Columbia House files for bankruptcy

[Rudy]

Well, I think it was time to stick a fork in 'em anyway:

http://www.stereogum.com/1823177/columbia-house-is-finally-going-out-of-business/news/

I realize they've largely been irrelevant for some time now, but I had a few Columbia House orders in my past, as I'm sure many of us did.

Back in the 70s, I was in some different kind of record club which had a small yearly fee, and then you'd order your selections right from the Schwann catalog at a discount (they had the prices printed on the back cover). I didn't get into Columbia House or BMG until the CD era, and used them to back-fill some parts of my collection. The BMG was the better deal. For Columbia House, I belonged to their DVD club and again, grabbed some titles to fill out a collection of mine.

My favorite club was the Columbia House Laserdisc Club. It had a deal where you'd get your first three selections free, and then I think you had to buy two more at full price. Most friends I know ordered the Star Wars Trilogy, in their original letterboxed versions, as their free selections. What was different was that yes, they did have some full-priced discs and new releases, but they had some truly incredible sales. They would blow out some LDs on clearance for a dirt cheap price, and there were times I'd order half a dozen, or more, and maybe pay only $30-$40 with shipping. That was the one club I stuck with until it was discontinued. And it is notable that they did not manufacture these discs--they were acting as a reseller, so what you received was the genuine studio release.

One thing I noticed was that Columbia House was the last one to hang onto an old format. They were there during the last gasp of laserdiscs, but they also released reel tapes and 8-tracks long after the major labels stopped releasing those formats.

My one hesitation is that I've picked up some Columbia House vinyl pressings in my travels, and they all sound rather odd. My guess with these clubs, at least in the analog era, is that the labels would not send the best quality copy of a master tape of the album to the clubs. Why should they? The clubs were undercutting their business, so the labels could at least boast that their own releases were preferred due to better sound (although they would never admit it, and I doubt few would ever notice anyway).

I'm actually surprised Columbia House held on as long as it did...

 

[Dave]

I'm also surprised they still existed, with the way their ads have been disappearing from newspapers and magazines, unless they became a strictly Online entity... "(Your first) Twelve selections for a PENNEY", was the sales pitch...

I've had a number of CRC-distributed product, in vinyl, cassette and mainly 8-track format... And some RCA Music Service (worthy competitors?) editions of stuff, as well...


-- Dave

 

[moog]

Rudy- I first noticed the Columbia House CDs sounding "odd" by accident. I had picked up a Columbia House CD of Paul McCartney's "All the Best" at a used record shop years ago, and had gotten so used to listening to it that when I checked out the "real" version of the same CD from the library, it sounded "sped up." I was confused, until I read an article a couple months ago that Columbia House, instead of getting the "official" CDs, would get the master tapes and press their own "identical" (but not really) version, presumably to save money. Maybe their tape deck was a bit slower than it was "supposed" to be.

 

[Rudy]

It depends which master was sent to CH. In the digital age it really wouldn't matter much, but who knows how many masters or copies were floating around. I don't see a label wanting to send its best version to CH.

I own one CH LP which sounds normal and it was from the CD era, and it makes me wonder if CH cut it from the CD. (They sound nearly identical.)

 

[Harry]

I wasn't much of a club joiner. I *did* once sign up for the Record Club Of America and got a few LPs through them. They weren't one of the "forced" ones where you had to send a card back to stop shipments. Basically, they just sent catalogs and you picked what you wanted. Somewhere I still have an RCOA Test Record, with lots of obstacles for stylii and tone arms, and a nice blank section for checking tracking.

As for Columbia House, I have quite a hate/hate relationship with them, but only for videos. I signed up for their TWILIGHT ZONE VHS tapes years ago, and every month-and-a-half or so, they'd send the next in the series and charge my account - and a handsome charge it was too! I think they clipped me for about $29 for each of those tapes, which held about two-hours worth of programs. The initial bunch were quite reasonable, but the price increases were steep and quick. At least the mastering to VHS was really well-done. They LOOKED great.

After about 3/4 of the series was in my hands, things stopped. I think nearly a year went by before the final bunch started showing up. Once the series was completed, I was reasonably happy with what I owned, but by then we were well into the DVD age, so this long, drawn-out mail-order program didn't even outlast the format. So, OK, the price was really high, and it took to long, but why the hate?

It had to do with another program. My all-time childhood favorite, holy-grail-type show was THE TIME TUNNEL. It had aired on ABC for one season in 1966-67, and though the show deteriorated in its quality over that year, I still was fascinated with the concept, time travel, etc. The show disappeared from view after a syndication run in the early 70s and I hadn't been able to see an episode for years and years. It had a quick run on SciFi when they first started, but we didn't have the channel.

Sometime in the early Internet age, I got wind of the fact that Columbia House was issuing THE TIME TUNNEL on VHS. It never appeared in any of the catalogs that showed up in the mail at my house, for which I have no explanation. Anxious, and willing to spend whatever fortune it would cost to get the episodes, I called Columbia House. Not once, not twice, but at least three different times, trying to find someone there who would admit to having THE TIME TUNNEL available - but no, I was to be denied. And it's not that they weren't available, I've seen MANY of these on eBay since then.

My series ultimately came out on DVD from 20th Century Fox back in 2006, so at least I have that as a satisfaction.

So, Columbia House - you've gotten what you deserved. Rest in Torment, like you did to me.

Harry

 

[Captain Bacardi]

I used to love Columbia House back in the 70's. I forget how many albums you could initially get to begin with (12 LPs for $1.99 or something like that). I used this when I was in the Air Force. I would get the initial offer then fulfill whatever agreement there was. Then I would cancel my membership, get shipped to another base & state then joined up again. Columbia House was the 1st to release the TJB's Greatest Hits, Volume 2 on LP (It was only on 8-track and cassette to begin with in regular stores). But once the 80's started music started to get lame with all of the synthesized stuff so I gave it up. But I absolutely HATED CH once I started working for the PO. I would deliver an LP one day then get it back the next day because "I didn't order this". Apparently few people knew how to read instructions about sending the card back if you didn't want anything. Of course I had to deal with morons who would get pissed at me for delivering these items, as if I had anything to do with CH in the first place.



Capt. Bacardi

 

[DeeInKY]

Sometime in the early Internet age, I got wind of the fact that Columbia House was issuing THE TIME TUNNEL on VHS. It never appeared in any of the catalogs that showed up in the mail at my house, for which I have no explanation. Anxious, and willing to spend whatever fortune it would cost to get the episodes, I called Columbia House. Not once, not twice, but at least three different times, trying to find someone there who would admit to having THE TIME TUNNEL available - but no, I was to be denied. And it's not that they weren't available, I've seen MANY of these on eBay since then.

Harry

They probably figured you couldn't possibly want anything they were selling. Of course I should talk - we got stuck in the RD Condensed Book Club. I have no clue as to why the family signed up for that.

 

[JMK]

Rudy, I belonged to that Schwann club, too, but I can't recall the details. One thing I clearly remember is ordering Pais Tropical from Columbia House (even after I had a "legit" copy) and discovering it was sped up on that version.

 

[Rudy]

They probably figured you couldn't possibly want anything they were selling. Of course I should talk - we got stuck in the RD Condensed Book Club. I have no clue as to why the family signed up for that.

My parents were in that Readers Digest club before I was born. They had a couple of shelves on a bookcase files with those volumes. Looking back, I should have read those, even if they were condensed.

I did join a couple of the Time Life CD series, like the Rock n Roll Era set. Didn't quite complete the set since the 2nd and 3rd volumes for each year started to feature some weak selections.

I did join BMG a couple of times, prior to the CH merger, and I found their CDs to be equal to the regular label releases. But I tended to get titles that were not very mainstream, so maybe that was the difference.

 

[TonyCurrie]

Logic would suggest that the record companies wouldn't send their best masters to the record clubs, but in the Uk we had the wonderful WORLD RECORD CLUB, which was owned by EMI. Their pressings were very often very much quieter and better than the 'originals', and they often produced reasonably-priced 6LP or 8LP boxed sets. And Reader's Digest likewise - their discs were (in the UK at least) pressed by RCA and were of very high quality indeed.

 

[Bobberman]

I had memberships in both CH and BMG over the years and they served their purposes for me until the merger. I would go to columbia house for easy listening and muzak type instrumentals ( and some jazz) and BMG for the contemporary jazz classics ( the 70s to the mid 90s) once i got what i wanted i gave the clubs " the ol Boot to the head" so to speak. It was a chore sending those cards back marked " please dont send me anything now"! But at least it worked.

 

[Acapulco 1922]

They KILLED the reputation of reel-to-reel -almost- singlehandedly!
They duplicated tapes at 64x-the-speed (when the most Ampex had done by 1971, I think, was 16x) and -- they used the compressed, 8-track cartridge dub slave to make *BOTH* reels and 8-tracks from (they figured they could get away with it because they were issueing each of them at 3 3/4ips...but r-t-r has WIDER track bandwidth).
Columbia House tapes with a "1R1" catalog number ARE total sh*t.

 

[Mike Blakesley]

I bought into a couple of those VHS programs too -- "All in the Family" and "Green Acres." Both were pretty slip-shod programs...the episodes weren't in any type of order, but were grouped by theme, things like "Archie's Troubles at Work." So they jumped all over the place timewise, which was no big deal for "Green Acres," but for "All in the Family" it was pretty irritating.

Those tapes all contained 4 episodes each and there were 10 in the Acres series, and 30 in the AITF. (I found out later that there were an additional 10 Acres tapes created, but I never got those -- surprisingly.) And they cost about 30 bucks apiece. So imagine my irritation when DVDs came along and you could buy a whole season for 30 bucks or less.

So now the 40 tapes are currently decomposing in some landfill somewhere.

They KILLED the reputation of reel-to-reel -almost- singlehandedly!

I'd argue that R2R was killed more by its inconvenience than by a record club's sound quality.

 

[Bobberman]

Their cassettes were of very poor quality. During my membership with these clubs i ordered one tape out of curiosity and the sound quality left much to be desired and they began to fall apart after a few plays. However i had much better results with their vinyl and CDs

 

[Mike Blakesley]

We used to get people into the store once in a while who wanted to exchange Columbia (or other record club) tapes for other titles. We couldn't do it because they always had that tell-tale Columbia House label on them, and/or sometimes they looked completely different from the original label's package...making them unreturnable to our warehouse. I did hear over the years from many people that record-club tapes were "junk."

 

[Rudy]

I'd argue that R2R was killed more by its inconvenience than by a record club's sound quality.

Record clubs were too small a market for them to kill a format. If anything, they prolonged a format by manufacturing it after the labels gave up on it--a niche-market, in other words. They were the last to offer 8-track tapes, for instance. (There was still a market for 8-tracks long after the majors quit selling them, largely due to the long-haul truckers who all still had players in their cabs.)

Inconvenience, lower sound quality, high cost, limited availability, consumer indifference, availability of improved (or better sounding) technology...those factors will kill formats.

 

[Bobberman]

Record clubs were too small a market for them to kill a format. If anything, they prolonged a format by manufacturing it after the labels gave up on it--a niche-market, in other words. They were the last to offer 8-track tapes, for instance. (There was still a market for 8-tracks long after the majors quit selling them, largely due to the long-haul truckers who all still had players in their cabs.)

Inconvenience, lower sound quality, high cost, limited availability, consumer indifference, availability of improved (or better sounding) technology...those factors will kill formats.

And That is the Reality of the marketplace. Always has been always will be .its the same principle with the Law of Supply and Demand