Record club
# Record club

A record club was a mail-order retail club for selling records/tapes promoted by the major record labels during the 1950s onwards.

Major clubs included

* EMI Records club founded in 1965
* Columbia House (redirect from Columbia Record Club) established in 1955. It had a significant market presence in the 1970s/1980s, CBS Records
* Capitol Record Club, Capitol Records
* Citidal Record Club
* Britannia Music Club, Polygram
* World Record Club Ltd. company in the United Kingdom which issued long-playing records and reel-to-reel tapes, mainly classical
* Record Club of America founded in 1966
* RCA Music Service RCA's record club (launched in the mid-1950s), was the main competitor to CBS-owned Columbia House

Customers usually joined record clubs by agreeing to buy a certain number of records, but a significant number of members would not pay for records they ordered. Record companies saw lower royalties from sales through record clubs than from sales through stores and other means. Also, the clubs could give away up to one free record for every record sold--resulting in about half as much revenue for record companies as they might get through other kinds of distributors.

