Phonogram Inc.

Phonogram Inc.

Phonogram
Successor	Universal Music Group Universal Studios
Founded	1970
Founder	Philips Records and Deutsche Grammophon
Headquarters	United States
Parent	Philips (1962–1998)

Phonogram Incorporated or Phonogram, U.K. was started in 1970 as a unit of the Grammophon-Philips Group (GPG), a joint venture of Philips N.V. of the Netherlands and Siemens A.G. of Germany. Phonogram was the name of a parent company that owned and or distributed many different record companies. Phonogram never a record label as such, but a holding company for a number of its labels which included Phillips, Fontana, Vertigo and Mercury

In the US Phonogram artists were generally released on Mercury Records, but always carried the following wording "Manufactured And Marketed by PolyGram Records" with the PolyGram Records logo included whilst releases in parts of Europe issued by Vertigo and Philips carried the "Marketed by Phonogram" wording with the Phonogram logo included. In 1997, all PolyGram units still using the Phonogram name were renamed Mercury Records. By that time, Mercury had become Phonogram's flagship label. PolyGram continued until 1998, when the company was purchased by Seagram and merged with Universal Music Group, now owned by Vivendi.

In the UK, Phonogram was the holding company for Philips Records, which started in 1953 and launched a second label, Fontana, in 1958. As well as producing many of their own recordings and UK hits, Philips/Fontana licensed the rights from Columbia (US) to release and distribute their product from 1953 until the end of 1964. After that time, Columbia set up their own marketing and production unit in Theobalds Road, London, having acquired Oriole Records and its record-pressing plant that had prospered in manufacturing discs for UK budget labels including Embassy, sold through Woolworths. Unable to use the label "Columbia", as it had already been copyrighted by EMI Records, their product was released on the "CBS" record label. Phonogram also licensed recordings from small US record labels for European release. Among these were Avco, Sire, Janus, Westbound, All Platinum, and Chess.

In 1972, Phonogram was merged with Polydor Records into PolyGram. Following PolyGram's acquisition of Mercury in the U.S., they changed the corporate name of Mercury Record Productions, Inc. to Phonogram, Inc.

See also

• List of record labels