[78-L] First LP

[neechevoneeznayou at gmail.com]

>> This, ahead-of-its-time policy clearly illustrated that the management
>> of Columbia Records was innovative and progressive to new ideas,
>> marketing strategies and technical innovation.

We have discussed on this list before. There was nothing new in the 
Columbia LP, just old ideas finally brought together and marketed 
successfully in a market that was finally open and able to embrace the 
new format. No depression. People had disposable income. No war, no 
material shortages or rationing. If Columbia did anything right, it was 
their timing.

Microgroove - Edison did it many years earlier, but was never successful 
with a commercial product, though he tried. He also tried slow speed 
records.

33.3 was developed for motion picture soundtracks in the late 20s. The 
radio industry, at least in the US, adopted it for transcriptions. 
Victor made an attempt at a long play record for the consumer market, 
also 33.3. Tried to introduce it at a time when people were hurting for 
necessities, radio was free, save for the relatively low cost of a 
receiver, and taking over the area of home entertainment; RCA wanted a 
huge amount of money for hardware to play the new format. Bad timing. 
Bad strategy.

Vinyl was in use for transcriptions as early as 1934. Mike Biel has 
mentioned a number of times that the Thesaurus label was advertised in 
the trade mags by late '34.

One might even argue that "long playing" was not a new term, having 
derived from the term "long play". I recall that we discussed this a 
while ago at some length. Good marketing strategy on Columbia's part I 
think. Borrow or modify a term that was used for cylinder records with a 
  run time of 4 rather than 2 minutes, IIRC.

joe salerno