Vinyl record sales in the US

One hesitates to be drawn into comparing Academy Award viewership with vinyl record sales, and yet the numbers insist. As the Oscars fade, vinyl rises. Somewhere, Alfred Hitchcock is making a fondness-for-the-analog joke nobody can hear.

Both moved sharply in 2020 for covid reasons. Oscar viewership collapsed to record lows for the 2020–21 ceremony because covid had gutted the slate of films and emptied theatres for months, while vinyl sales surged as housebound listeners rediscovered physical music and outsold CDs for the first time since 1986. One medium lost its moment; the other found one.

So the correlation is the same year redistributing attention. Network television down; turntables up. One lost; one won, accidentally.