The resurgence of vinyl records

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2022, the sale of vinyl records in the UK made more money than CDs. You might think of it as an old fashioned way to listen to music, especially with the dominance of streaming services, but in the last 12 months, artists like Beyonce, Harry Styles and Taylor Swift have all put out major releases on vinyl. So how is the record industry coping with the increased demand?

David Harper visits one of the biggest pressing plants in the world, GZ Media, which is based in the Czech Republic. Company CEO Michal Štěrba tells David that the business model is very different to when he started. He says demand started to grow in around 2003 when some other factories closed, but it hasn't stopped growing.

David speaks to a Japanese record store about why younger people seem to be buying so much vinyl. And we hear from Kenyan film maker and musician Maia Lekow. She records on vinyl but can't find anywhere in Kenya to press the vinyl itself - she's ended up doing it in Australia.

Some smaller independent labels tell us they're struggling to get records pressed. Andy Black owns the Popty Ping Recording company in Wales and says there's now a delay and they need to plan a lot more in advance, which can be hard when bands want to release new music.

Presenter: David Harper Producers: David Harper and Victoria Hastings

(Photo: GZ Media pressing plant. Credit: David Harper)

Transcript

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0:00.0	The comb is the podcast that seeks out stories and voices from across Africa that otherwise might go unheard.
0:07.3	The com.
0:08.1	Each week we focus on a single story that matters.
0:11.2	The comb.
0:12.1	Find out more at the end of this podcast.
0:16.7	Hello, I'm David Harper.
0:18.2	Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service.
0:40.3	We're at one of the biggest vinyl record pressing plants in the world, GZ Media, in Laudanicha in the Czech Republic. As music lovers have returned to analogue formats and vinyl has become more and more popular in the last few years, how factories like this manage to keep up with demand and we'll find out how record labels and artists have adapted. I'm probably picturing the huge factory floor, the smell of polyvinyl chloride in the air, as hot stampers press out 12-inch diameter records by the pile, and that is a big part of what makes vinyl production so much more complicated than digital formats.
0:55.1	But the complicated and specialized work starts long before this in the cutting room.
1:05.4	My name is Zbinik Leper.
1:08.0	I'm manager of cutting or mastering studios. We do in this room
1:15.0	converting or cutting groove from analog or digital files to have original that can be used for
1:26.5	production of stampers.
1:29.4	What have we got here?
1:30.3	It looks a bit like a record player but with a lot of equipment around it.
1:33.6	There's a lot more to it than that then.
1:35.0	Yes.
1:37.0	It works like turntable because you can see turntable,
1:42.6	but additional we have this. because you can see turntable, pick-up system,
1:44.6	but additional we have this arm that holds suspension box,
1:52.2	and suspension box holds cutting hat.
1:55.1	This is actually cutting the sound into a metal desk at the moment.
	...

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