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Endpoint: Columbia Record Club



created on: 24/10/2024
by: Lo55o (13153)
 
 

Brand properties

General info :
Columbia Record Club was a brand for Columbia Records' mail-order music club, established in 1955.

Columbia Record Club was formed in 1955 by CBS/Columbia Records as an experiment to market music directly by mail, spurring sales to rural consumers and heading off competition from mail-order companies from outside the record industry.
New members to the club were enticed with a free record just for joining. To appease brick-and-mortar retailers, titles in the club's catalog were not made available until six months after retail release (later reduced to three months), and retailers that helped recruit members got a 20% commission. By the end of that year, the club had 125,175 members who had purchased 700,000 records ($1.174 million net).
The operation grew so quickly that, in 1956, it was moved from New York City to a new home base: a distribution center in Terre Haute, Indiana, a railway-accessible city where Columbia had recently opened a record pressing facility. Within a year, the club had 687,652 members and had sold 7 million records ($14.888 million net) and, by 1963, it commanded 10% of the recorded music retail market.

In the late 1950s, both RCA Victor and Capitol Records also launched record clubs. Initially, the three record clubs sold only their own labels' releases. For example, Columbia recordings were not available from the RCA Victor Record Club, and RCA recordings were unavailable through the Columbia Record Club.

In 1958, facing the loss of members who wanted a wider variety of records, the Columbia Record Club began manufacturing and marketing records for some smaller competing labels, including Verve, Mercury, Warner Bros., Kapp, Vanguard, United Artists, and Liberty.
The RCA Victor and Capitol record clubs continued to offer only their own labels' products. Licensors were guaranteed a minimum number of sales, but were held to exclusive, restrictive contracts, which led to price-fixing allegations against the club in 1962, followed by 7 years of mostly ineffective litigation. The licensing program continued and expanded in the 1960s as the music industry grew and changed.

The Columbia Record Club began marketing stereo records and equipment in 1959, reel-to-reel recordings (via the Columbia Reel-To-Reel Club) in 1960, 8-track cartridges (via the Columbia Cartridge Club) in 1966, and cassettes (via the Columbia Cassette Club) in 1969.

The Columbia Record Club was also notable in continuing to issue product in formats no longer available on the commercial market. After the major record labels discontinued the reel-to-reel tape format in the mid 1970s, Columbia continued to offer select new titles available on reel tape until 1984. The 8-track tape had mostly disappeared by 1982, yet Columbia continued to release new titles in the format until 1988, and finally, after the major record labels abandoned the vinyl LP format in 1989, Columbia issued select new titles on vinyl until 1992. In all three cases, the new releases on the deleted formats were usually limited to the new Selection of the Month title (although the country music Selection of the Month had never been available on reel tape unless the album had possible crossover appeal to the Pop/Rock or Easy Listening club members).

By the early 1970s, "Columbia House" had become an overarching brand for the various divisions, led by the Columbia Record Club, later renamed the Columbia Record & Tape Club.
By 1975, membership was over 3 million.


The Columbia House brand, an umbrella brand for the music clubs, was introduced in the early 1970s by Columbia Records (a division of CBS, Inc.), and had a significant market presence in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.

In 2005, longtime competitor BMG Direct Marketing, Inc. (formerly the RCA Music Service or RCA Victor Record Club) purchased Columbia House and consolidated operations. In 2008, the company (as well as book club operator Bookspan) was acquired by private investment group Najafi Companies, and its name was changed to Direct Brands, Inc.

Although Direct Brands shut down music mail-order operations in mid-2009, it continued to use the Columbia House brand to market videos in the U.S. and Canada, selling DVDs and Blu-rays via the controversial practice of negative option billing. DB Media's Canadian assets ceased operating on December 10, 2010, and all staff were dismissed, while U.S. operations continued as usual. In December 2012, the company was sold to Pride Tree Holdings, Inc. In 2013, the company changed its name to Filmed Entertainment Inc. The sale of the DVD division at bankruptcy auction was announced August 10, 2015.
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Magazines

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Item number : 66091

Submitted by : Lo55o (13153)
on : 24/10/2024