A Platter for the Lion

With a roar from its patented lion, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer last week stalked into the phonograph-record industry. Nobody was too surprised. But the roar was loud enough to make old-line record companies mighty nervous.

M-G-M had long been looking hungrily at records. The business was a jungle full of small fry (some 230 manufacturers), lorded over by Victor. Decca and Columbia. The fry was numerous enough and appetizing enough to make Leo's mouth water. With 5,000,000 record-players (including 500,000 jukeboxes) in use throughout the U.S., the industry sold 287 million records in 1946, expects to do nearly twice as well in 1947.

What gave M-G-M an even hungrier feeling was the sensational sale (some 800,000) of Pianist Jose Iturbi's recording of Chopin's Polonaise in A Flat from A Song To Remember. But most of the gravy from this platter went to RCA, which made it. M-G-M decided to cash in itself on recordings by its stars.

M-G-M raided established record-makers for executives with know-how, poured out $3,500,000 to turn a Bloomfield, N.J. war plant into one of the world's largest record factories (annual capacity: 40,000,000 records). Only one problem remained: distribution.

Last week M-G-M deftly solved that by signing up with Chicago's Zenith Radio Corp. to use Zenith's ready-made distributing organization. By this stroke M-G-M got entry into the many phonograph shops which sell Zenith radios, hopes to sell their records in 5,000 key stores. But MGM's first album, four ten-inch records of Jerome Kern music from the film Till the Clouds Roll By, will cost $3-75, somewhat higher than most of Victor's, Decca's and Columbia's.

As if MGM's challenging roars were not enough, other film-makers were thinking of getting into the record business too. And there were whispers in Chicago that Sears, Roebuck, which only recently has started marketing its own discs through a record-of-the-month club, had a low-priced wire recorder almost ready to go. All platter-makers, including newcomer MGM, were keeping their fingers crossed--and their researchers busy.

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