All Things:MUSIC NEWS

12 Tears For One Cent: Columbia House Is No More

WTF? This was still alive???

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that the current owners of Columbia House had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The court documents told a sad tale: The company, Filmed Entertainment Inc.—whose owner, Pride Tree Holdings Inc., had purchased Columbia House in 2012—currently has zero employees and $63 million in debt, and only $2 million in assets. Its net revenue in 2014 was just $17 million. Perhaps more revealing, however, was the fact that Columbia House—which for years was known as the place to order records, tapes or CDs at the bargain deal of (depending on the era and format) eight or 12 for a penny—still has a mail-order DVD club with 110,000 members.
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Da fuq?

Incredibly, rumors of Columbia House’s permanent demise are decidedly exaggerated. As part of the bankruptcy protection filing, Filmed Entertainment Inc. wants to try to sell off the club’s assets. According to The Wall Street Journal, there’s quite a bit of interest, to the tune of 20 prospective buyers; in fact, FEI “is currently in active discussions with at least one of them.” When all is said and done, Columbia House may yet live another day and end up as the cockroach of the media industry, alive and kicking long after tangible media ceases to be a dominant influence.
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adgy-san said:
Same here. Got my first Nick Cave listen thanks to them!
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I remember one order with three CDs explicitly, haha. System of a Down (debut album), Nick Cave (Tender Prey) and Joy Division (Closer).

That was actually my second Nick Cave album. I had ordered "The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds" earlier from said club and decided I wanted to get more of his stuff. :)
 
orpheus said:
I remember one order with three CDs explicitly, haha. System of a Down (debut album), Nick Cave (Tender Prey) and Joy Division (Closer).

That was actually my second Nick Cave album. I had ordered "The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds" earlier from said club and decided I wanted to get more of his stuff. :)
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Murder Ballads for me. I knew his name, but mostly ordered it for PJ Harvey. :)

Trying to remember what else I ordered with that first order... I think Different Class by Pulp was one of them.
 
I bought so many discs from Columbia House that I probably couldn't list them all. I enlisted repeatedly.
 
And Columbia House went back to the Vinyl Days, right? It must have been hard to mail Vinyl without it breaking, no? Maybe they should go back to that and target the Hipster Demographic, lol.

Columbia House was good because they had most mainstream artists, but also tried to branch out. I got my first Skinny Puppy, Too Dark Park, from them. And I played it for the first time, lol, and said, what is this crap. Haha. It was abrasive and gave me a headache. But I listened to it a few times and eventually got and now I am a SP fan. It's an acquired taste. ;)
 
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