World Record Club

From mail-order pioneer to Record Clubs of Australia
For more than three decades, the World Record Club occupied a distinctive place in the Australian record industry. Beginning as an innovative mail-order operation specialising in classical and jazz recordings, it developed its own celebrated design studio, moved into contemporary popular music with a unique Australian Beatles release, and eventually became part of EMI (Australia). By the 1980s the club faced declining profitability, repeated changes of ownership and even receivership, before being rebuilt as Record Clubs of Australia. Its history is one of innovation, upheaval and remarkable survival.
From London to Melbourne
The World Record Club was the brainchild of Australian advertising copywriter John Day, then working in London, and Norman Lonsdale, a distinguished scion of the British merchant-banking firm Kleinwort Benson Lonsdale.

Conceived as an alternative to conventional record retailing, the club commenced operations in London in January 1956, offering members records through a catalogue-based mail-order system.

The concept was deceptively simple. Rather than manufacture large quantities of records and then attempt to sell them through shops, the World Record Club could advertise forthcoming releases directly to its members and take orders in advance. Knowing approximately how many copies were required before manufacture substantially reduced the risk and expense of unsold stock and helped the club offer records at prices below those normally charged through conventional retail outlets.

Members received regular catalogues or programmes describing forthcoming releases, selected the titles they wanted and had their records delivered by mail or collected them from club premises.

The British club endured a difficult first year but began to find its feet during 1957. Encouraged by its improving fortunes, John turned his attention to his native Australia. To establish the new Australian operation, the World Record Club employed Terence Creswell-George, who returned to Melbourne in 1957 to set up the local branch. Terence in turn recruited his former colleague Geoff Digby as the company's first art director, beginning what would become one of the most distinctive aspects of the Australian World Record Club. John Day himself later returned to Australia and eventually became the club's chief executive in 1963.

A record club with its own identity
Although fundamentally a mail-order organisation, the Australian World Record Club also established premises in the major capital cities where members could collect records and, in some locations, listen to prospective purchases.

Its catalogue initially concentrated heavily on classical music and jazz, much of it drawn from recordings that were otherwise difficult to obtain in Australia. In time, its repertoire expanded to encompass light music, stage productions, children's recordings and other genres.

The club also developed specialist activities including The Record Society, catering for collectors of more serious and unusual classical repertoire, and the Light Music Club.

One of the most distinctive features of the Australian operation was its approach to record packaging.

Rather than simply reproduce the sleeves supplied by overseas licensors, the World Record Club established its own Melbourne design studio and routinely created completely new artwork for Australian releases. Under Geoff Digby, the studio attracted an impressive group of Australian designers, illustrators and photographers and produced more than 2,000 record-cover designs during its existence.

Its designers worked within strict production limitations. Most sleeves were restricted to two-colour printing, with only one full four-colour cover permitted each month. Far from stifling creativity, these constraints encouraged the studio’s artists to make inventive use of typography, illustration, photography and limited colour combinations. The resulting sleeves developed a visual identity quite unlike that of the conventional record companies.

The freedom afforded to its designers—within these practical restrictions—resulted in a distinctive body of work that became an important part of Australian graphic design during the 1960s and 1970s.

The EMI connection
The Australian club's relationship with EMI (Australia) became particularly important.

On 3 April 1959, the World Record Club entered into a ten-year agreement under which EMI manufactured its records in Australia. The arrangement gave the club access to EMI's substantial record-production facilities while allowing the club to continue operating as a separate mail-order enterprise.

The concept also spread across the Tasman, with a New Zealand World Record Club following several years after the Australian launch.

The relationship between the World Record Club and EMI became progressively closer during the following decade. EMI UK acquired the British World Record Club in 1965, and in March 1969 direct ownership of World Record Club Pty Ltd was transferred from EMI UK to EMI (Australia).

The Australian club nevertheless retained considerable independence for several more years, particularly in repertoire selection and presentation, before EMI (Australia) ultimately assumed full operational control in 1975.

The World Record Club goes pop
The change in ownership coincided with an important broadening of the Australian club's musical ambitions.

Until then, the World Record Club had built much of its reputation around classical, jazz and specialist repertoire. In 1969, however, the Australian operation made a deliberate decision to enter the contemporary pop-music field.

If the move was to succeed, the club wanted a suitably strong flagship release.

Few possibilities could have been stronger than The Beatles.

The opportunity came almost by accident.

World Record Club co-founder John Day later recalled that the club's Repertoire Director, Dianne Ellis, was visiting EMI in Sydney when she was handed a group of albums for consideration as possible future World Record Club releases. Most were classical titles. Among them, however, she unexpectedly discovered a Beatles album.

“My Repertoire Director Dianne Ellis was in Sydney on a routine visit and took delivery of a pile of EMI LPs - mainly classical - from their A&R man for us to consider for Club release.

“Flipping through them she discovered to her astonishment the Beatles album. She immediately queried its inclusion and EMI confirmed they did not intend to release it - it was ours if we wanted it.”
For the World Record Club, the answer was obvious.

The album was Magical Mystery Tour.

The six songs from the Beatles' 1967 television film had originally been issued in Australia in the same double-EP format used in Britain. In the United States, however, Capitol Records had expanded those six tracks into a full LP by adding five Beatles singles tracks from 1967 to the second side.

That American LP configuration had not been released commercially by EMI in Australia.

The World Record Club immediately recognised its potential.

The club promoted it as: “A fabulous album — never before available in LP form in Australia!”

It was exactly the high-profile release the World Record Club needed to announce its arrival in the contemporary popular-music market.

Magical Mystery Tour And Other Splendid Hits
Released by the World Record Club in June 1969, the album appeared under the slightly expanded title Magical Mystery Tour And Other Splendid Hits.

In keeping with established World Record Club practice, the Australian edition did not simply reproduce the American sleeve. Instead, the club created its own distinctive artwork using an image that had appeared on page 10 of the 24-page booklet prepared for the original double EP and American album.

The result was an unusually distinctive Australian Beatles release.

The timing could scarcely have been better. The Beatles remained at the height of their popularity and the World Record Club could offer Australian buyers something ordinary record retailers could not — the full LP version of Magical Mystery Tour.

By all accounts, the album became a huge seller for the club.

Its success also demonstrated what made the World Record Club unusual. It was not merely reproducing the normal EMI (Australia) catalogue at a cheaper price. Its repertoire staff could identify recordings that had fallen outside EMI's regular Australian release programme, obtain access to them and present them in distinctly Australian editions for club members.

A changing record market
During the 1970s, the market in which the World Record Club had prospered began to change.

Specialist record retailers were offering consumers a far wider range of music than had been available when the World Record Club was established, while the record business became increasingly driven by rapidly changing contemporary releases.

The advantages of the traditional advance-order mail-order system consequently became less pronounced.

EMI (Australia)'s assumption of full control in 1975 also changed the character of the Australian organisation. The previously independent Melbourne design operation disappeared and the World Record Club became progressively more integrated into EMI (Australia)'s broader recorded-music business.

Although the club remained active and continued offering a substantial catalogue of records and tapes, by the beginning of the 1980s it was considerably less profitable than it had once been.

Changes to Australian sales-tax arrangements added further pressure by imposing the full tax burden on stock supplied through record clubs.

By early 1983, EMI (Australia) had concluded that a major restructuring was necessary if the World Record Club was to remain viable.

The move from Melbourne to Sydney
EMI (Australia)'s solution was to relocate the Melbourne-based operation to Sydney and integrate as much of its administration and fulfilment as possible with the company's existing facilities at Homebush.

As part of the relocation, the World Record Club's library of master tapes was transferred to the tape basement at EMI's 301 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, premises.

Brian Harris, then General Manager of EMI (Australia), was given responsibility for determining the World Record Club's future. Brian had already spent more than a decade rising through EMI (Australia)'s commercial ranks. By mid-1973 he was managing sales for EMI's Axis budget label, and by 1975 had become National Sales Manager. In early 1976 he was promoted to Marketing Manager, giving him responsibility for EMI (Australia)'s sales, advertising and promotional activities, a position he continued to hold into the early 1980s. By January 1983 he had risen to General Manager of EMI (Australia).

Brian was sent to Melbourne in January 1983 with a stark brief: either close the increasingly unprofitable World Record Club or move it to Sydney and make it viable. He chose the latter. In doing so, he persuaded his colleague Aub Hogno to join him and take responsibility for the operational side of the relocation. A contemporary account later described Brian's task in precisely those terms — he had been sent to Melbourne “to either close the World Record Club ... or move it to Sydney and make it viable.”

Aub had joined EMI (Australia) in February 1973 as a warehouse assistant after moving to Sydney from the country. He progressively worked his way through the company's distribution organisation, becoming a charge hand and supervisor before eventually rising to the position of National Shipping Manager. By 1983 he was responsible for much of the machinery behind EMI's national distribution network — picking and packing orders, transport arrangements and getting EMI product to customers around Australia.

His involvement with the World Record Club was initially intended to be temporary. He would help Brian relocate the operation from Melbourne, establish it in Sydney and potentially return to his previous role.

Instead, the assignment changed the direction of his working life.

Aub described his role as the operations man responsible for “crossing the T's and dotting the I's to actually move it up and integrate it into Homebush.”

Although the World Record Club's offices and telephone operation remained in Melbourne, much of its warehousing was already in Sydney. Aub recruited an entirely new Sydney call-centre staff, brought in additional office personnel and reorganised and expanded the warehousing required to support the club from Homebush.

The relocation was accomplished remarkably quickly, with the World Record Club operating out of Homebush by May 1983.

“We basically did it very, very quickly. There wasn't much mucking around, to be honest.”
By the latter part of 1983, Aub believed that the World Record Club had been stabilised and was performing well again.

“We were doing quite well. We turned it around.”

Just as the rebuilt operation was beginning to gain momentum, however, developments involving the World Record Club's principal competitor were about to change its future completely.

International Direct Marketing
In early 1984, a consortium backed by Newcastle solicitor, businessman and former Wallaby Ross Turnbull acquired the CBS-owned Australian Record Club, which had been headed for some twenty years by Daryl Haberecht.

Having secured Australia's other major mail-order record club, the group subsequently approached EMI (Australia) about acquiring the World Record Club and amalgamating the two businesses.

EMI (Australia) agreed to sell.

For Aub at least, the decision was disappointing. He had expected the revitalised World Record Club to continue under EMI (Australia) ownership, but was instead offered the opportunity to remain with EMI (Australia) in another role. He chose to follow Brian Harris into the new organisation.

The combined operation was brought together under International Direct Marketing Pty Ltd, with both Brian and Daryl forming part of its senior management team.

Aub became Operations Manager and once again found himself responsible for moving a record-club operation. The World Record Club warehouse at Homebush and the facilities associated with the former CBS Australian Record Club were consolidated into a new International Direct Marketing operation at 222 Botany Road, Alexandria.

International Direct Marketing also encompassed the direct-marketing operation AgMac, making the business broader than the two music clubs alone.

The failure of the new computer system
The new operation soon encountered a serious problem. Having separated the record clubs from EMI (Australia) and CBS, International Direct Marketing could no longer rely upon either company's computer system and therefore needed to establish an independent system to manage membership records, orders, stock and fulfilment.

According to Aub, the replacement system never functioned properly. For close to two years, a substantial amount of the club's business had to be handled manually, creating major operational difficulties and contributing to a steady decline in the organisation's performance.

Other parts of International Direct Marketing were also struggling, and by February 1986 the entire operation had entered receivership.

“Literally the last man standing”
By the time the receivers arrived, most of International Direct Marketing's senior management had departed.

Aub considered leaving as well but instead found himself as the only senior manager still working with the receivers.

“I was literally the last man standing.”
One of Aub's most important tasks was negotiating with the major record companies to preserve product-supply arrangements. Without access to recordings, there would have been little viable record-club business left for anyone to purchase.

Among the companies then active in Australia's direct-marketing industry was Doubleday Australia, best known for its mail-order book-club operations. It would later become an important player in the Australian music-club business, but at this stage its connection was indirect.

The purchaser who eventually emerged from the receivership was direct-marketing and media entrepreneur Joseph (Joe) Schwartz, head of the Winns group of companies. In a meeting Aub remembered vividly, Joe came up the back stairs of the Alexandria warehouse after someone associated with Doubleday had given him his name. Joe approached Aub about taking charge of the business for the new owners, and Aub, attracted by the challenge of rebuilding the operation, agreed.
Record Clubs of Australia
Following Joseph Schwartz's acquisition of the business from the receiver in May 1986, a new company, Record Clubs of Australia Pty Ltd, was established to operate the surviving music-club activities. Rather than being a new record club in its own right, Record Clubs of Australia provided the corporate and operational structure through which the former World Record Club and Australian Record Club businesses could be managed together under Joe's ownership.

Brian Harris subsequently returned to EMI (Australia), while Aub Hogno took responsibility for running the rebuilt operation. By this stage the troublesome computer system inherited from International Direct Marketing was at least partly functioning, allowing the new owners to begin stabilising the business.

One significant problem remained, however: the cost of the premises at Alexandria. The rent was extremely high, and Aub began looking for a more economical location from which the combined club operation could be run.

He knew that EMI's large Homebush complex contained substantial areas of unused space following the contraction of its former manufacturing activities. Aub therefore approached EMI (Australia) property manager Des Jackson about relocating Record Clubs of Australia back to Homebush. The arrangement made considerable operational sense: EMI's distribution operation, one of the clubs' principal sources of product, was effectively upstairs, while the site was also conveniently located for dealing with the other major record companies.

Only a few years after Aub had helped move the World Record Club from Melbourne into Homebush, he brought its independently owned successor back to essentially the same place.

Building the club again
The second Homebush period became one of the strongest eras in the later history of the business.

Aub recruited a number of people he had worked with at EMI (Australia), including former middle managers, and assembled what he remembered as an exceptionally capable team.

Among those associated with the operation was Chris Parry, who became Aub's repertoire manager and helped assemble material for the club's catalogues and magazines.

Aub was quick to stress that the recovery was not his achievement alone.

“I shouldn't say it was all me. I had a great team.”
The rebuilt operation also received very good support from the major record companies. Aub particularly remembered Festival Records, which supplied the club despite having previously insisted that it would never provide product to record clubs. That willingness to cooperate was important because the revitalised business increasingly sought access to desirable contemporary releases, rather than relying principally upon older recordings specially licensed or cleared for club use.

The repertoire offered to members expanded considerably and increasingly included contemporary material.

Across the Tasman
The revitalised organisation soon expanded beyond Australia.

In late 1987 or early 1988, an opportunity arose to acquire the World Record Club in New Zealand.

Aub travelled across the Tasman with Joseph Schwartz and his son Ivan Schwartz to negotiate the purchase.

The New Zealand club was itself losing money.

Again, Aub approached the problem largely as a matter of logistics.

Rather than retain a full fulfilment operation in New Zealand, he devised a system through which members' orders could be processed and packed in Australia before being shipped across the Tasman.

Arrangements were negotiated with New Zealand Customs, New Zealand Post and Australia Post, with orders packed into sealable containers designed to satisfy customs requirements.

The result was remarkable.

“Literally, what we were doing was giving them a quicker service out of Australia than what they were used to getting out of New Zealand.”
Aub deliberately retained a small New Zealand office and several key employees so that the World Record Club identity remained locally visible.

Within approximately a year, he recalled, the previously loss-making New Zealand operation had been turned around.

At the same time, an entirely new music format was beginning to transform the industry.

The Australian Compact Disc Club
The arrival of the compact disc created both an opportunity and a challenge for Record Clubs of Australia. The favourable royalty arrangements traditionally available to record clubs for LPs and cassettes could not initially be obtained for CDs, so Aub and his team instead negotiated directly with the record companies to purchase finished commercial discs at discounted prices.

Although the margins were smaller, the arrangement offered an important advantage. Conventional record-club releases often required special repertoire clearance and could be delayed for many months, whereas commercially released CDs could potentially be obtained while they were still current.

Record Clubs of Australia was already taking advantage of this by 1987, when it was able to advertise the newly released Beatles compact discs to its members soon after their mainstream release. Access to desirable current titles depended partly on the willingness of the record companies to supply them and, as Aub later joked, on “how good our lunches were.”

The success of CD sales eventually led Record Clubs of Australia to establish the Australian Compact Disc Club in late 1989. Aub recalled it as being among the earliest dedicated CD mail-order clubs of its kind, and demand for the new format proved exceptionally strong.

“People were just going nuts. It was very, very successful.”
Time-Life comes calling
By the end of the 1980s, the transformation was considerable.

Only a few years earlier the clubs had been in receivership. They were now successful enough to attract some of the world's largest direct-marketing organisations.

In late 1989, Time Life Books approached Record Clubs of Australia through its Australian Managing Director, Bonnie Boezeman.

Doubleday was also interested in acquiring the operation and competed for it.

Time-Life, however, was prepared to pay substantially more.

The Schwartz interests accepted the offer, creating a direct-marketing operation capable of challenging Reader's Digest for the position of Australasia's largest direct marketer of recorded music.

Aub remained with the organisation for a little over a year after the sale and continued running the clubs.

Doubleday and the final twist
Aub subsequently left Time-Life and rejoined the Schwartz interests at Golden Press.

His career in music clubs, however, was not finished.

During the following period, Doubleday launched its own mail-order music club, Music Direct, in late 1992 and approached Aub to join the operation.

He initially entered in what he described as a middle-management position, working as an administrator and business manager.

Within around six months he was running the club.

The Doubleday operation became successful — and the history then took another unexpected turn.

Doubleday, which had unsuccessfully competed with Time-Life to buy Record Clubs of Australia in 1989, subsequently acquired the former Time-Life record-club operation ten years later, in 1999.

“We were quite successful there, and then we ended up buying the Time Life one back.”

The would-be purchaser of 1989 had ultimately acquired the business after all.

Coming out of the ashes
By the early 1990s, the World Record Club bore little resemblance to the operation John Day had helped establish more than three decades earlier. The market had changed, the technology had changed and the business itself had passed through several different owners and corporate structures.

Yet the underlying idea had proved remarkably resilient. Even after the collapse of International Direct Marketing in 1986, the club business survived, found new investment and adapted to the compact-disc era. What might easily have disappeared in receivership instead became a successful operation once again.

For Aub Hogno, the experience became one of the defining chapters of his career. What began in 1983 as a temporary assignment alongside Brian Harris grew into years of responsibility for rebuilding and reshaping the business through some of the most difficult and rapidly changing conditions the Australian record industry had faced.

Looking back on that period, Aub perhaps summed up the club's later history best:

“At the end of the day it ended up coming out of the ashes, so to speak, and being quite successful.”