On 11/11/2011 1:34 PM, Clark Johnsen wrote:
>> Utterly fascinating article. How Columbia used the marketing prowess of
>> the founders of the Book of the Month Club to promote its new LP format
>> to a public that didn't know it needed it. Also: The rise and fall of
>> Terre Haute, Indiana -- the town that Columbia House built.
>> http://thephoenix.com/Boston/music/129722-rise-and-fall-of-the-columbia-house-record-clu/
From: Punto <[log in to unmask]>
> Yes, this was well written and worth reading.
Not really. Here are the comments I just added to their page:
There are many errors in this article because of lack of research and
looking at this from the point of view of a single book about the Book
of the Month Club. The name "Columbia House" did not come about until
the late 1970s -- until then it was always "The Columbia Record Club",
and the parent company was not called CBS Records until that late era.
The LP had been quite well established by the time the CRC was started
-- it was NOT a gimmick to promote its "new" format. The 78 album had
already disappeared, and 78 singles were almost completely replaced by
45s by then. And that CBS 45 you illustrate is BRITISH, not American.
Completely ignored is the battle Columbia had with its record
distributors and dealers who had contracts which implied that the
company could not bypass the distributor/dealer network and sell
directly to the customers. The legal reply was that the implicit
agreement had already been broken when dealers started selling at a
discount price below the list price, and occasionally below wholesale
price. If you did the proper research in the trade press like Billboard
of the mid-50s, you would have seen the many headlines about this. It,
and some of the other things you misunderstood, were probably also
discussed in the book "The Label".
> Does anyone know the eventual fate of Musical Heritage Society.
> Peter H.
I have gotten occasional mailings from them and their Jazz Society
during the past year. They are also on-line
http://themusicalheritagesociety.com/
Mike Biel [log in to unmask]
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