hitman tommy

I worked for Wal-Mart in the electronics department for about 4 years, and in that time we accidently put stock out before the street date but never once did anything actually happen as a result. Even our movie reps never seemed to care, probably because they were too busy hiding each others stock so that they could have the prime shelf space. The only time anyone would ever come around was someone from the provincial film board would come out and spot check to make sure all the dvds had the Canadian MPAA Rating on it. Point is that there was a couple times that after the guy from the film board left that we noticed a couple titles out before street date but he never ever said anything.

Tarantino

One of the stores I worked at got fined for putting Snoop Dogg's R&G album out early.

Giles

don't you mean the ratings issued by the Ontario Film Review Board?

Rocketdog2000

Plus, someone would have to catch you doing it, or report to the Record/Video companies that you had. After that, they usually just call the store and request the product to be removed from the shelves. They will, however, send someone to check that that's been done, and if not, then they will fine you on the spot. Either that, or they see to it that you never get your product until the actual street date again. I've seen it happen.

Dan

My store never got fined, but we did get a LOT of warnings from the record companies (and our head office) for the same type of mistake. It was usually because we hired new minions, and they didn't know the difference between the "DO NOT PUT THIS OUT UNTIL XX DATE!" shelf and the regular stock shelf in the back room.

I guess it depends on the way the stores ring up the items. One of our competitors did manual price entry (ie: they didn't scan the barcode), so there was no way for anyone to find out they sold something early.

Giles

if they didn't scan the barcode I'd assume that item just rung up as a price but no indication of what specifically was sold - for a record company that's a lost sale - that's worse IMO.

Dan

well... thinking about what I said, I think I was just mistaken. Maybe they did scan barcodes... but didn't have an advanced electronic inventory or something. Either way, they were able to get away with 'early' sales, while we weren't.

Mordred

Maybe they just weren't a Soundscan reporting store.

auto

Is it really a lost sale? Doesn't the store buy a certain amount of copies? They don't just send the record companies their cut as the album sells. Soundscan measures how many copies are purchased by consumers, not how many the stores purchase to stock their shelves.

Achtung

Seems like a dumb holdover from the days before FedEx/UPS, digital downloads, etc. Why new music only on a Tuesday? Why movies usually on a Friday or occasionally on a Wednesday? No idea what the purpose is of keeping those traditions around.

Drexl

http://www.eonline.com/print/index.j...pe=answerBitch

I would add that having a certain day simplifies marketing by putting a date into people's heads, and allowing stores that get the product early to sell immediately would give them an unfair advantage over stores that don't have it yet.