HMV
UK entertainment retailing company
HMV is an international music and entertainment retailer, founded in London, England in 1921. The brand is owned by Hilco Capital and operated by Sunrise Records, except in Japan, where it is owned and operated by Lawson.
The inaugural shop was opened on Oxford Street in London by the Gramophone Company, who had already established the His Master's Voice symbol on their sound equipment, and from 1909, as its own record label. In the 1960s, HMV became a chain across London, and expanded nationwide in the 1970s. It expanded internationally in the mid-1980s, and opened its 100th UK shop in 1997.
In 1998, the retail operations were divested from EMI (successor to the Gramophone Company), to form what would become HMV Group plc. In 2007, HMV bought rival retailer, Fopp, as well divesting its Japanese business. In April 2013, HMV was rescued by Hilco Capital for an estimated £50 million after falling into administration. In February 2019, the Canadian retailer Sunrise Records rescued 100 of the 127 HMV shops from Hilco after a second administration, but with Hilco retaining ownership of the HMV brand.
In May 2023, Sunrise Records announced HMV would return to Ireland, followed by an announcement in November 2023 that it would also enter the Belgian market.
The public source identifies “HMV” as uK entertainment retailing company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around entertainment, retailing and company.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “HMV”, the useful work is to connect “uK entertainment retailing company” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q10854572. The Library of Congress control number is nb2004310482. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 1909, 1997 and 1998.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “HMV”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow HMV primary sources, HMV archive and entertainment research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “HMV” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.