, often pronounced ''Korombia'', operating internationally as , is a Japanese

record label "Big Three" music labels A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of Sound recording and reproduction, music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a Music publisher, ...

founded in 1910 as Nipponophone Co., Ltd. It affiliated itself with the

Columbia Graphophone Company Columbia Graphophone Co. Ltd. was one of the earliest gramophone companies in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1917 as an offshoot of the American Columbia Phonograph Company, it became an independent British-owned company in 1922 in a managem ...

of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and adopted the standard UK Columbia trademarks (the "Magic Notes") in 1931. The company changed its name to Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd. in 1946. It used the Nippon Columbia name until October 1, 2002, when it became . On October 1, 2010, the company returned to its current name. Outside Japan, the company operated formerly as the Savoy Label Group, which releases recordings on the SLG, Savoy Jazz, and continues to operate as Denon. It also manufactured electronic products under the

Denon is a Japanese electronics company dealing with audio equipment. The Denon brand came from a merger of Denki Onkyo (not to be confused with the other Onkyo) and others in 1939. It originally started as Nippon Chikuonki Shoukai in 1910 by Freder ...

brand name until 2001. In 2017, Concord Music acquired Savoy Label Group. Nippon Columbia also licensed

Hanna-Barbera Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ; formerly known as H-B Enterprises, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. and H-B Production Co.), simply and commonly known as Hanna-Barbera, was an American animation studio and production company, which was acti ...

properties in Japan until those rights were transferred to Turner Home Entertainment sometime in 1997. Currently, these rights are owned by Warner Bros. Japan LLC.

Other information

Aside from common historical roots, the current Nippon Columbia label has no direct relation with either the American

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

(part of the

Sony Music Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. It is the recording division of Sony Music Group, with the other half being the ...

group in the United States and known in Japan as Sony Records International; Nippon Columbia was the licensee for the American Columbia Records up until 1968, when CBS/Sony (now Sony Music) was founded) or the British EMI group, of which the original Columbia Graphophone Co. was a part - the licensee for the British

was actually Toshiba Musical Industries (The EMI group was broken up in 2012; the current licensee for re-issues is Universal Music Japan). The label is notable, however, for continuing to use the historical Magic Notes logo, which has been associated with the Columbia name since the label's founding.

Artists

Japanese

People's Honour Award is one of the commendations bestowed by the Prime Minister of Japan on people in recognition of their accomplishments in sport, entertainment, and other fields. The award, not restricted to Japanese nationals, was created in 1977 by the then-Prime ...

-winning singer Hibari Misora belonged to the label. This label is also known for dropping Ayumi Hamasaki, the best-selling solo artist in Japanese

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that ...

history (since 1968), before her rise to fame. It happened after her first single " Nothing from Nothing" and album of the same name flopped, due to little or no promotion. She subsequently met her current producer, Max Matsuura, who is now President of Avex. Also included in the roster: * Ichirō Fujiyama *

Masao Koga was a Japanese composer, mandolinist, and guitarist of the Shōwa era who was dubbed "Japan's Irving Berlin" by Universal Press Syndicate. His melancholy style, based upon Nakayama Shimpei's '' yonanuki'' scale, was popularly known in Japan ...

* Tadaharu Nakano * Shizuko Kasagi * Akiko Futaba * Hisao Itō * Noboru Kirishima * Godiego * MADKID * ONEPIXCEL *

Kiyoshi Hikawa is a Japanese enka singer who was born on September 6, 1977, in Minami-ku, Fukuoka, Japan.Hikawa Kiyoshi: Pr ...

* Kaela Kimura *

Ulrik Munther Jens ''Ulrik'' Munther (born 18 February 1994) is a Swedish singer-songwriter, actor and multi-instrumentalist signed to Universal Music Sweden. His debut studio album '' Ulrik Munther'', was released on 24 August 2011 and peaked at number 1 in ...

(Japan only) * not yet * Yoshiki * Laboum * ATEEZ * Mayuka Thaïs * Kunimi Andrea * Teri Suzanne * Lovely Summer Chan

Labels

* Animex * B-C (pronounced B to C) * CME Records * Columbia House * Columbia International * Columbia Japan * Columbia*readymade (originally stylized as ''********* records,tokyo'' and/or ''readymade records,tokyo'' on CD artwork, later changing to ''columbia*readymade'' after Nippon Columbia rebranded to Columbia Music Entertainment) * Columbia Records (unrelated to the USA-based label, which is under

) *

* Forte Music Entertainment (stylized as ''Forte Music E.'') * Heat Wave * Hug Columbia * M-Train * Nexstar Records * Passion * Triad

OtoRevo

In February 2006 Columbia Music Entertainment CEO Sadahiko Hirose hired Napster co-founder Jordan Ritter as executive advisor to the CEO. In April 2006, Ritter became CTO and formed the Red Dove (R&D) division, focusing on reducing costs and improving efficiency of internal operations, while developing new spinout companies that proved better approaches to the most expensive aspects of CME's business. In 2007, Ritter hired Ejovi Nuwere into CME, and together they began building a Japanese-based, competition-oriented promotional platform for new artists called OtoRevo. The premise of the project was to prove a more cost- and time-efficient model for discovering viable artists to join the label. Despite the measurable successes of Otorevo, the CME board of directors voted to terminate all R&D projects in March 2008.

OtoRevo Artists

A number of talented artists were discovered on the OtoRevo platform. Two artist received debuts but all were released after the shut down of the R&D division and went to other labels. The most well known is the group CREAM who were originally named IYSE. They are currently one of the top selling new artists in Japan with more than 3M channel views on YouTube.Cream - hip-hop group
Jpopasia.com. Retrieved on 2013-07-16.

Major investors

Major investors include
Faith Inc.
(31.20%), Daiichi Kosho Company (4.75%), Japan Securities Finance Co., Ltd. (2.13%), Sumitomo Trust and Banking (0.95%),

Nomura Securities is a Japanese financial services company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Nomura Holdings, Inc. (NHI), which forms part of the Nomura Group. It plays a central role in the securities business, the group's core business. Nomura is a financial ...

(0.75%), Rakuten Securities (0.64%) and Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Company (0.59%). In 2017, Faith Inc. acquired the rest of Nippon Columbia stocks, making it a wholly owned subsidiary.

External links

*
Official Centennial Website
*

References

{{Authority control Japanese record labels Record labels established in 1910 Mass media companies of Japan Jazz record labels