Light rare earth-heavy rare earth-transition metal (LRE-HRE-TM) thin films are a kind of important recording media. A lot of researches have been carried out on the LRE-HRE-TM thin films to improve its properties for data storage application and fruitful results have been achieved. This report gives a glance on the evolution of the research on LRE-HRE-TM recording media. At the same time, combined with the hybrid recording technology, some experimental results obtained on LRE-HRE-TM recording media are discussed, which suggest the promising prospect of the LRE-HRE-TM media in hybrid recording application.