Rediffusion

“The best budget records in the world”

UK budget label established in 1969, successor to [l=RIM (4)] shortly after the Rediffusion name stopped being used for the London weekday ITV franchise (which was in 1968).

BET, Rediffusion's ultimate parent company, had a sizeable business providing background music to businesses, both recorded in-house and from other sources. This operation was called Rediffusion Reditune. The recording side of this business was called Rediffusion International Music and it engaged many musicians to record a certain number of hours of music each month. Much of the content on this label is therefore drawn from [l=Rediffusion International Music] sessions, and uses their contracted artists.

The label also issued recordings sourced from other labels, notably [l=Dot Records] and [l=Supraphon].

Catalogue numbers run sequentially and early releases have the format ZSxx, with an optional prefix of RIM. When cassettes and 8-track cartridges were introduced, LP catalogue numbers began 01-xx, with cassettes as 02-xx and 8-tracks at 03-xx.

New releases transitioned to in 1974.