Sony: landmarks

Landmarks

This chronology is indicative only. It covers -

  • antecedents (1889)
  • beginnings (1946)
  • the Betamax era (1960)
  • buying content (1988)
  • after the Crash (2001)

Context is provided by the broader communications and media timeline on this site.

Antecedents

1889 Columbia Phonograph founded as dictaphone marketer, later renamed Columbia Records

1920 Harry Cohn founds CBC Pictures

1924 CBC renamed Columbia Studios

1938 Columbia Records bought by CBS

Beginnings

1946 Akio Morita founds Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (TTK), electrical repair and modification company

1950 TTK launches Japan's first tape recorder

1951 Columbia Pictures establishes Screen Gems television program subsidiary

1953 Jack Stapp founds Tree Music publishing company

1954 TKK makes world's first transistor radio

1958 company name changed to Sony Corporation

The Betamax era

1960 Sony Corp of America established

1964 Stapp and Buddy Killen found Dial record label

1963 CBS subsidiary CBS Records sets up first European branch, in the UK

1966 Sony starts French restaurant chain, licensing Maxim's de Paris name

1968 CBS-Sony Records founded in Japan as a joint venture

1975 Sony launches Betamax VCR

1979 Walkman personal stereo launched

1979 Sony Life insurance arm established in Japan

1979 Sony Prudential Life Insurance founded as 50-50 joint venture with Prudential Life Insurance in US

1980 Killen becomes sole owner of Tree Music

1982 CD hardware and software launched by Sony and Philips

1982 Tri-Star Pictures formed by CBS television, HBO and Columbia Pictures

1982 Coca-Cola buys Columbia Pictures

1987 Columbia Pictures merges with Tri-Star Pictures under the ownership of Coca-Cola

Buying content

1988 Sony buys CBS Records' global business for $2bn

1989 Sony buys Columbia Pictures and Tri-Star Pictures from Coca-Cola for US$3.4bn

1989 Killen sells Tree Music to Sony for US$30m

1989 Sony buys Loews cinema chain

1992 Sony launches Mini Disc

1994 Sony Music buys ATV Music publishing library from Michael Jackson for US$500m

1995 Nobuyuki Idei succeeds Morita as president of Sony

1997 Sony/Loews cinema chain merges with ailing Cineplex Odeon

1999 Sony Assurance arm established

After the Crash

2001 Sony Bank established

2001 Loews Cineplex (inc Sony-Loews) acquired by Onex and Oaktree Capital Management after financial crisis

2002 sells most of interest in Columbia House to Blackstone Capital Partners

2002 sells Telemundo stake to NBC

2003 announces plan to merge record arm with Bertelsmann's BMG record arm

2004 Sony consortium (inc Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners) confirms in principle agreement to acquire Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (MGM) for US$5bn

2004 Sony Pictures takes 49% stake in Huasuo joint venture with Hualong Film Digital Production (China Film Group arm)

2006 European Court of First Instance annulls European Commission's approval of 2004 merger between Sony Music and BMG