“The best budget records in the world”
UK budget label established in 1969, successor to Rim (4) shortly after the Rediffusion name stopped being used for the London weekday ITV franchise (which was in 1968).
BET, Rediffusion's ultimate parent company, had a sizeable business providing background music to businesses, both recorded in-house and from other sources. This operation was called Rediffusion Reditune. The recording side of this business was called Rediffusion International Music and it engaged many musicians to record a certain number of hours of music each month. Much of the content on this label is therefore drawn from Rediffusion International Music sessions, and uses their contracted artists.
The label also issued recordings sourced from other labels, notably Supraphon.
Catalogue numbers run sequentially and early releases have the format ZSxx, with an optional prefix of RIM. When cassettes and 8-track cartridges were introduced, LP catalogue numbers began 01-xx, with cassettes as 02-xx and 8-tracks at 03-xx.
New releases transitioned to Gold Star in 1974.
