American Broadcasting Company

Behind Your Radio Dial: The Story of NBC 1947 National Broadcasting Company

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• published: 05 Oct 2012
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more at http://showbiz.quickfound.net/ "Behind the scenes tour of NBC's radio and television broadcasting facilities at Rockefeller Center, New York City." Public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archive, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Broadcasting_Company The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago. NBC 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 1986 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 NBCUniversal, which is a joint venture of Comcast and General Electric since 2011 (and before that, jointly owned by GE and current Universal Music Group parent Vivendi). As a result of the merger, Zucker left NBC and was replaced by Comcast executive Steve Burke. NBC has 10 owned-and-operated stations and nearly 200 affiliates in the United States and its territories. Archival footage from a majority of the NBC owned-and-operated stations is available for perusal and purchase through the NBCUniversal Archives... History Radio Earliest stations: WEAF and WJZ During a period of early broadcast business consolidation, the radio-making Radio Corporation of America (RCA) had acquired New York radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T;). An RCA shareholder, Westinghouse, had a competing facility in Newark, New Jersey pioneer station WJZ (no relation to the radio and TV stations in Baltimore currently using those call letters), which also served as the flagship for a loosely structured network. This station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, and moved to New York. WEAF acted as a laboratory for AT&T;'s manufacturing and supply outlet Western Electric, whose products included transmitters and antennas. The Bell System, AT&T;'s telephone utility, was developing technologies... Red and Blue Networks RCA spent $1 million to buy WEAF and Washington sister station WCAP, shut down the latter station and merged its facilities with surviving station WRC, and announced in late 1926 the creation of a new division known as The National Broadcasting Company. The new division was divided in ownership among RCA (fifty percent), General Electric (thirty percent), and Westinghouse (twenty percent). NBC launched officially on November 15, 1926. WEAF and WJZ, the flagships of the two earlier networks, operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. On January 1, 1927 NBC formally divided their respective marketing strategies: the Red Network offered commercially sponsored entertainment and music programming; the Blue Network mostly carried sustaining or non-sponsored broadcasts, especially news and cultural programs... 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... The famous three-note NBC chimes came about after several years of development. The three note sequence G-E'-C' were heard first over Atlanta's WSB. The chimes outline what is known to musicians as a second inversion C Major triad... NBC started to use the three notes in 1931, and it was the first audio trademark to be accepted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office... In 1939 the FCC ordered RCA to divest itself of one of the two networks... RCA sold Blue Network Company, Inc., for $8 million to Life Savers magnate Edward J. Noble, completing the sale on October 12, 1943... Noble wanted a better name for the network... The Blue Network became ABC officially on June 15, 1945...