Disqueras intermedias, categorías de mercado y cultura institucional de las disqueras en Colombia: el caso de Discos Ondina

Abstract

Through the analysis of the institutional culture of a local record company, the article explores the role of medium-size record companies in the consolidation of market categories around musical genres and styles in mid-20th century Colombia. Starting from the questioning of the pertinence of using the concept of independent label in the Latin American context, specific aspects of Ondina Fonográfica's business are explored, such as technological independence, commercial strategies, the search for local artists, the opening of markets and the establishment of niches, and the organization of the catalog and the target audiences. The exercise highlights important differences with the majors/indies model extensively used to study the record industries in the Anglo-American context, such as unimportant role of talent scouts and a conservative tendency towards the creation of new market niches in small record labels. At the end, new routes are proposed to explore more complex systems than the classic binary model, using less deterministic concepts to study the richness of sound exchanges fostered by the recording industries in Latin America throughout the 20th century.