Re: [ARSCLIST] RIP: EMI / let's clear the air

[Michael Shoshani <mshoshani@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Olhsson wrote:

> At the time that contract expired, EMI chose to
> acquire Capital and their distribution operation rather than re-sign with
> RCA. 

Well, not quite. RCA informed EMI sometime between 1952 and 1954 that 
when the current five year contract expired, RCA was not going to 
negotiate a new one. That contract also provided for the deletion from 
EMI's catalogue of all RCA-derived titles the following year after 
expiration. Many reasons are given, ranging from RCA being dissatisfied 
with EMI's late adoption of the LP (Sir Ernest Fisk refused to issue LPs 
and 45s; the first catalogs for these were issued in October 1952) to 
the US Justice Dept bringing antitrust action, but it was RCA, not EMI, 
who ended the arrangement.

EMI purchased Capitol in 1955, two years before the RCA contract 
expired, as a hedge against losing its last remaining source of American 
music. EMI had already lost US Columbia in 1952, probably due to Fisk's 
negotiating a licensing agreement with MGM - a move that did not sit 
well with EMI's existing US affiliates.

Of course, by the Beatles' day EMI had many US options from which to 
choose for material, including a small but mighty outfit called 
Tamla/Motown :)

Michael Shoshani
Chicago IL