Editing Victor Talking Machine Company (section)

=== Electrical recording era and acquisition by RCA (1925–1929) ===
[[File:Victor22529A.jpg|thumb|Victor "scroll" label used from 1926 to 1934, featuring the company's house band directed by [[Nathaniel Shilkret]]]]
In the early 1920s, the advent of radio as a home entertainment medium presented Victor and the entire record industry with new challenges. Not only was music becoming available over the air free of charge, but live radio broadcasts using high-quality microphones and heard over amplified receivers provided sound that was startlingly more clear and realistic than any contemporary phonograph record. Eldridge Johnson and Victor's senior executives were initially dismissive of the encroachments of radio, but after plummeting sales and their apathy and resistance of radio and electrical recording brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy in 1925, Victor switched from the acoustical or mechanical method of recording to the new [[microphone]]-based electrical system developed by [[Western Electric]]. Victor called its version of the improved fidelity recording process "Orthophonic", and marketed a new line of phonographs referred to as "[[Victor Orthophonic Victrola|Orthophonic Victrolas]]", scientifically developed by Western Electric to play these new records. Victor's first electrical recordings, issued in the spring of 1925 were not advertised as such; in order to create an extensive catalog of records made by the new process to satisfy anticipated demand, and to allow dealers time to liquidate their stocks of old-style Victrolas, Victor and its longtime rival, [[Columbia Records]], agreed to keep electrical recording secret until the autumn of 1925. Then, with the company's largest advertising campaign to date, Victor publicly announced the new technology and introduced its new records and the Orthophonic Victrola on November 2, 1925, dubbed "Victor Day".<ref name=gelatt/>

[[File:Victor VE in circle.jpg|thumb|The "VE" symbol, indicating a Victor electrical recording]]
Victor's first commercial electrical recording was made at the company's Camden, New Jersey studios on February 26, 1925. A group of eight popular Victor artists, [[Billy Murray (singer)|Billy Murray]], Frank Banta, [[Henry Burr]], Albert Campbell, [[Frank Croxton]], John Meyer, [[Monroe Silver]], and [[Rudy Wiedoeft]] gathered to record "A Miniature Concert". Several takes were recorded by the old acoustical process, then additional takes were recorded electrically for test purposes. The electrical recordings turned out well, and Victor issued the results that summer as the two sides of twelve inch 78&nbsp;rpm disc, Victor 35753. Victor's first electrical recording to be ''issued'' was Victor 19626, a ten-inch record consisting of two numbers recorded on March 16, 1925, from the [[University of Pennsylvania]]'s thirty-seventh annual production of the Mask and Wig Club, released in April, 1925. On March 21, 1925, Victor recorded its first electrical [[RCA Victor Red Seal|Red Seal]] disc, twelve inch 6502 by French pianist [[Alfred Cortot]], of works by Chopin and Schubert.<ref name=victorlog1>Victor Recording Book log, pp. 4761 and 4761A.</ref>

In 1926, Johnson sold his controlling (but not holding) interest in the Victor Company  to the banking firms of [[J. & W. Seligman & Co.|JW Seligman]] and [[Speyer & Co.]], who in turn sold Victor to the [[Radio Corporation of America]] in 1929.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/sellingsoundscom00suis |url-access=registration |quote=jw seligman victor talking machines. |title=Selling Sounds|last=Suisman|first=David|date=May 31, 2009 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-03337-5|location=[[Cambridge, MA]] and [[London]], England|pages=[https://archive.org/details/sellingsoundscom00suis/page/268 268]|language=en}}</ref>