Every music format has its day, its peak time, before eventually being surpassed by something else. Now it looks as though the undisputed king of the music formats for the past decade has finally given up the ghost and is beginning to die off slowly.

The humble CD, compact disc, is finally being withdrawn from stores by the retail giant Woolworths. Woolies will now only be stocking CD singles in half of their 820 stores nationwide in the UK. Music downloads are being cited as the reason for the decision, as nobody it seems is interested in CD singles anymore.

Woolworths say they will still carry stock of special occasion singles, such as X-Factor CDs, which they believe will justify their retail space by selling in huge numbers. However all other CD singles are to be removed from half of their stores.

Woolworths commercial director, Jim Batchelor, stated:

Digital downloading is now the true customer choice for listening and purchasing single music tracks.

CDs are alive and well for album sales, but unfortunately the physical singles market is in terminal decline.

In tandem with this decision Woolworths have worked on their own website to offer a better selection of musical downloads for devices such as mobiles phones and MP3 players.

Woolworths believe they are now in a position to challenge retail giant Tesco, who themselves recently launched a music download store on their website.