new media trends

Virgin has announced plans to close all Virgin Music Megastores in the US by this summer:

The remaining six Virgin Megastores in the United States will shut their doors this summer.

To buck declining music sales, the chain broadened its offerings in the last few years to apparel, books and electronics. The six remaining stores took in about $170 million in revenue a year, down from the $230 million from 23 stores at its peak in 2002.

The lack of expansion plans and a recent decision to close the Times Square location in New York, which had been on track to make $56 million last year until the financial collapse began in September, made supporting the rest of the chain untenable, Wright said.

“Our six best stores from a retail point of view are also our six best stores from a real estate point of view,” Wright said.

It looks like the corporate record store may soon be a thing of the past.

Do you think Wal-Mart killed the big chain record stores, was it iTunes, or did they just kill themselves?