Last night's edition of Frontline was about the music industry and all of its troubles. While this could have degenerated into another gagging regurgitation of the internet file sharing controversy, the program instead focused on the overall business and how it works.

Throughout the program, there was discussion of the retail distribution channels for music and how much the big retailers dominate the business. One record company exec said that Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart together account for 50% of music sales. As is the case with so many other products, CD's now have to please the few dominant retailers before they are readily available to the consumer.

This is yet another illustration of my longstanding belief that merchandising has become less about carrying the products that consumers want to buy and more about retailers offering what they want to sell. More and more product offerings are retailer-driven, not consumer driven.

Although the retailing giants do not operate in a vacuum -- they cannot succeed if consumers are not willing to buy what is being offered, things are very different than they used to be. Oligopoly, which is basically what we have in much of retailing today, reduces the risk of failure for the dominant players. They have the foot traffic, so as long as they meet the minimum requirements, they'll sell whatever they offer. Remember the bread lines in the Soviet Union? Do you think quality was much of an issue? (Extreme example, I know, but it's still a relevant point.)

Maybe a more realistic example is the U.S. auto industry in the 1970's. They went for years offering an inferior product -- and people accepted it because that's what was available! It took many years of pressure from the Japanese before GM, Ford and Chrysler woke up and realized that consumers will, when given the choice, respond to better products when they are readily available.

Ultimately, I think many categories of retailing are on the same path. Sure, there are new factors like internet shopping, but I still believe that history will repeat itself. They only question is when.