Record Record

In half-a-dozen U. S. cities last week, hundreds of people walked into newspaper offices, walked out again with armsful of symphonic phonograph records. The records cost them, not the usual $1.50 or $2 per disk, but about 50-c-. And they were good: staple works of Schubert, Beethoven, Tschaikowsky, etc. But what orchestras performed them, what company recorded them, was not revealed on the label.

J. David Stern's New York Post, which gave itself periodic shots in the arm until George Backer bought it and took it out of the narcotic ward last week, began selling cheap records as a promotion stunt last winter. The Post's Business Manager Jacob Omansky, ardent music-bibber, invented the scheme: the paper commissioned RCA Victor to make a series of special recordings, guaranteeing their cost ($150,000) should the venture fail. The music to be recorded was chosen by the Post's Musicritic Samuel Chotzinoff, a key figure in the plan because he is close to RCA's front door: its President David Sarnoff is his good friend. Keeping it under their hats, such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, the New Friends of Music Orchestra recorded such works as the Beethoven Fifth Symphony, the Mozart G-Minor Symphony. Post readers could get each album (three or more disks) by presenting 24 vouchers clipped from the paper, plus $1.93 in cash. From the first week--during which Jacob Omansky died --the venture was a success. Up to last week, when the eighth of the album series was released, 200,000 albums had been distributed. And meantime, the stunt had begun to spread.

The Washington Star, a conservative paper which rarely looks promotion in the face, admired the Post's campaign, made a deal with Publishers Service Inc., a Stern promotion subsidiary to take it over, cleansed completely of its voucher-clipping taint. The Star organized a National Committee for Music Appreciation, plugged the Committee and music in general to the top of its bent, began distributing records last February at $1.39 per set. Distribution to last week: 62,000 sets. And the Star beamed benignly as the Committee offered the album scheme to other papers--always with the stipulation: no coupons, no subscription drives in connection with it. By last week, the Los Angeles Times, Buffalo Courier-Express, Portland (Ore.) Journal, Oakland Tribune, Philadelphia Record had signed up. In each case the Committee kept the origin of the records secret.

Neither the subscribing papers, nor Publishers Service, nor the Committee, nor RCA Victor made any money on the records; only profiteers were the recording musicians, who were paid at regular rates. RCA, supposedly, went on pressing and selling records at cost, but could show, on its books, a great increase in record sales. The National Committee could point to a burgeoning public taste for good music. Newspapers could--and did--preen themselves on the amount of goodwill they had drummed up; the Star boasted to its advertisers that its campaign had boosted record and phonograph sales from 50% to 300% in Washington stores. But from regular record sellers came a loud squawk. Wanamaker's in Philadelphia, which had put pressure on the Record to stop this near giving away of records, began paring its advertising last fortnight. And record dealers complained that this record-breaking distribution of records spoiled customers, made them stuffy about buying records at the full price.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.