RIP Virgin Megastore

Really sad when I heard the news yesterday that Richard Branson has decided to sell Virgin Megastores to a management buyout company.

I worked at the Virgin Megastore in Reading when I was 16 for a couple for years and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I later went onto HMV in Kingston where I stayed for a number of years.

It seems to me that the music industry just did not react quickly enough to the Internet, Other industries like print and film etc have has the distinct advantage of learning from the mistakes the music industry made.

Some people are positive on the news:

"The fact that the management has been able to secure funding for this deal shows the robust prospects for entertainment retail," said the Entertainment Retailers Association's chairman, Paul Quirk. "The computer games and DVD markets are buoyant and even in music, despite misguided predictions that somehow record stores are finished, 90% of sales are still on physical formats."

However, with Fopp recently nearly going the same way as MVC, Tower et al it seems the beloved record shop could be something of the past with HMV being the only major music retailer on the high street.

Sad days :(