On this day in 1956 RCA Victor announced a huge number of advance orders for “Love Me Tender” by Elvis Presley.

Only a couple of days ago it was the anniversary of Emile Berliner inventing the gramophone. In 1956 the record company that he co-founded with Eldridge Johnson was going from strength to strength.

These days, of course, RCA is part of Sony BMG. The history is somewhat contorted but, briefly;

In the ’80s RCA bought 50% of Arista. General Electric bought RCA in ’86 (selling its interest in the RCA/Ariola International back to Bertelsmann the owner of Ariola). The RCA/Ariola International entity was renamed Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG). GE meanwhile closed all RCA entities ‘cept for a NBC. So, BMG was the only RCA game in town. They also resurrected RCA Victor for Rock music.

While RCA had acts like The Eurythmics on its books it also produced a number of successful albums of shows on Broadway.

in 2004 BMG merged with Sony to produce ‘Sony BMG’. Interestingly, RCA once owned NBC now RCA was in a group once owned by NBC’s rival CBS, Columbia Records.

2008 saw BMG being bought out by Sony and Sony BMG became Sony Music Entertainment.

There, told you it was simple!