Europa (record label)

Europa is a German record label, which belonged to the Miller International Records Company, Quickborn (Germany), (sold in 1969 to Music Corporation of America) and, among other things, made very successful radio plays for children and young people. Today the label belongs to Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG). American ex-patriate David L. Miller, founder of "Europa", is best known outside of Germany for creating 101 Strings.

History of the Europa radio plays

* 1965: The international records Miller company is created by David Miller, Wilhelm Wille and Andreas Erich Beurmann with Quickborn in Hamburg. They will create the label "Europa". Their first intention is to make language courses, classical music and maintenance music for an extremely favourable price. A LP was also produced with readings of fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, narrated by Hans Paetsch. This became be the foundation-stone for the success of "Europa" as record label.
* 1966: "Europa-Kinderserie" is born. The first fairy tales and adventure radio plays are produced. Originally they had moderate success, since they were rare at the time.

Directors

There were four main Directors who seriously shaped the company:
# 1966-1968 - the era of Sieglinde Dziallas. Sieglinde Dziallas, was the friend of the joint founder (Andreas Beurmann) and led under the alias "Claudius Brac" during the first years. Beurmann could win, in the course of the time, many more Hamburg stage actors for the radio plays, and, like that, he introduced during the first years actors such as Hans Paetsch, Benno Gellenbeck, Peter Folken, Horst Fleck and Marga Massberg.
# 1968-1972 - the era of Konrad Halver. In 1968, Sieglinde Dziallas died surprisingly, and Andreas Beurmann withdrew from the active production of the radio plays. From now on, Konrad Halver wrote and directed films. Under his direction, great works were developed, for example plays of Karl May's Winnetou novels. Altogether Halver produced about 75 radio plays.
# 1972-1973 - the era Dagmar von Kurmin. In 1972, Konrad Halver left "Europa", and for a short time Dagmar von Kurmin oversaw the production of the radio plays. Under her leadership, 15 productions were made, including some Karl May radio plays (whose quality did not nearly mach those of Konrad Halver) were also developed. The plays of "Moby-Dick" must also be emphasised.
# 1973 until today - the era of Heikedine Körting. Starting from 1973, [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heikedine_K%C3%B6rting Heikedine Körting] , the companion of Beurmann, took over. Under his direction, there were over 1200 radio plays developed in 1985 alone. The children's radio plays reached their bloom between 1980 and 1990. Heikedine Koerting even received many golden and some platinum records. Under their direction many series were developed, e.g.;: "Edgar Wallace", "The three investigators", "TKKG", "Sherlock Holmes", "Commander Perkins", "Perry Rhodan", "Die Funk-Füchse" and "Die Gruselserie". Since end of the 1990s, André Minninger also produces the radio plays. Minninger is also a book author and has written some of the German "Three investigators" Novels.

The seventies

A substantial success was made in the 1970s, and in the 1980s they produced H. G. Francis's films, - it was mostly of good quality. Douglas Welbat was responsible for the film scripts of the successful, but disputed series of "Macabros" and "Larry Brent".

Carsten Bohn controversy

A further success guarantor was the music of [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carsten_Bohn Carsten Bohn] . In his opinion, however, he was not sufficiently paid for the compositions. This eventually came to a law case between Bohn and the studio, which is still ongoing. Since then, for instance, in the middle of the 1980s, his compositions cannot be used any longerin the radio plays.

Decline and Renaissance

Starting from the end of the 1980s radio play production slowed down because of bad sales figures. Te main reason was because children and young people were no longer interested in radio plays as computer games became popular. At the beginning of 1990s, Three investigators and TKKG were basically all Europa produced. From end of the 1990s, however, the radio plays have experienced a Renaissance. Due to the rise of the Internet, the listeners gathered interest in the old radio plays, and new productions also rose strongly. A certification for ithe immense number of tapes and LPs were also available. The mostly high prices made a renewed radio play boom possible. Starting from the year 2000, "Europa" presented the old radio plays under the slogan "Rückkehr der Klassiker", which roughly means "return of the classical authors again", with success. Additionally there was a large interest in the series of "Three investigators", considered the "flagship" of the label. New series were produced, however, only for young listeners. "Europa" will bring a new series in October 2005 after longer time back on the market. The series "Teufelskicker" will start with three episodes, as official licensed products of the Football World Cup 2006.

ee also

* List of record labels

External links

* [http://www.hoerspiel.de Official site]
* [http://forbiddeneye.com/labels/europa.html Europa Records Discography]
* [http://www.europa-vinyl.de/ Fan site with listings of all "Europa" radio plays from 1965 to 1982]