BUY BBC: Having risen to prominence among...

BUY BBC: Having risen to prominence among music retailers with drastic discounts and such “bonus” promotions as adding exclusive Beatles interview discs to the “Anthology” CD packages, the Best Buy chain has scored another potential coup.

Marketing vice president Gary Arnold has just inked a deal with the BBC giving him the rights to release recordings of concert broadcasts from the British network’s vast archives. The CDs would be sold exclusively by the Minneapolis-based discount retailer.

“We have an agreement for five years for 100 of the most historic recordings from 1939 to the present--potentially anyone from Frank Sinatra to Rage Against the Machine,” says Arnold, who pursued the deal following the success of the 1994 “Beatles at the BBC” album of in-studio sessions.

Among the items he hopes to release are a 1974 Pink Floyd performance of “Dark Side of the Moon” taped at Wembley Stadium, mid-’60s recordings of the Rolling Stones, early Led Zeppelin concerts, a 1977 Elton John solo piano tour and broadcasts by such other classic-rockers as the Who, Cream and Queen and more recent entries including R.E.M. and U2.

There’s one potential hitch, though: He needs permission from the artists.

“I’m not able to announce who I’ve negotiated with so far, but there are certain ones who understand how releases like this can help stimulate sales of their back catalog, as happened with the Beatles,” he says.

Pete Howard, editor of the ICE CD newsletter, says that even though many of the most historic of these recordings have been widely bootlegged, fans will likely still want to buy “legitimate” releases as well--if they come out, that is.

“A few years ago, the Digital Compact Classics company announced a similar deal with the [U.S. concert radio broadcast] ‘King Biscuit Flour Hour’ to release CDs of its shows from the ‘70s and ‘80s,” Howard says. “But they couldn’t get permission from most of the artists.”