James Tobin wrote: >Len Fehskens: > >>>far fewer people than formerly in the American population claim an >>>interest in classical music. >> >>On what do you base this assertion? My understanding is that the number >>has remained relatively constant at around (ballpark) 5% of the >>population. > >I don't have statistics myself and Horowitz' (name) index will not find >this for me but he does mention a survey or two that indicated decades >ago that substantially more than 5% claimed an interest in this kind of >music. I do recall his saying that something like 60% of New Yorkers, >especially, knew who Toscanini was in the 1930s, and you would be >hard-pressed to get that kind of survey result now about any classical >musician. Maybe Beethoven? There are some interesting published studies. According to the Knight report http://www.knightfdn.org/default.asp (check bottom of page and click on "Magic of Music Symphony Orchestra Initiative" The Knight report suggests that a maximum of 27% of the adult population is a potential audience for classical music. On the other hand, Performing arts, the economic dilemma; a study of problems common to theater, opera, music, and dance. / Baumol, William J. / New York / 1966 as I recall, suggested that within a given metropolitan area less than 15% of the population was a potential audience for the performing arts. Not exactly the same thing. For me, part of the problem with all of these studies is that they do not really define what they mean by classical music...are they talking Bach, Brahms, Beethoven (in small doses); Bach, Brahms, Beethoven (unedited) or Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, Boulez, Bussotti, Bartok? It is sad that the Knight Foundation report, with all of its good intentions, basically tells those in the performing arts, if you want to maximize revenue, dumb down content...well, at least that was the way I read it. Then there is the question of the other means of distribution, recordings. Moreover, attendance at classical concerts appears to be rising slightly. According to a 1997 survey commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts, more than 15 percent of respondents attended a classical music event the previous year, a 3 percentage point increase from five years earlier. And while classicals share of CDs is not large, it appears to have held steady over the past 20 years. http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/nerr/rr2003/q2/requiem.htm and Virgin Group's Virgin Digital, a Los Angeles-based downloading and music-streaming site launched last September, is working on incorporating and cataloging classical pieces for its site and now has 70,000 classical tracks, out of a million tracks overall. Also in the past year, Yahoo's Musicmatch has built its classical selection from 3,000 to more than 12,000 tracks (out of a total of 850,000). .... Record companies say they are tuning in now because they see downloading of classical music, among other categories, as a growth area. Currently, classical music represents about 3 percent of the $12 billion recorded-music market, a figure that has been fairly flat over the past few years, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. http://www.grammy.com/features/2005/0413classicalipod.aspx and then again Jazz and Classical music increased their standing in the market slightly with 3.4 percent of all music items purchased being in the Jazz genre, while 3.2 percent of music items were Classical music. http://www.riaa.com/news/newsletter/042602.asp and still more... In a marketplace spun asunder by the digital revolution, classical recording labels have been forced to face the music: Traditional schemes for peddling their albums don't work anymore. Sales of classical music CDs are at a four-year low, and dropping. This comes at a time when -- according to the wisdom of demographics -- those numbers should be climbing. In 1999, Americans bought 17.3 million classical CDs, according to the tracking service Nielsen SoundScan. That's a paltry figure compared with the total number of CDs purchased (754.8 million), but classical music has never netted the big marketplace grosses of rock, pop or country. Just two years later, sales of classical CDs had dropped to 15.8 million, while the overall figure for CD sales climbed to 762.8 million. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/07/15/DD77439.DTL&type=music Many years ago, I asked a guy I knew, who was a well respected Professor of Economics, if you would recommend only one book on economics, what would it be. His answer, "How to lie with statistics." Karl