Aspects of interaction between radio and recording industry: Example of the his master’s voice concerts on Radio Belgrade programme

Abstract

A significant part of the Radio Belgrade programme, especially in the years before the establishment of instrumental and choral ensembles within this institution, was comprised of music recordings. Although gramophone record concerts were presented within the programme announcements, they were not considered in more detail in existing studies of music on Radio Belgrade. One of the reasons for this could be limited access to the data on the gramophone record concerts. Thus, for the first analysis of this segment of the music programme, the author has focused on the first year in which weekly radio programme announcements were printed in Radio Beograd: nedeljni ilustrovani casopis. The announcements contained data about music numbers, recordings companies, and serial numbers of the records played. More precisely, the series of His Master?s Voice concerts, named after the label of records exclusively broadcast in the programme, were examined in the period from October 1930 to October 1931. This particular series was chosen because of the importance of the label in both the global and local mu?sic industry and the continual broadcasted of His Master?s Voice records on Radio Belgrade. Furthermore, the diversity of programme conceptions of concerts within the series indicates the particular ways in which gramophone record concerts were designed. Based on the series of His Master?s Voice concerts, three methods of categorising gramophone record concerts are suggested. In addition, the paper offers little known archival data on gramophone record distributors who borrowed records to Radio Belgrade for marketing purposes.