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Columbia Music Entertainment
Parent company	Columbia Music Entertainment, Inc.
Founded	1910
Founder	Fredrick W. Horn
Distributing label	Columbia Records (In Japan) Savoy Records (in United States)
Genre	various
Country of origin	Japan
Official Website	Columbia Music Entertainment

Columbia Music Entertainment, Inc. (コロムビアミュージックエンタテインメント株式会社, Koromubia Myūjikku Entateinmento Kabushiki gaisha^?) TYO: 6791 is a Japanese record label founded in 1910 as the Nipponophone Company Co., Ltd. (Nippon Phonograph Company). It affiliated itself with the Columbia Graphophone Company of the United Kingdom and adopted the standard UK Columbia trademarks in 1931. It changed its name in 1946 to Nippon Columbia Company Limited and adopted its present name in 2002. Outside Japan, the company operates as the Savoy Label Group which releases recordings on the SLG, Savoy Jazz and Denon labels. It also manufactured electronic products under the Denon brand name until 2001.

Aside from common historical roots, the current Columbia Music Entertainment label has no direct relation with either the American Columbia Records (part of the Sony Music group in the United States and operates in Japan as Sony Music Entertainment Japan) or the British EMI group, of which the original Columbia Graphophone Co. was a part, and operated in Japan as Toshiba-EMI. The label is notable, however, for continuing to use the historical "Magic Notes" logo, which has been associated with the Columbia name since the label's founding.

This label is known for dropping Ayumi Hamasaki, the best-selling female solo artist in Japanese history, before her rise to fame. It happened after her first single "Nothing from Nothing" and album of the same name flopped, due to little or no promotion. She subsequently met her current producer, Max Matsuura, who is now President of Avex.

[edit] Major investors

Major investors include RHJ International (25.49%) and Hitachi Ltd. (18.21%) .

[edit] See also

• List of record labels

v • d • e IFPI members in Japan Avex Group · BMG · Columbia Music Entertainment · Geneon Universal Entertainment · King Records · Nippon Crown · Pony Canyon · Pryaid Records · Sony Music · Teichiku Records · Tokuma Japan · Toshiba-EMI · Universal Music Japan · VAP · Victor Entertainment · Warner Music Japan

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