Record Mixup

To singers and record men, RCA Victor last week showed a prized secret. It was in the shape of a new seven-inch, unbreakable, paper-thin record that played as much music as a 12-inch ($1.31) disc. But it will reportedly sell for much less. There was one big catch; the record had to be played at 45 revolutions a minute (instead of the standard 78). Thus, to play it, phonograph owners would need an expensive special attachment.

This news was so calamitous to phonograph makers and record sellers that it threatened to drown out the joyful celebrating over the end of James C. Petrillo's ban* on recordings (see Music). Said one Chicago radio executive: "It raises chaos in the entire industry, just as a change in rail gauges would do to railroads."

Actually, the industry was in something like chaos already. The trouble started last June when Columbia Records brought out its long-playing Microgroove records (TIME, July 26), which play at 33 1/3 r.p.m. Though the industry grumbled, and phonograph owners had to buy an attachment to play the records, Columbia had scored an impressive beat.

It brought out its revolutionary new records at a time when the business had gone to pot, largely because of consumer apathy. The "L.P." record caught on so well that the industry estimated Columbia has sold $5,000,000 of the new records in four months, double what it had expected.

The Microgroove records, with their clearer tone and 22 1/2-minute playing time on each side, represented a much needed technical advance. But they also cut into other record sales by carrying an entire symphony on one 12-inch record for $4.85 v. $8.50 for a six-record RCA Victor album. And L.P. records scared phonograph buyers off; they didn't want to buy phonographs that turned at the old speed, especially when rumors got around of the new Victor record.

Despite Christmas shopping, record sales were off 40% for the year from 1947. Sales of phonographs, already hit by television sales, were also down. In Manhattan, one desperate dealer offered up to $50 worth of records free with every table model and $200 worth with every radio-phonograph console.

Dealers thought that the new Victor record would make things even worse. Though Victor was mum on its record, the industry expects it to go on sale early in 1949, and RCA was reportedly dickering with Capitol Records and Decca to make the record standard for the industry.

* The settlement left both sides where they stood a year ago, when Petrillo charged that canned music from jukeboxes and radio stations was threatening the livelihood of his musicians. He then invoked the ban. But he will do little better now. Record makers will pay royalties of between 1% and 2 1/2% a record into the musicians' welfare fund, about the same as before. Estimated royalties: $2,000,000 a year. The peace pact was tentatively drawn two months ago. It was held up to make sure that it did not violate the Taft-Hartley Act, which bans the paying of royalties into union-controlled welfare funds. The solution, approved by Attorney General Tom Clark: an independent fund with a nonunion administrator.

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