Balkanton
| Balkanton | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founded | 1952 |
| Genre | Various |
| Country of origin | Bulgaria |
| Location | Sofia |
Balkanton was a state-owned record manufacturing company in Bulgaria founded in 1952. Many of the produced records were, or still are available in the countries of the Soviet bloc. Balkanton's plant in Sofia was equipped for all aspects of record manufacturing from recording the masters and pressing the vinyl records to printing the cover. Multi-channel sound recording was introduced in 1972 with equipment purchased from England. In 1982 Balkanton received its own digital recording equipment. By the mid-1980s annual LP production reached 9 million units.[1] The company mainly produced LPs and from 1980 it started to manufacture cassettes. Being the only record company in Bulgaria during 4 decades, Balkanton accumulated a vast library of performances of folk, classical, Bulgarian and foreign popular music, theater, poetry and more. After a couple of attempts to reorganize the company in the 1990s, it was finally privatized in 1999. Currently, Balkanton is reissuing some of its old recordings, mainly in the digital format, closing deals with digital distributors like Amazon.com,[2] Spotify, Napster, 7digital and more.