Death of the tape?

The days of the humble cassette tape will soon be coming to a timely end with the announcement from electrical retailer Currys that their existing stocks of blank cassettes will be sold but not replenished.

The retailer has also predicted that cassette decks will also disappear from the range in the next 18 months.

The move comes in the wake of the digital format boom, which has seen the iPod and MP3 player take over the market. Currys have said the humble cassette tape has failed to compete with digital technology, with a top-of-the range iPod holding the same number of albums as 1,500 cassettes.

The cassette tape was introduced in 1963 with sales of pre-recorded tapes in the UK peaking in 1989, when 83 million were sold. This year, total UK sales of blank tapes are expected to be below one million.