Outside of Astor Records, who through its owner Electronic Industries Ltd had expanded its factory in 1966 to incorporate reel-to-reel tape manufacture, local major record companies never really embraced the reel-to-reel tape format.
Festival Records made an attempt in the second half of the sixties, sub-licensing titles to the well-known Australian tape importer and manufacturer, Hanimex in September 1966. But others, including EMI (Australia), preferred to meet demand through import. For EMI (Australia) this meant sourcing largely from EMI UK, Capitol US and London US. Indeed, in the late sixties one could walk into a music store that sold reel-to-reel tapes and quite likely see copies of the US-only Yesterday And Today sitting alongside UK copies of Revolver!
There's arguably two main reasons why the format didn't take off in Australia:
- Reel-to-reel machines didn't really fall into reach of the average Australian consumer until the mid-1960s, not long before the introduction of the competing, and more convenient, PlayTape and Musicassette formats. The steady increase in reel-to-reel tape sales in early 1967 was heavily dampened by these newer technologies that were introduced later in 1967
- At a minimum of $6.45 (some Capitol reels cost $10.10 - click on the EMI (Australia) Tape Record Price List as at June 1968, shown at right), reel-to-reel tapes were largely cost prohibitive to anyone other than seasoned classical listeners
Cue the World Tape Club (WTC). The WTC—a Division of Australia's World Record Club—commenced operations in February 1967. Over the next year the WTC released 24 4-track stereo reel-to-reel tapes at both 7½ and 3¾ ips speeds, at the low cost of $4.75 and $3.75 respectively. These prices, being somewhat lower than full-priced commercial reel-to-reel tapes, made them more appealing to consumers who at the time were still largely 'seasoned classical listeners'.
Tapes were manufactured for the club by Electronic Industries Ltd. 3¾ ips speed tapes were generally supplied on 5" spools while 7½ ips speed tapes would be supplied on 7" spools when the playing time approached or exceeded 36 minutes. Tapes were initially housed in rigid plastic (usually black) boxes with clear plastic lids until being replaced with a left-opening cardboard box in 1973.
The only Beatles album manufactured locally on the reel-to-reel tape format was Magical Mystery Tour And Other Splendid Hits, which the WTC released in May 1973. The title was offered in both 7½ and 3¾ ips speeds with catalogue numbers of 8716 and 8717 respectively. Consistent with all WTC releases, the packaging was identical for both except for the spine, where the non-applicable catalogue number was manually 'greyed out'. Scans of the variations of Magical Mystery Tour And Other Splendid Hits will be added to this page over time.
By 1973, consumer interest in the format had all but died out, thanks mainly to the introduction of Dolby noise reduction in cassette tape recording. Dolby reduced unwanted tape noise to the point that cassette reproduction was considered to be equal to conventional reel-to-reel, making the latter, more cumbersome format somewhat redundant. Whether this was the case in reality is debatable, but it's no doubt that the strong marketing behind Dolby was the final nail in the reel format's coffin.
Notwithstanding, the WTC would continue offering reel-to-reel tapes up until the inevitable end in late 1977, outlasting all others by some 3-4 years. Indeed, the last reissue was Magical Mystery Tour And Other Splendid Hits in August 1977.
