Description
This article is from the RCA SelectaVision
VideoDisc FAQ, by tom@cedmagic.com (Tom Howe) with numerous
contributions by others.
1.17 Why did RCA abandon further development of the CED system inApril 1984?
At the end of 1983, RCA had sold fewer than 500,000 players total, when
by earlier estimates they should have sold more than that in 1983 alone.
They had also cut the price of the players on more than one occasion,
and offered rebates, which assured that player manufacture would be
operating in the red for several more years. The VCR was even more
entrenched as the video delivery platform of choice, so it simply made
economic sense to cease player manufacture. Disc manufacture was
actually successful, since consumers were purchasing about twice as many
discs annually as RCA had projected. This may have been the main reason
RCA promised to continue disc production for an estimated 3 years after
player manufacture ceased. The decision to discontinue the CED system
was not attributable to a new chief executive at RCA, since Thornton
Bradshaw was still in charge of RCA, as he had been for nearly the
entire CED era. He was chosen to lead RCA in April 1981, just one month
after the introduction of the CED system, and officially replaced Edgar
Griffiths on July 1, 1981.
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