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While techies have long used digital downloads to proclaim the death of the CD, truth is its predecessor is only now being removed from shop shelves.

Currys, Britain's largest high street technology store, has chosen to be chief executioner after announcing this week that it will no longer replenish existing stocks.

Peter Keenan, Currys' MD, said in a statement "In a sense this decision reflects the beginning of the end for mechanical audio products. Digital technology has fewer moving parts, is considerably smaller and has the huge advantage of using a format that is compatible with many devices. It is also much more portable. A top of the range iPod can hold the same number of albums as 1,500 cassettes, which would have required some pretty sizeable pockets."

Of course these arguments have been said for a long time but when you have an user base which has been around since 1963 (really!) then it takes a phenomenally long time to wean them onto new – or even newish – formats.

The cassette will always be associated with Sony's iconic Walkman range which saw cassette sales hit their peak in 1990 when 93 million blanks were sold in the UK alone. By 2007 however this is expected to dip below 1m, a figure largely made up from blanks.

Dixons recently killed off VHS players and this surely signals the end for analogue media... goodbye radio mix tapes *sniff*

Link:
Currys UK

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