] The average amount of time that Americans spend listening
] to recorded music annually has dropped significantly over
] the past 7 year

] The average amount of time that Americans spend listening
] to recorded music annually has dropped significantly over
] the past 7 years.

Some useful statistics.

Fat people hate music.

The average amount of time that Americans spend listening to recorded music annually has dropped significantly over the past 7 years.

... not to mention the appalling decline in the quality of said popular music. I wish I could see the breakdown by artist, across the population. To think of the cumulative lifetimes spent listening to Britney Spears, Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, and the rest ...

However, I disagree with the assertion that the quality of "recorded music" has decreased in any meaningful way. The fact that lots of crap is being generated is distinct from the ongoing (but proportionally much smaller) production of excellent music. The disparity should not require explanation; it should be obvious even to the casual observer that it is far easier to churn out crap than to produce great art, regardless of the medium.

Honestly I am surprised by the average figure of 13 hours for "box office." If you go to the PDF source file from the Census Bureau -- which I highly recommend, by the way -- it's quite clear that this refers to "movies in theaters." So this means that the "average American" (NOT to be confused with the "ordinary American") goes to the movie theater only six times a year. How does Hollywood generate the numbers they do? With 55 billion in revenues for 2001, there must be a really long tail on that distribution ...

You'd think that, in addition to all of the gloriously lazy prolonged sitting that's involved, the fat people would be drawn to the super-sized jug of soda and barrel of low-grade popcorn with the "movie theater butter." But the available data seem to show them dining at McDonald's far more often than at the movie theater.

Of course, in a few years, McDonald's will buy Sony, and all will be well again in this world. Just wait for the synergy! The value propositions are outstanding! Why hasn't this happened already? It's crazy!

Recall that total revenues for the entire motion picture industry were at 55 billion. Compare that to these figures, courtesy of supersizeme.com:

* Americans spend more than 110 billion a year on fast food.
* McDonald's represents 43% of the total US fast food market.

So McDonald's alone has annual revenues that rival those of the entire motion picture industry.