Promo Only
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Promo Only is a music and music video subscription service for professional disc jockeys. It was the first monthly music service available to music professionals on CD.
Promo Only began in 1992 when DJ Jim Robinson met up with another DJ Pete Werner on the pursuit of Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much (The Mama Mix)" re-mix. Werner was able to help out Robinson due to his connection with record labels. Robinson offered to digitally clean up 12-inch vinyl releases Werner received each month onto one DAT. After joking that they could even press the DAT into a CD, they realized that there was a need for putting these mixes onto CD for the emerging CD DJ, and the company was born.
The Original Promo Only subscription (renamed one year later ‘Promo Only Club’) officially began in June 1992, offering the latest 12” Dance mixes and hard to find releases. Werner and Robinson soon expanded into pop releases, with Promo Only Radio, combining the best of Top 40 pop, dance, urban, and rock, after the encouragement by Columbia Records head of pop promotions, Jerry McKenna who said there was a need for it in the Radio Market.
The following years saw the appearances of more series: Urban Radio (August 1994), Country Radio (June 1995) and Modern Rock Radio (November 1995), Rhythm Radio (1997) and Promo Only started growing popular among DJs all over the US. Around 1997, Promo Only began separating their CD series' into Club and Radio. 1997 also saw the creation of Promo Only Canada based in Calgary, and Promo Only UK, based in London.
In 1998, Promo Only promotions was formed, based in New York, to Promote and A&R Dance music to Radio. They also issued public domain rights for all promotional music until 2010.
Werner and Robinson next ventured into the field of music videos buying out retiring friend Wolf Zimmerman's Milwaukee based company, Wolfram Video in 1999. Music videos were released on DVDs, and now includes eight monthly series – Hot Video, Dance Mix Video, Pop Mix Video, Club Video, Country Video, Latin Video, Modern Rock Video, Urban Video, and several specialty compilations. In October 2004 Promo Only introduced Express Video, a weekly release of the newest videos, to their DVD series.
Later that same year, with the purchase of National Video Service from Launch (then owned by Sony), Promo Only Business Music Division based in Anaheim was formed. Promo Only BMD offers background music video services to clients such as Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood, Dave & Busters, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, and many more. In 2007, Promo Only BMD was re-branded as Promo Only Networks for their introduction of a new product called MUSE.
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