100 years ago.

[edisonplayer]

I have some old newspapers from 1924,100 years ago.The phonograph business was in a slump, and people were buying radios.edisonplayer.

[epigramophone]

In the UK in 1924 there was no domestic commercial radio. The BBC had a monopoly and tended to broadcast what they thought listeners ought to like, rather than what they actually wanted to hear. Jazz was frowned upon. As a result, gramophone and record sales remained buoyant until the Depression.

[Steve]

The BBC..... tended to broadcast what they thought listeners ought to like, rather than what they actually wanted to hear.

So in 100 years, nothing has changed really, although today it also believes it knows how we ought to think.

[Benjamin_L]

The phonograph recession of 1924 has its roots in 1922, when many national phonograph makers experienced their first sales slump. This was partly due to an oversaturated market and the early advancements in radio, which allowed more Americans to have one in their homes. Victor also played a role with their overproduction. To keep demand high and prices low, Victor continued production at pre-1922 levels, even as national phonograph sales began to decline. This strategy didn’t help, and by 1924, the entire market was in a recession. If it hadn’t been for electrically recorded records and the introduction of the Orthophonic in late 1925, the Victor Talking Machine Co. might have even gone bankrupt.

I recommend checking out the article on the 1922-1924 phonograph sales slump by Paul Edie.

(http://www.victor-victrola.com/Victor%2 ... 01920s.htm)

[MarkELynch]

These two Victor stockholder reports chronicle the depressed Victrola sales in 1924 and the rebirth in 1925.

Mark

[edisonplayer]

Another thing that happened was the Columbia company had gone bankrupt,and was reorganized by the creditors.edisonplayer.

[Inigo]

Indeed, in Christmas 1924, Louis Sterling, of UK Columbia, then independent, hear the results of the electronic recordings made secretly by Western Electric. This was possible because his friends Frank Capps and Russell Hunting, then in the NY Pathé pressing plant, were in charge of pressing the results from the WE experimental masters. After listening to some tests, he got secretly extra copies and sent them to Louis in the UK, with an urgent notice to listen to those records. Immediately Louis sailed for America and at beginning of 1925 he started negotiations with WE to gain access to the electronic recording system. The only and fast way he finally gained access was by purchasing the entire US Columbia company, then almost in bankrupcy. That's how the UK Columbia became the owners of US Columbia for some years.

[epigramophone]

By those means Columbia acquired the rights to use the Western Electric process ahead of Victor, who had been offered them in early 1924 but had failed to take them up. It is said that they were forced to reconsider by the poor sales of Christmas 1924, as illustrated by the stockholder reports posted above by Mark.