A. Access to Recording Equipment

In both 1977 and 1980, all respondents were asked to describe in detail the tape playback and recording equipment that they or other

members of their household currently owned. As we pointed out in our most recent report, "there has been a marked increase in the ownership of tape playback equipment. In contrast to 59% of the population in 1977, 67% of the population now have access to tape players." More important for the present purposes, there has been an even greater increase in the percent of the population with access to tape

recorders. In 1977, 71.3 million people (39% of the total U.S. population age 10 and over) lived in homes owning at least one piece of recording equipment. In three years, this number had grown to 89.6 million (48% of the population).

Table 1 shows the percentage of the total U.S. population with access to each type of recording equipment in the two survey years. It can be seen that more people have access to cassette recorders than to any other type of recorder. In addition, access to cassette recorders is increasing more rapidly than access to eighttrack recorders and there has actually been a slight decrease in the percent of the population having access to reel-to-reel recorders.

In 1977 only respondents with access to recording equipment (i.e., living in households containing at least one tape recorder) were asked if they had ever taped music. Since that time we have come to realize that a substantial number of people living in households without recording equipment engage in home taping (e.g., at a friend's house). Thus in 1980 we asked all respondents about their taping behavior. It should be clear that asking only people with access to recording equipment underestimates the number of home tapers. To illustrate, in 1980 when all respondents were asked, we found that 39% of the population had made at least one audio recording during their lifetime. Had we asked only people with access to recording equipment if they had ever taped, this percent would have been reduced to 32%.

In 1977, 21% of the population, representing 38.5 million people, had access to tape recording equipment and had taped music at least once in their lifetime. This number increased to 23% or 42.8 million people by 1980. Even though underestimates, these figures do provide clear evidence of an increase in the number of people who engage in the home taping of music and other professional entertainment.

All of the above data substantiate the conclusion that home taping is increasing. Let us now turn to an in-depth analysis of blank tape buying and taping behavior. The remainder of this report will be based only on the data obtained in the 1980 WCI survey. The twelve months ending in June of 1980 will be referred to as the 1980 survey year. Similarly, for ease of presentation, the term U.S. population will refer to the total U.S. population age 10 and over. Further, throughout this report, the term Music will include other forms of professional entertainment, such as Comedy and Spoken Word.

Findings Part II

Blank Tape Buying

One way of assessing the nature and extent of home taping is to investigate the purchase and use of blank audio tapes. In this section it will be seen that over 60 million people spent almost $800 million on blank tape during the 1980 survey year. Fully 75% of this blank tape was ultimately used to record music. Thus consumers spent over $600 million on blank audio tapes in order to bring Music and other professional entertainment into their homes.

A. General Blank Tape Buying

As indicated in Part I, all respondents were asked whether they had ever purchased any type of blank audio tape either for their own use or to give to someone else. Those who said yes were asked how much they themselves had spent on blank tape in the past 12 months and how much of this amount was spent on blank tape for their own use.

As seen earlier, 41% of the total U.S. population age 10 and over representing 77.5 million people had bought at least one blank tape in their lifetime. The data presented in Table 2 further indicate that 32% of the population representing 60.4 million people bought a blank audio tape during the 1980 survey year. These current blank tape buyers spent slightly more than $799 million on blank tape.

C. Current Contents of Blank Tapes Bought for Own Use

Respondents were asked to indicate the current contents of the 8-tracks and cassettes they had purchased for their own use. Specifically, they were asked for the number of tapes that (1) were still blank, (2) contained school or office work, (3) contained personal or family recordings, and (4) contained music or other professional entertainment.

The data show that 7% of cartridges and 13% of cassettes were still blank at the time of the survey. If one assumes that these unused blank tapes will be used in the same fashion as those already recorded upon, Table 4 shows that 87% of 8 tracks and 71% of cassettes will, in the final analysis, be covered with music. By taking into account the frequency of purchase of each configuration and by assuming that the use of reel-to-reel tapes lies midway between the use of 8-tracks and cassettes (e.g., that 79% [(87 + 71)/2] of blank reel-to-reel tapes are used to record music), we arrive at the percentages in column 3 of Table 4 which shows final blank tape usage across all configurations. It can be seen that fully 75% of all blank tapes purchased in the 1980 survey year were ultimately used to record Music or other professional entertainment.