The Early Recording Industry in the Czech Lands – Part 3

Guest post by Daniel Matoušek

Until now, there has not been much literature on the recording industry in the former Czechoslovakia.  Particularly the history after the 1950s is not mapped at all yet. However, there are two books about the early music industry in the Czech lands that stand out in scope and in depth of detail: “Fonogram I” and “Fonogram II” by Czech record collector and sound industry historian Gabriel Gössel. The following short series of four articles is thus a look into the history of early gramophone industry in the Czech lands as described in these two volumes.

This third part covers the 1930s, when Czechoslovakia was suffered from world economic crisis which led to the oligopolization of the music industry.

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The Early Record Industry in Australia – Part 4

The main competitors on the world record market, The Gramophone Company and the Columbia Graphophone Company, originally hesitated to enter the Australian market and it took several years before they etablished record pressing plants in Australia. Whereas the Columbia Graphophone also ran a recording studio from the beginning, the Gramophone Company could not bring itself to operate recording facilities in Australia in order to produce local acts. The Great Depression forced the rivals to amalgamate to EMI also in Australia in 1931.