Debate Over CD Box Grows Even Longer

The dreaded CD long box is going . . . going . . . but not gone.

That’s the latest news from record store owners and distributors, who met in Palm Springs last weekend in an effort to agree on a smaller CD package that could replace the controversial 6x12-inch long box, which has been denounced by many pop stars and environmental groups as an ecological eyesore.

“We didn’t reach any conclusive agreement, but we definitely had movement in the right direction,” says Tower Records chief Russ Solomon, who made the transition this year from die-hard long-box supporter to long-box skeptic. “Once everyone agrees on the most appropriate format, you’ll see us take action to change over to something more ecologically friendly.”

Although retailers and packagers have been investigating long-box replacements for months, Show Industries president Lou Fogelman, whose firm owns several key record chains, including Music Plus, said that the weekend meeting did not produce a consensus choice.

“We’re leaning toward a 5x10 or 5x11 1/2-size package, but we still have four different versions that we’re submitting to the record companies to get their feedback,” said Fogelman, who chairs the National Assn. of Recording Merchandisers’ packaging committee.

The four prototypes include a smaller box that would still have about four inches of throwaway paperboard material; a paperboard box cover equipped with plastic stiffeners, which would allow consumers to fold the paperboard down to the size of an actual CD, and a plastic box that would contain a CD jewel-box case stretched open (like an old double-album cover).

The good news about each prototype design? They all would allow retailers to retain their present CD shelving (known in industry parlance as “fixturing”) rather than force an expensive re-design of shelf space.

The bad news? The designs put retailers at odds with many record companies--and virtually all environmental groups--who favor ditching the extra packaging entirely and selling CDs in their jewel-box cases, as is done in every other country in the world.

“I’m not sure these halfway measures are going to work,” says MCA marketing chief Geoff Bywater, whose label has just released a new album by children’s artist Raffi without a CD long box. “Our feeling is that if you’re going to move away from the long box, why not just go directly to selling CDs in the jewel box. It’s a proven commodity around the world and it seems the easiest thing to package because it is the package.

“I’m not sure these 5x11 packages will play with environmentally committed artists like Sting or Bono, who’ve already said they won’t release records with a long box. We sent some of these packages to Raffi and he just laughed at them.”

So far that argument doesn’t hold water with retailers. “I think the labels are hiding behind their artists, claiming it’s their artists who want to get rid of the long box,” Fogelman said. “I think our alternatives are environmentally friendly--they have very little waste or throwaway. Selling CDs in a jewel box would create all sorts of merchandising and theft problems. It simply won’t fly in our marketplace.”

Retailers like Solomon and Fogelman say that if record companies agree on one of their new packages, stores could be carrying CDs without long boxes sometime in 1991.

Record company execs aren’t so optimistic. Most say the real debate here isn’t just about the environment--it’s expenses. “The real issue is who’s going to pay to re-fixture the record stores,” says Bywater. “And I have to admit we’re really not any closer to a solution for that than we were six months ago.”