RCA Records

=== The post-war 1940s ===
[[File:Down Yonder.jpg|thumb|right|Standard RCA Victor 78 RPM label design from just after the end of [[World War II]] until 1954]]

In the spring of 1946, "RCA Victor" replaced "Victor" on its record labels. In 1949, RCA Victor introduced the 7-inch 45&nbsp;[[revolutions per minute|rpm]] micro-grooved [[vinylite]] record, marketed simply as the "45". The new format, which had been under development for over a decade, was originally intended to replace 78 rpm discs.<ref>{{Citation|title=McCullers, Carson, (Mrs Carson Smith McCullers), (19 Feb. 1917–29 Sept. 1967), Author|date=December 1, 2007|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u50658|work=Who Was Who|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u50658|access-date=November 29, 2020}}</ref> By the time RCA Victor unveiled it, the 45 was now competing with the 10-inch and 12-inch 33{{frac|1|3}}&nbsp;rpm microgroove vinyl "[[LP record|LP]]" (Long Play) discs introduced by arch-rival [[Columbia Records]] in the early summer of 1948. In heavy promotion, RCA Victor sold compact, inexpensive add-on and stand-alone units that played the 45 rpm format exclusively. At first, RCA Victor's 45s were issued on colored vinyl according to the musical genre: contemporary pop music on black vinyl (47-xxxx series), prestigious Broadway musicals and operettas on "midnight blue" vinyl (52-xxxx series), classical music on red vinyl (49-xxxx series), country and polka on green (48-xxxx series), children's fare on yellow (also in the 47-xxxx series), rhythm and blues on orange or cerise (50-xxxx series), and international on light blue (51-xxxx series). This array of colors complicated the production process, and the practice was soon discontinued, all records becoming black. Yellow and red Red Seal records held on until about 1952. The first 45 rpm record manufactured was "PeeWee the Piccolo" RCA Victor 47-0147 pressed December 7, 1948 at the Sherman Drive plant in Indianapolis. The use of vinyl, which was much more expensive than the gritty [[shellac]] compound normally used for 78s, was actually cheaper because of the smaller diameter and greatly reduced bulk of the new records, which required very little raw material. The smaller, lightweight discs were also more economical to store and ship.<ref>{{cite book |author1=[[Jim Dawson|Dawson, Jim]]|author2=[[Steve Propes|Propes, Steve]] |title=45 Rpm: The History, Heroes and Villains of a Pop Music Revolution |date=October 1, 2003 |publisher=Backbeat Books |isbn=0879307579 |page=37 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AiA-6xfdqC0C&q=rca+45+rpm+record+player+1949&pg=PA24 |access-date=August 19, 2015}}</ref>

RCA Victor marketed the 45 as a direct replacement for 10-inch and 12-inch 78&nbsp;rpm records, which typically played for about three and four minutes per side respectively. The company also released some "[[extended play]]" (EP) 45s with playing times up to 7 minutes per side, primarily for vocal collections and light classical selections, as typified by an [[Arthur Fiedler]] and the [[Boston Pops Orchestra]] disc featuring [[Tchaikovsky]]'s ''[[Marche Slave]]'' and [[Ketèlbey]]'s ''[[In a Persian Market]]''. RCA Victor issued boxed sets of four to six 45s, each set providing about the same amount of music as one LP (an extreme example of these 45 rpm boxed sets was the complete 1951 recording of the opera ''[[Carmen]]'', featuring [[Risë Stevens]] and [[Jan Peerce]], conducted by [[Fritz Reiner]], which consisted of sixteen 45 rpm discs). In the case of operas, symphonies and other complete recordings of classical music, there was an interruption every four minutes as one record side ended and another side began. These disruptive "side breaks", a nuisance long familiar to listeners of album sets of classical and operatic 78&nbsp;rpm records, were minimized by an extremely fast automatic record-changing mechanism that was a core feature of RCA Victor's 45 players. Thanks in large degree to RCA Victor's massive five million dollar advertising campaign, the 45 became the preferred speed for pop music singles, overtaking U.S. sales of the same material on 78s by 1954, but Columbia's LP prevailed as the favored format for classical music and convenient one-disc "album" collections of eight or more pop songs. RCA Victor finally bowed to the inevitable and announced its intention to issue LPs in January, 1950.