Arcade Records
| Arcade Records | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1972 |
| Founder | Herman Heinsbroek |
| Status | defunct since 2001 |
| Genre | various |
| Country of origin | The Netherlands |
Arcade Records was a Dutch multimedia concern, which started off as a record label specialized in compilations.
History
The label itself was founded in 1972 by Herman Heinsbroek, who followed the example of its UK division. Seeing the huge success of their releases the company grew enormously and gradually spread out over Western Europe. The first step was the opening of a Belgian office in Brussels during the 1980s, which also made the company change name to Arcade Benelux (where Benelux stands for (BE)lgium, The (NE)therlands and (LUX)emburg), and a move of the head office to Nieuwegein instead of Naarden. Other divisions got started in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Even the original U.K. company had been bought in 1984. There was also a division going by the name Arcade International, which releases were distributed by more than one division (often in all available countries) at once.
Later years
By the mid-1990s the company had become a true multinational, spreading into the market of broadcasting (both radio and T.V.), of audio and of video. In 1998, it was sold to Wegener (publisher of books, newspapers and magazines).
After a reorganisation and acquisition of more companies (like CNR Music and Indisc, which merged to form CNR Indisc) the music division of the Arcade Group was renamed into Arcade Music Company. The Benelux division split up into a Belgian and Dutch division. They both became fully independent of each other, having their own specific releases.
Phase out
Eventually, it had a joint venture with Roadrunner Records in 2000 as Roadrunner Arcade Music. It released everything from Nu-Metal to Nu-NRG. However, a year later, they could no longer keep the big market share from the past. All divisions (except CNR Music & Arcade's Belgium division) were sold to Roadrunner Records. The Arcade moniker completely disappeared & CNR Music revived as a fully independent company.
Nowadays, Arcade's Belgium division is known as Mostiko, a sublabel of CNR Music.