Dust Off That Vinyl, And Make Room For Some New LP's

Old school record fans will love this posting from the NY POST via All Access Music Group. Sorry I had to post the whole thing here...it's password protected. If they wanna sue me over free publicity on my blog...go ahead.

NY Post: Best Buy Is Giving Vinyl A Spin

The consumer-electronics giant, the nation's third-largest music seller behind APPLE's iTUNES and WAL-MART, is considering devoting eight square feet of merchandising space to vinyl, or enough for just under 200 albums, after testing the idea in 100 of its stores around the country," writes PETER LAURIA in THE NEW YORK POST."Vinyl is less than 5% of BEST BUY's music sales, but the format is growing as CD sales shrink. Vinyl sales grew 15% in 2007 and 89% in '08, making the 1.9 million albums purchased last year the most since 1991.And this year is shaping up even better, with 670,000 albums sold by mid-APRIL. By contrast, CD sales have fallen at a roughly 20% clip the last few years. "

To be sure, vinyl's growth, even combined with digital sales, can't make up for CDs' decline. But it shows consumers haven't abandoned the physical format. "And the fact that a retailer of BEST BUY's size is willing to expand vinyl offerings is an incremental positive for a beleaguered industry. A typical BEST BUY store features about 16 to 20 square feet of music merchandise and displays 8,000 CDs.