14 DAY TRIAL // Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is the best selling album ever worldwide, and I have no idea if I am going to catch the day when another artist or band is going to beat that performance. In numbers, "Thriller" sold 104 million copies, with over 28 million sold in the US only. Oh, yeah, The Eagles' Greatest Hits 1971-1975 surpassed it by a small margin in the US; but let's leave this data behind and move on to the company that made "Thriller" become reality: CBS Records.
The history starts in 1888, making Columbia Records the first company to produce pre-recorded records as opposed to blank cylinders, and exactly one hundred years after setting its foundations, in 1988, CBS Records, including Columbia Records unit, was acquired by Sony. The CBS Records name has been forgotten after a while, but three days ago, CBS Records was revived!
On December 15, CBS Corporation announced the birth of a new "CBS Records" which was in the works for the last several months and had several artists on its roster. OK, good, just great, but where's the link to Apple? Don't worry, the good news is coming up right now!
According to MacWorld's Peter Cohen, "The new CBS Records will focus on integrating into CBS television series and will emphasize digital distribution, starting with Apple's iTunes Store.". What do you think? The entire picture looks like this: the artists and songs will be incorporated into programs produced by CBS Paramount Television, which provides programming to various national broadcasters, as well as to basic and pay cable television channels, including USA Network and Showtime.
For the digital music lovers, all the content will be available for purchase and download via the iTunes Store, but www.cbsrecords.com and other online and wireless providers will serve as online sources too. Some of the content will be streamed through an online broadband service available on the company's website, called "Innertube'. If you are one of the many YouTube users, then don't worry, because the company also plans to use this website to reach its clients.