The
National Broadcasting Company (
NBC) is an American
television network and former
radio network headquartered in the
GE Building in
New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices in
Burbank, California and
Chicago, Illinois . It is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network" due to its
stylized peacock logo, created originally for color broadcasts.
Formed in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), NBC was the first major broadcast network in the United States. In 1986, control of NBC passed to General Electric (GE), with GE's $6.4 billion purchase of RCA. GE had previously owned RCA and NBC until 1930, when it had been forced to sell the company as a result of antitrust charges. After the acquisition, the chief executive of NBC was Bob Wright, until he retired, giving his job to Jeff Zucker. The network is currently part of the media company NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric, which, on December 1, 2009, purchased the remaining 20% stake of NBC Universal which it did not already own from Vivendi. On December 3, 2009, Comcast announced it will purchase a 51% stake of NBC Universal.
NBC is available in an estimated 112 million households, 98.6% of those with televisions. NBC has 10 owned-and-operated stations and nearly 200 affiliates in the United States and its territories. the broadcast company occupied floor designed by Raymond Hood — who designed the tenants multiple studios as "a Gothic church, the Roman forum, a Louis XIV room and, in a space devoted to jazz, something “wildly futuristic, with plenty of color in bizarre designs.” NBC outgrew 711 Fifth Avenue in 1933.
In 1930, General Electric was compelled by antitrust charges to divest itself of RCA, which it had founded. RCA moved its corporate headquarters into the new Rockefeller Center in 1933, signing the leases in 1931. RCA was the lead tenant at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the RCA Building (now the GE Building). The building housed NBC studios, as well as theaters for RCA-owned RKO Pictures. Rockefeller Center's founder and financier John D. Rockefeller, Jr., arranged the deal with the chairman of GE, Owen D. Young, and the president of RCA, David Sarnoff. Conversely, industry executives criticized the network for abandoning a history of airing quality dramas at that hour, and that it would hurt NBC by undermining a reputation built on successful scripted shows. The schedule originally consisted of only live-action series, including a kid-themed version of Trading Spaces and J. D. Roth's Emmy-nominated reality game show Endurace, but later expanded to include some animated series such as Kenny the Shark, Tutenstein, and Time Warp Trio.
In May 2006, in order to replace the Discovery Kids Saturday Morning block, NBC announced plans to launch a new children's block on Saturday mornings starting in September 2006 as part of the qubo endeavor teaming parent company NBC Universal with Ion Media Networks, Scholastic Press, Classic Media and Corus Entertainment's Nelvana. Qubo will include blocks to air on NBC, Telemundo (the Spanish-language network owned by NBC Universal), and Ion Media Networks's Ion Television, as well as a 24/7 digital broadcast kids channel, video on demand services and a branded website.
The "Discovery Kids on NBC" block aired for the final time on September 2, 2006. On Saturday, September 9, 2006, NBC started airing the following qubo programs: VeggieTales, Dragon, VeggieTales Presents: 3-2-1 Penguins!, Babar, Jane and the Dragon, and Jacob Two-Two, and Postman Pat.
NBCi
:
'NBCi' redirects here.
In April 2000, NBC purchased a company that specialized with search engines that learned from the users' searches for $32 million, called
GlobalBrain.
In 1999, NBC briefly changed its web address to "NBCi.com", in a heavily advertised attempt to launch an Internet portal and homepage. This move saw NBC teaming up with XOOM.com, e-mail.com, AllBusiness.com, and Snap.com (eventually acquiring all four of them), launching a multi-faceted internet portal with e-mail, webhosting, community, chat, personalization and news capabilities. This experiment lasted roughly one season, failed, and NBCi was folded back into NBC. The NBC-TV portion of the website reverted to NBC.com. However, the NBCi web site continued as a portal for NBC-branded content (NBCi.com redirected to NBCi.msnbc.com), using a co-branded version of InfoSpace to deliver minimal portal content. In mid 2007, NBCi.com began to mirror NBC.com.
Evolution of the NBC logo
NBC has used a number of logos throughout its history; early logos were similar to the logo of its then parent company,
RCA, but later logos included stylized
peacock images.
International broadcasts
Canada
NBC broadcasts from the United States can be received throughout most of Canada, primarily through
cable television and
satellite television providers, but also over the air in areas close to the
Canada – United States border. Aside from
simultaneous substitution, the programming and broadcasting are the same as in the United States.
Europe, Latin America and the Middle East
NBC Nightly News,
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and
Late Night with Conan O'Brien are shown on
CNBC Europe. NBC is no longer shown outside the Americas on a channel in its own right. However, both NBC News and MSNBC are shown for a few hours a day on
Orbit News in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. MSNBC is also shown occasionally on sister network
CNBC Europe during breaking news. Border cities in the
Mexico – United States border region can easily receive NBC on-the-air, as well as cable and satellite subscribers across Mexico, especially in the Mexico City area.
NBC Super Channel becomes NBC Europe
In 1993, the Pan-European cable network
Super Channel was taken over by
General Electric, the parent of NBC, and became
NBC Super Channel. In 1996, the channel was renamed
NBC Europe, but was, from then on, almost always referred to as simply "NBC" on the air.
Most of NBC Europe's prime time programming was produced in Europe due to rights restriction associated with US primetime shows, but after 11 p.m. Central European Time on weekday evenings, the channel aired The Tonight Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Later, hence its slogan "Where the Stars Come Out at Night." Many NBC News programs were broadcast on NBC Europe, including Dateline NBC, Meet the Press and NBC Nightly News, which was aired live. The Today Show was also initially shown live in the afternoons, but was later broadcast the following morning instead, by which time it was more than half a day old.
In 1999, NBC Europe stopped broadcasting to most of Europe. At the same time the network was relaunched as a German language computer channel, targeting a young demographic. The main show on the new NBC Europe was called NBC GIGA. In 2005, the channel was relaunched once again, this time as a free-to-air movie channel under the name "Das Vierte". GIGA started an own digital channel then, which can be received via satellite and many cable networks in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The Tonight Show and NBC Nightly News continue to be broadcast on CNBC Europe.
Canal de Noticias
In 1993, NBC began production of
Canal de Noticias NBC. This service was beamed to Latin America from the NBC Newschannel headquarters located in
Charlotte,
North Carolina. Over 50 journalists were brought to produce, write, anchor and technically produce a 24 hour news service based on the popular "wheel" conceived at CNN. The service folded in 1997 as sales departments were not able to generate any revenue. After Mexican
Noticias ECO, Canal de Noticias NBC holds the distinction of being the first 24 hour news service to be seen in Latin America.
Telenoticias, at one point owned by CBS, came later followed by
CNN en Español.
Caribbean
In the Caribbean, many cable television and satellite television providers air local NBC affiliates, or the main network feed from
WNBC New York City or
WTVJ in Miami. A few locally owned NBC affiliates do exist, in
Puerto Rico. The island and the nearby
U.S. Virgin Islands are the main receivers of NBC programs available in English and Spanish via the
SAP option.
Bermuda
NBC's full program lineup is carried by local affiliate
VSB-TV, received from the network's East Coast satellite feed.
Netherlands Antilles
In
Aruba, the network programming is carried on station
PJA-TV (ATV) 15, cable 8.
Asia Pacific
Guam
KUAM-TV is an NBC affiliate in
Guam and carries the full NBC program lineup via satellite.
American Samoa
KKHJ-LP is the NBC affiliate for
Pago Pago; it signed onto the network in 2005.
NBC Asia and CNBC Asia
In 1995, NBC launched a channel in Asia called
NBC Asia available in Japan,
Malaysia, South Korea,
Taiwan and
Thailand. Like NBC Europe, NBC Asia featured most of NBC's news programs as well as the Tonight Show and Late Night. Like its European counterpart, it couldn't broadcast US-produced primetime shows due to rights restrictions. It also had NBC Super Sports for the latest action in selected sporting events. During weekday evenings, NBC Asia had a regional evening news program. It occasionally simulcast some programs from
CNBC Asia and
MSNBC. In July 1998, NBC Asia was replaced by the
National Geographic Channel. As is the case with NBC Europe, however, selected Tonight Show and Late Night episodes and Meet the Press can still be seen on
CNBC Asia during weekends. CNBC Asia shows NFL games and also brands them as
Sunday Night Football.
Regional partners
Through regional partners, NBC-produced programs are seen in some countries in the region. In the Philippines, Solar Entertainment's
Jack TV airs
The Tonight Show and
Late Night,
Will & Grace and
Saturday Night Live, while
2nd Avenue airs NBC News programs like
Today Show,
Early Today,
Weekend Today and
Dateline while
Solar TV airs NBC Nightly News and the Jay Leno Show. In Hong Kong, TVB Pearl, the English free-to-air channel operated by
Television Broadcasts Limited, airs NBC Nightly News live, as well as selected NBC programming.
Australia
The
Seven Network in Australia has close ties with NBC and has used many of its slogans (including
Let's All Be There).
Seven News has featured
The Mission as its news theme since the mid 1980s. Local newscasts were named
Seven Nightly News from the mid 1980s until around 2000.
Seven rebroadcasts some of NBC's news and current affairs programming, including:
Today
Weekend Today
Dateline NBC
Meet the Press with David Gregory
In 2009, NBC and Seven Network used Guy Sebastian's #1 Aria selling song Like it Like That for their summer station promo.
Affiliate world broadcasters of NBC
laSexta and Antena 3 (Spain)
UCV Television and TVN (Chile)
Televisa and TV Azteca (Mexico)
Rede Record (Brazil)
RCTV and Venevision (Venezuela)
Steel and Class News (Italy)
CNBC-e and e2 and ntvmsnbc (Turkey)
Library
Through the years, NBC has produced many shows in-house, in addition to airing content from other producers such as Revue Studios and its successor Universal Television.
Notable in-house productions of NBC included Get Smart, Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, Las Vegas and Crossing Jordan. NBC sold the rights to its pre-1973 shows to National Telefilm Associates in 1973. Today, those rights are owned by CBS Television Distribution.
NBC continues to own its post-1973 productions, through sister company NBC Universal Television Group, the successor to Universal TV. As a result, NBC in a way now owns several other series aired on the network prior to 1973, such as Wagon Train.
See also
List of NBC personalities
List of NBC slogans
List of NBC television affiliates (by U.S. state)
List of NBC television affiliates (table), arranged by market
List of programs broadcast by NBC
List of programs previously broadcast by NBC
Must See TV
NBC chimes
NBC Daytime
NBC News
NBC pages
NBC Sports
NBC Studios
The Weather Channel
XHGC-TV
Telemundo Puerto Rico
References
External links
Museum of Broadcast Communications - NBC History
Category:American television networks
Category:Companies based in New York City
Category:Companies established in 1926
Category:NBC Universal
Category:NBC television network
Category:Rockefeller Center