The music industry reported a 15.4% downturn in record and CD sales between April and June 2002.

The British industry had been outperforming many other international markets, bucking the trend of declining sales for the first quarter of 2002 with a 5% increase.

But the second quarter has seen a sharp decrease in sales of CDs, cassettes and LPs on the previous year.

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has put the drop down to a number of factors, including the World Cup.

Bad weather

It said media and consumer attention was drawn away from music during the June tournament resulting in a decline in sales.

The Pop Idol album, featuring Will and Zoe, has been a success

Other reasons put forward by retailers included the long bank holiday weekend for the Queen's Golden Jubilee and bad weather stopping shoppers going out into the high street.

But the BPI also pointed out that the same quarter of 2001 was a time of particularly robust sales.

It also said there had been little in the way of major releases during the start of the summer.

A Now compilation album - usually a guaranteed money-spinner, was also released earlier in the year, leaving a gap between April and June.

The biggest-selling album of the period was rapper Eminem's The Eminem Show, followed by Now 51, which has continued to sell well since the beginning of the year.

Confidence

The Pop Idol Big Band album, featuring the likes of Gareth Gates, Will Young and Zoe Birkett, was the third-biggest seller.

Heading the top 10 singles was Elvis Presley v JXL's A Little Less Conversation, which was number one in the singles chart for four weeks before it was deleted by its record company.

Ronan Keating's If Tomorrow Never Comes and Liberty X's Just a Little were the second- and third-most popular singles.

Despite such a drastic fall in sales, the BPI is confident that stronger releases due for the second half of the year could see an increase in overall revenue for 2002.

UK record companies have slimmed down their spending on advertising by 28% in the second quarter of the year, bringing the total spend down from £18.4m to £12.3m.