Major Label Pressing Runs

[Barry]

Just been reading the Bionic Boogie query thread and it got me to thinking about how large were major label pressing runs - anyone any info?

I've no doubt that the runs were dependant on status etc but you'd think that after being signed by a major, the label would have had a fair amount of faith in the act and therefore the runs would have been fairly significant.

I know that there would have been re-presses if something took off.

Anyway, anyone any idea?

[Roburt]

Definitely dependant on the act's status

.I seem to recall that ABC (if they wanted a particular track from a specific producer), would take 'another' of said producers efforts as part of a deal... the 'other' 45 though would sneek out in limited quantities and get no promotion at all

............ guess lots of the majors did similar things.

The scenario would of course be complicated by majors who pressed up just about all their 45's in 2/3 regional manufacturing plants. Don't know if say ABC took a Chicago producers effort that they didn't really believe in, it would only be pressed up (in limited quantity) in the Chicago pressing plant they used or if all their proposed 45's were sent to every one of their pressing plants for manufacturing.

It's said that some of the licensing deals CBS / Epic did for indie soul label product in the 70's were just to remove said indie soul labels from the scene (this was only for some labels; obviously for the likes of Philly Int. this didn't apply). When they had the artists & product signed up, a few 45's would trickle out without much effort to back them and then the artists would be left to sit out their contracts).

Of course, Motown did much the same with their local 'little label' opposition in the 60's.

Edited September 20, 2012 by Roburt

[Steve G]

Are you talking the Big 6 or Big Six + others like Atlantic, Motown etc?

Runs were as low as 1,000, occasionally less, and obviously more as needed. Of course not all of them got out of the record company offices hence rarities....

[Geeselad]

Are you talking the Big 6 or Big Six + others like Atlantic, Motown etc?

Runs were as low as 1,000, occasionally less, and obviously more as needed. Of course not all of them got out of the record company offices hence rarities....

Steve do you have some idea as to an average, for say a previously unknown artist. with no form and no special reason for promotion?

[Steve G]

No I don't really know. A lot would depend on whether the A&R / promo people sensed a hit. So initial runs could be as high as 25,000 or even more on occasions if they thought they had a hit in the making / were getting positive feedback and believed in a song, or if something was on a local label and doing well. But beyond that I don't have any hard facts on this. For a lot of majors it was single digit thousands. There weren't any standards that i know of like RCA did a minimum of X thousand - it varied. Numbers pressed though is largely academic, so I can think of a song that was pressed in a five figure quantity as an issue which ultimately didn't sell a single copy. All the copies were either kept in the warehouse or returned from distributors 'unsold' or sold in the secondary (cut out) market.

[Davenpete]

Interesting one - according to Uncle Rae who had a friend who worked at Stateside in the 60s - the MINIMUM run of every red and white demo was 500!

Dx