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NBC

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{{otheruses}} {{Infobox Network | network_name = National Broadcasting Company (NBC) | network_logo = Image:Large_NBC_logo.png 125px| | country = United States | network_type = Terrestrial television Broadcast radio network
television network | available = National; also distributed in Canada and northern Mexico | owner = NBC Universal Inc. (General Electric and Vivendi Universal) | key_people = Robert Charles Wright Bob Wright, CEO
Jeff Zucker, President, NBCU Television Group
Steve Capus, President, NBC News
Dick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC Sports | launch_date = November 15, 1926 (radio); c. 1944 (television) | founder = David Sarnoff | past_names = National Broadcasting Company (1926-2003) | brand = "Must See TV" | website = [http://www.nbc.com/ www.nbc.com] | }} '''NBC''', formerly called the '''National Broadcasting Company''', is an United States American television broadcasting company based in New York City New York City's Rockefeller Center. It is now part of the media conglomerate (company) conglomerate NBC Universal, and supplies programming to more than 200 affiliated U.S. stations. NBC Universal is a unit of General Electric. The last U.S. network holding company to legally abandon the name behind its acronym, in 2003 the corporate name was shrunk from "National Broadcasting Company, Inc.", as it had been from 1926, to "NBC Universal, Inc." following a merger with Vivendi Universal's Entertainment division in 2004. NBC still uses the full name during occasional broadcasts, such as its coverage of the Macy's Thanksgiving#Thanksgiving in the United States Thanksgiving Day Parade. (American Broadcasting Company ABC still occasionally uses American Broadcasting Company or Companies for some copyrights and on-air branding.) Control of the network passed to GE in 1986 following the purchase of NBC's original parent, Radio Corporation of America RCA. Since this acquisition, the President and CEO of NBC has been Robert Charles Wright Bob Wright. NBC is sometimes referred to as the '''Peacock Network''' due to its stylized peacock logo.

History
Image:NBC Chicago.jpg thumb|left|150px|NBC Tower in [[Chicago, Illinois]]

Radio
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) radio network went on the air with twenty-four affiliated stations on November 15, 1926. It was owned by Radio Corporation of America (RCA), itself set up in 1919 to control Guglielmo Marconi's American patents; RCA in turn was owned by General Electric Company (GE), the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, the United Fruit Company and American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T).

=Earliest Stations: WEAF & WJZ
= During a period of early consolidation in the broadcasting business, RCA had acquired New York radio station WEAF from AT&T. RCA shareholder Westinghouse had a competing facility in Newark, pioneer station WJZ, which also served as the originating station for a loosely-structured network. This station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, and moved to New York. [http://www.musicradio77.com/transm.html] WEAF had been a laboratory for AT&T's Western Electric, which manufactured transmitters and antennas. AT&T's long-distance and local Bell System Bell operating divisions were developing technologies for transmitting voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, via both wireless and wired methods. So AT&T's creation of station WEAF in 1922 offered a research-and-development center for these activities. WEAF put together a regular schedule of programs of all types, and created some of the first broadcasts to incorporate commercial endorsements or sponsorships. It was an immediate success, and created links with other stations to offer coverage of sports or political events. WEAF's first efforts in what would become known first as "chain broadcasting" and later as "networking" tied together Outlet Company's WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island with AT&T's WCAP in Washington, D.C. (named for the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company division of AT&T). RCA also saw an advantage in sharing programming, and after getting a license for station WRC-AM WRC in Washington, D.C. in 1923, attempted to transmit audio between cities via low-quality telegraph lines (since AT&T refused outside companies access to their high-quality phone lines.) The effort was poor at best, with the uninsulated telegraph lines incapable of good audio transmission quality and very susceptible to both atmospheric and man-made electrical interference. In 1925 the management of AT&T decided that WEAF and its network was not compatible with AT&T's goal of providing phone service, and offered to sell the station to RCA, whose business was set manufacturing. When RCA bought WEAF, it gained rights to rent AT&T's phone lines for network transmission.

=The NBC Red & Blue Networks Are Born
= For $1 million, RCA acquired radio station WEAF and a Washington sister-station, WCAP, which it shut down. This transaction accompanied the announcement, in the late summer of 1926, of a new wholly-owned division of RCA called ''The National Broadcasting Company.'' [http://earlyradiohistory.us/1926nbc.htm] It was actually owned 50% by RCA, 30% by General Electric, and 20% by Westinghouse. The network officially was launched on November 15 of 1926 that year. WEAF and RCA's WJZ already were the flagship stations of two radio networks, and they operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. In 1927 NBC formally divided their respective marketing strategies: the NBC Red Network offered entertainment and music programming from their flagship, WEAF New York (660kHz as of 1928); the NBC Blue Network carried many of the "sustaining" or non-sponsored broadcasts, especially news and cultural programs, and originated from WJZ New York (760 hHz in 1928, 770kHz in 1941) [http://www.musicradio77.com/transm.html]. Legend has it that the color designations originated from the color of the push-pins early engineers used to designate affiliates of WEAF (red pins) and WJZ (blue pins). A similar two-part/two-color strategy appeared in the recording industry, dividing the market between classical and popular offerings. At various times in the 1930s NBC developed additional color designations, with the NBC White, Gold, and Orange networks operating in various configurations in the South, the Midwest and on the West Coast. NBC became the primary tenant in the brand new Rockefeller Center project in 1936. It would serve as the home of radio operations, some RCA corporate operations, and RCA-owned Radio-Keith-Orpheum RKO Pictures.

=NBC chimes The Chimes
= The famous three-note NBC chimes came about after NBC chimes#History several years of development. The three note sequence G-E-C may have been first heard over WSB in Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta which used it for its own purposes until one day someone at NBC in New York heard the WSB version of the notes during a networked broadcast of a Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Tech American football football game and asked permission to use it on the national network. NBC started to use the three notes in 1931, and it was the first ever audio trademark to be accepted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A variant sequence was also used that went G-E-C-C, known as "the fourth chime" and used during wartime (especially in the wake of the Pearl Harbor bombing) and other disasters. The NBC chimes were mechanized in 1932 by Richard H. Ranger of the Rangertone company; their purpose was to send a low level signal of constant amplitude that would be heard by the various switching stations manned by NBC and AT&T engineers, and thus used as a system cue for switching different stations between the Red and Blue network feeds.

=New Beginnings: The Blue Network Becomes ABC
= From its creation in 1934, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had studied the monopolistic effects of network broadcasting on the industry, and found that NBC's two networks and their owned-and-operated stations dominated audiences, affiliates and advertising dollars in American radio. In 1939 the FCC ordered RCA to divest itself of one of the two networks; RCA fought the divestiture order, but divided NBC into two companies in 1940 in case an appeal was lost. The Blue network became the "NBC Blue Network, Inc." (now as American Broadcasting Company ABC) and the NBC Red became "NBC Red Network, Inc." With the loss of the final appeal before the United States Supreme Court, RCA sold the NBC Blue Network, Inc. for $8 million to Lifesavers magnate Edward J. Noble in 1943. For his money Noble got the network name, leases on land-lines and the New York studios, two-and-a half stations (WJZ in Newark/New York, KGO in San Francisco, and WENR in Chicago which shared a frequency with "Prairie Farmer" station WLS), and about 60 affiliates. Noble renamed the company "The Blue Network, Inc." but wanted something more memorable. In 1944 he acquired rights to the name "American Broadcasting Company" from Storer Broadcasting George Storer and the Blue Network became ABC. "NBC Red" reverted to being simply "NBC" when Blue was sold.

=Defining Radioâ€™s Golden Age
= In the golden days of network broadcasting, 1930 to 1950, NBC was the pinnacle of American radio. Home to many of the most popular stars and programs, NBC stations were often the most powerful, or occupied clear-channel frequencies so that they were heard nation-wide. Such well-known stars as Al Jolson, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen and Fred Allen called NBC home, as did Arturo Toscanini's NBC Symphony. As television became more popular in the 1950s, many NBC radio stars gravitated there. NBC Radio's last major programming push, in 1955, was Monitor (NBC radio) Monitor, a continuous, all-weekend mixture of music, news, interviews and features with a variety of hosts including such well-known television personalities as Dave Garroway, Hugh Downs, Ed McMahon, Joe Garagiola and Gene Rayburn. After Monitor went off the air in 1975, there was little left of NBC Radio beyond hourly newscasts and news-related features. Since the 1986 acquisition of RCA, NBC has been GE's most consistently profitable division. In compliance with FCC rules, NBC Radio was sold following the sale to GE, to Westwood One. While the chimes and an hourly newscast still appear on radio at certain times on weekdays, the NBC Radio Network as a programming service ceased to exist in 1989, and became a brand-name on material produced by Westwood One.

Television
For many years NBC was closely identified with David Sarnoff, who used it as a vehicle to sell consumer electronics. It was Sarnoff who ruthlessly stole innovative ideas from competitors, using RCA's muscle to prevail in the courts. RCA and Sarnoff had dictated the broadcasting standards put in place by the FCC in 1938, and stole the spotlight by introducing television to the public at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. While rivals CBS and DuMont also offered color broadcasting plans, RCA convinced a waffling FCC that its color system should prevail, and in 1953 the FCC agreed; the NBC network was to begin offering color programming within days of the FCC's decision. The first NBC show to air all episodes in color, ''Bonanza'', began in the fall of 1959. By 1963, most of NBC's schedule was in color; without television sets to sell, rival networks followed more slowly, CBS in 1965 and ABC in 1966. In 1983, NBC began its new fall season with nine new series. All nine of them were eventually cancelled before completing a year. This is the only time that a network's entire line of new series has failed to be renewed. It was estimated in 2003 that NBC is viewable by 97.17% of all households, reaching 103,624,370 houses in the United States. NBC has 207 VHF and UHF affiliated stations in the U.S. and U.S. possessions. It is also seen throughout Latin America and the Caribbean via cable and satellite using the WNBC-TV WNBC feed.

Children's programming
For most of the network's existence, in regards to children's programming, NBC has aired mostly animated series for kids. {{expand|March 2006}} In the late 1950s, NBC abandoned the children's programming lineup on weekday afternoons, relegating the lineup to Saturdays only. In 1989 in television 1989, NBC began airing its only non-animated series ''Saved by the Bell'' which originated at The Disney Channel as ''Good Morning, Miss Bliss''. ''Saved by the Bell'' would become one of the most popular teen series in television history. As the 1990s went on, NBC abandoned the animated series, trading it in for a Saturday edition of ''Today'' and more live-action series under the name T-NBC ('''Teen-NBC'''). Most of the series on the T-NBC lineup were series produced by Peter Engel (television producer) Peter Engel such as ''City Guys'', ''California Dreams'' and ''One World (TV series) One World''. Though there were exceptions, the short-lived ''Just Deal'', one of only two series without a studio audience and/or laugh track, and the only "filmed" series was co-created and executive produced by Thomas W. Lynch. In 2002 in television 2002, NBC began a deal with Discovery Communications' Discovery Kids to air its original programming under the banner ''Discovery Kids on NBC''. Following this decision, ABC acquired ''NBA Inside Stuff'' from NBC. The schedule originally consisted of only live-action series but has expanded to include some animated series as well. In 2006, the Discovery Kids deal was allowed to lapse. [http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002198189]

Evolution of the NBC logo
{{main|National Broadcasting Company logos}} 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.

NBC News
''See also NBC News'' Image:NBC helicopter 3.jpg thumb|NBC Helicopter While CBS has received more attention from historians discussing broadcast journalism history, NBC's news operation was equal to it. From 1956 through 1970, the television broadcast team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley consistently exceeded the viewership levels attained by CBS News and its main anchor Walter Cronkite. The pair, together with fellow correspondent Frank McGee, distinguished itself in the coverage of American manned space missions in the Project Mercury, Project Gemini and Project Apollo programs, during an era when space missions rated continuous coverage. (An entire studio, Studio 8H, was configured for this coverage, complete with models and mockups of rockets and spacecraft, maps of the earth and moon to show orbital trackage, and stages on which animated figures created by puppeteer Bil Baird were used to depict movements of astronauts before on-board spacecraft television cameras were feasible. Studio 8H is now the home of the NBC entertainment program Saturday Night Live.) The dominance ended when Huntley retired. (Huntley died of cancer in 1974.) The loss of Huntley, along with a reluctance of RCA to fund NBC News at the level CBS was funding CBS News, left NBC News in the doldrums. NBC News did not recover viewership levels until after GE acquired RCA. NBC News got the first interview from two Russian presidents (Vladamir Putin Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev Gorbachev) and was the only American eye-witness of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In the second Iraq war, NBC News and main anchor Tom Brokaw covered the war like no other television company, in part owing to the willingness of GE to fund it. NBC News correspondent David Bloom pushed through the GE and U.S. Department of Defense bureaucracies permission to construct a mobile news vehicle that could transmit live video broadcasts from the battlefield. The "Bloommobile" brought satellite images and videos (clear, detailed) into homes of America and Europe, live and one-on-one. Bloom did not live to accept the accolades after the armed conflict; he died of natural causes unrelated to combat during the final phase of the fighting. NBC News also benefits from the GE corporate structure by having the ability to take reports from its cable counterpart MSNBC.

See also
{{commonscat|NBC}} * NBC News * NBC Sports * Must See TV * List of programs broadcast by NBC * List of United States television networks * List of NBC affiliates * List of NBC slogans * Lists of corporate assets * NBC chimes * NHL on NBC

External links

- NBC Television official site
- Museum of Broadcast Communications - NBC History
- Screen captures of NBC logos past and present, as well as footage of vintage promos
- NBC press releases and photos on NBC Universal Media Village
- Rockefeller Center (NBC's '30 Rock' headquarters building) official site {{U.S. broadcast television}} {{General Electric}} Category:1926 establishments Category:Companies based in New York City Category:General Electric subsidiaries Category:NBC television network NBC television network de:National Broadcasting Company es:National Broadcasting Company fr:National Broadcasting Company gl:National Broadcasting Company he:NBC ja:National Broadcasting Company nl:National Broadcasting Company nn:NBC no:NBC pl:NBC pt:NBC simple:NBC sq:NBC sv:NBC tl:NBC zh:å…¨å›½å¹¿æ’å…¬å?¸

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