If there is one thing that Shirakawa Electric's portable CD player has brought to the record market, it is that there are more and more record companies that pay attention to CDs.

In the past, everyone was thinking about watching the excitement, or waiting for the reaction of the first person to eat crabs afterwards, to observe this new music medium.

Now Warner Pioneer, who was the first to test the waters, told them that the CD seemed to be performing much better than expected.

The initial score of 80,000 is not a result that can be achieved by a random singer.

According to the normal deduction law of record market sales, this CD single will most likely sell more than 500,000 copies within half a year, and it is expected to touch the ass of 600,000.

The sales of 600,000 are definitely explosive results, and the top artists may not be able to guarantee that their sales will reach 600,000.

It's only the early 80s, and 300,000 can be called a big sale.

At this time, the record market was not the same as in the 90s, when millions of sales were sold at every turn, and the gold content of 300,000 was already very high.

And now this is only a newcomer, and its popularity and marketing have played a big role.

Shirakawa Electric's CD players are generally considered to be one of the important factors, and the low price of CD records is also the most intuitive reason for attracting people to buy them.

A piece of vinyl usually costs around 3,500 yen, while Sony's CD album costs 3,800 yen as a whole because it has dozens of pieces of music.

But Shirakawa Electric is not in a hurry to stuff the songs into the disc and fill it up, even though it can store a total of 74 minutes of music.

Shirakawa Electric's request for Warner is a single, in addition to an A-side song "Second Love", there is also a C/W song "Mirror の中のJ".

That's all the songs on this record, which are less than 8 minutes long, which is less than 10% of the total CD capacity.

This may seem like a waste to ordinary people, after all, the cost of a CD is fixed at twenty or thirty yen, whether it is stuffed or not.

And in order not to waste such a large capacity, and in order to show the world its super time, Sony stuffed 74 minutes of music at a time.

Because of the increase in content, the price will naturally increase, so Sony set a price of 3,800 yen for it.

Compared to vinyl, the price is only 300 yen higher, but there are a lot more songs.

In this comparison, the price seems to be a good deal. After all, the price is not much different, but there is more music to enjoy.

However, Shirakawa Electric did the opposite, ignoring the extra-long capacity of the CD record, and he only put the songs he wanted.

The same direct plunge in pricing, retail 1500 yen, 300 yen cheaper to buy CD player combination.

The neon people who have listened to music for so many years have never enjoyed such a low record price.

The sound quality of the CD is a spike cassette and vinyl, and there is no background noise at all.

With such a stark contrast, why not buy a CD and give it a try?

So Akina Nakamori's third single has a super high initial result of 80,000 copies.

So with a price of 1,500 yen, will the record company make a profit?

There is no doubt that profitability is inevitable.

The cost of a record of less than 30 yen alone guarantees the profit of the record company.

The price of the CD factory is generally not more than 200 yen per sheet, and this is because the CD production process has just emerged and is not fully mature, so the price is so high.

After the process is improved, the cost of CD will continue to decrease, and the price of the pressure plate will also decrease.

But even if the 200 yen price is removed now, the record company can take about 54% of the remaining 1,300 yen.

Then the record store takes another 30%, the publisher and producer 10%, and the rest is the lyricist, composer and singer.

Among them, as a singer who only sings, the lowest score is less than 1%~

In short, the record company can get at least 700 yen for the entire CD record.

Remove the fixed production fee and publicity fee, and the rest is net profit.

Compared with the previous vinyl, there may be a little less to get your hands on. But not much less, after all, the cost of vinyl is high.

However, record companies see a future opportunity in CDs, which are very small!

Cheap price is the biggest weapon for best-selling.

Not only are CD records cheaper, but CD players are also cheaper than vinyl record players.

In the long run, in terms of price, sound quality, and portability, the market for CDs must be broader than vinyl.

In that case, is it possible to test a little bit and start experimenting with the CD market?

So under this idea, not only Sony records, but also record companies such as Universal, EPIC, and JVC began to plan to release their own CD records.

Among them, overseas record companies are the most positive, and they are far more optimistic about accepting new things than neon local companies.

After all, there was Akina Nakamori's single first, and everyone was covetous of 80,000 copies sold in the first week.

In this atmosphere, before the second week had passed, there were already record companies announcing plans to release CD records for some time to come.

Of course, if you talk about the fastest, it has to be Warner Pioneer.

At the end of October, Shirakawa Kaede and his assistant came to the Warner Pioneer headquarters near Kitayama Aoyama in Minato Ward.

Today, I came here to talk to Warner about this cooperation, and I was also invited by its executive director, Naoto Chida, to visit.

Just entered the doors of Warner Pioneer, except for the reception staff here.

Naoto Chida, the CEO and president of the company, also stood in the front hall to greet him.

"Chida-san, that's so polite. The results of this cooperation are the result of everyone's concerted efforts.

But congratulations to your company, there will be another promising newcomer who will make a name for himself in the music industry. ”

"Haha, it turns out that the cooperation with Shirakawa Electric is definitely an extremely wise choice." Naoto Chida had been studying and working overseas in his early years and had only returned to Neon in recent years.

He is the head of the neon division appointed by Warner's headquarters, and he is the foreign faction in the internal faction.

Because he lives overseas all the year round, his personality is much more enthusiastic and cheerful than that of neon people.

Also because he was exposed to capitalism in its purest form, he also pursued the principle of profit first.

The previous VAM agreement between Shirakawa Electric and Warner Pioneer was signed under his proposition.

At this moment, Chida Naoto warmly shook Shirakawa Kaede's hand and shook it, "In addition, speaking of this newcomer, it just so happens that someone wants to thank Shirakawa-san in particular." ”

As soon as he finished speaking, a girl wearing a scarf emerged from the crowd.

When she smiled with a bouquet of flowers, her front teeth stood out and looked a little silly.

Hey, who is this fat girl? Bai Chuanfeng looked at the girl who came forward with some curiosity, and secretly wondered.

"Shirakawa-san, thank you so much for your care. In the future, I will work harder and never let down the love of Shirakawa Electric. ”

After saying that, the girl sent the bouquet in her hand forward, then bowed her head and remained motionless in such a position.

Well, Kaede Shirakawa seems to know a little bit about who she is.

When she stretched out her hand and was about to receive the other party's flowers, suddenly the girl seemed to remember something, raised her head and hurriedly said, "By the way, I'm Akina Nakamori, please take care of me!" ”

The outstretched hand paused slightly, and Shirakawa Kaede smiled a little dumbly. But soon he naturally took the bouquet and politely owed it.

"Please keep up the good work~"

"Hay!" Akina Nakamori responded crisply.

Handing the flower in his hand to the assistant beside him, Shirakawa Kaede turned his head to greet Naoto Chita beside him.

To be honest, he almost didn't recognize this queen of the future just now, why is Akina Nakamori so fat at this age?

Shirakawa Kaede thought about it again in his head, and his face with baby fat looked like it hadn't grown up.

Well, at this point, it's still your own little tiger teeth, which is cuter.

I don't know if this pair of "old enemies" will be entangled in fate in the future, but Shirakawa Kaede is too lazy to care about these things.

He didn't want to get involved in the affairs of the entertainment world, especially the affairs of women, which was not what he was good at.

But when it comes to Xiaohuya, she hasn't paid attention to herself for two days.

As for the reason, it's because of the fat dish in front of you.

Here's the thing..., let's talk about it later~

Looking at the backs of Shirakawa Kaede and Chida Naoto leaving, Akina Nakamori returned to her stupid appearance.

"Agent-san, this Shirakawa-san is so young, how does he look like a student~"

"Akina, silence!"

Without mentioning the muttering behind him, Shirakawa Kaede has already chatted with Naoto Chida about the future of the CD market.

"I have to say that Shirakawa-san's vision is admirable, and it is very likely that this new type of CD player will become the mainstream device for people to listen to music in the future.

What's even more convincing is that Shirakawa's portable CD players are really fantastic, and Sony's big guys are good, but unfortunately they don't fit into a backpack. ”

Naoto Chida is very much in the interest of Shirakawa Electric in making the CD player smaller.

Since the advent of the Walkman, people have become accustomed to and prefer this way of listening to music anytime, anywhere.

Convenient, privacy-oriented, and looks very tech-savvy in appearance, there is no reason for the public not to like it.

Even in Chida's view, the responsibility for the popularization and promotion of CDs in the future will fall on Shirakawa Electric.

As for Sony..., Naoto Chida felt that they were too conservative and not aggressive enough.

"By the way, about Warner's next CD record, Shirakawa-san, you are..."

Shirakawa Kaede smiled, "Our pressure fee will always be 3% lower than Sony's, please rest assured about this." ”

"That's great," Chida nodded with satisfaction.

The cost of CD records is very low, and the cost of pressing plates is also very low. However, on the road of pursuing profits, capitalists will never stop moving forward.

Next month, Shirakawa Electric's optical disc factory in Chiba will be put into operation, and neon will have one more optical disc producer.

Now that the optical disc factory is about to be put into production, isn't it the right thing to do for your own order?

Relying on the previous pleasant cooperation, it was natural that Warner was Shirakawa Kaede's first target.

However, because of the existence of Sony, if you want Warner to hand over the order to yourself, the price discount is indispensable.

A 3% cheaper is undoubtedly a huge cost saving for tens of thousands of records.

With the actual benefit, Chida relented and handed over the CD records of other Warner Pioneer artists to Shirakawa Electric to suppress.

Warner Pioneer not only has Akina Nakamori, but also older and bigger artists.

For example, Chuck and Asuka, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sachiko Kobayashi, Kaoko Wada, and Kaoru Kaoshi, one of the five beauties of singing.

Their fan base is even larger, and the number of discs released each year is also a huge figure.

Now that Akina Nakamori is testing the waters, Warner has made up its mind to release more CDs next month.

"By the way, is Shirakawa-san interested in a record career?" Suddenly, Naoto Chida's words made Shirakawa Kaede stunned.

(End of chapter)