Retailers review policies on `declining' MiniDisc format. (News).

Leading music retailers are planning to review their stocking policy on the troubled MiniDisc format after fewer than 2,500 pre-recorded units were sold across the country during the peak Christmas week.

With over-the-counter sales last week tumbling to just 1,300 units in total, both HMV's head of music Jonathan Rees and Virgin Megastores product controller Rod Maclennan say they will now be looking carefully at which titles they should be stocking and which stores should still carry the format.

"It is a format which is declining," says Rees. "It is dead in the water as a format for pre-recorded music really. Sales of pre-recorded MiniDiscs are massively down on the year and we are probably selling a quarter of what we were a year ago."

BPI trade delivery figures reveal that in the UK -- the world's largest market for the format -- sales up to quarter three had reached 66,000 units compared with full-year sales in 2000 of 300,000 units. In Christmas week, the peak period for music sales, Official Charts Company data shows just 2,462 units were bought in total across the counter. Rees believes MiniDisc's speedy decline can only become a "self-fulfilling prophecy".

Warner, which last released a raft of new MiniDisc titles in September ...