(FORTUNE Magazine) – Is the cassette dying, or just in a coma? This is a big question in the music industry these days, and for good reason. In 1991 cassettes accounted for 29% of all retail music sales; today cassettes pull in 18%. By contrast, CDs have increased market share from 54% to 78% during the same period. At the same time, retailers like Tower and HMV have reduced display space by 50%. Sounds pretty fatal, no?

Many in the music industry are worried--in June the International Recording Media Association launched a "save the cassette" advertising and pr campaign--but few are ready (yet) to dig a new hole in the increasingly full media graveyard alongside the eight-track, reel-to-reel tape, and vinyl LPs (never mind the recent resurgence; it's less than 1% of the market). Says John Ganoe of the Recording Industry Association of America: "People are touting the death of the cassette, but it's still 20% of the U.S. market, which means it may be declining but it's certainly not dead." Indeed, music cassettes are a $1.4 billion market--far less than CDs' $6.1 billion but not far behind VHS's $1.9 billion for music videos.

That's not to say that Ganoe or anyone else thinks music cassettes will come back. Most believe that the day a competitively priced, CD-quality, truly portable option hits the market, the cassette will die. That may turn out to be the new DVD disk, but it's too early to tell.

Yet there's still hope for the cassette format. Says Jim Bottoms, a managing director at Understanding & Solutions, a London media research and consulting firm: "I fully envision the audio cassette being around for five more years, maybe longer--but not necessarily in the music format." Indeed, according to Bottoms, books on tape and other nonmusic content have kept the cassette business "very much alive" and looking vibrant for the future. Stick that in your Walkman.

--Erin Davies