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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works, and I heart radio and I love

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Speaker 1: all things tech. And while I was preparing for c

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Speaker 1: e S, which I am getting ready to travel to,

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Speaker 1: as I'm recording this, I'm recording this the Friday before

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Speaker 1: I jump on a plane and head out to Las Vegas, Nevada. Well,

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Speaker 1: I read a lot of emails from a lot of

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Speaker 1: different companies, and they're all attempting to entice me to

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Speaker 1: go to a particular part of ce S to see

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Speaker 1: their booth or their presentation, or maybe even to a

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Speaker 1: hotel suite off the exhibition floor, because you know, some

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Speaker 1: companies will rent out a suite of rooms rather than

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Speaker 1: secure exhibition space for lots of reasons. That's neither here

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Speaker 1: nor there anyway. One of these companies, the ones that

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Speaker 1: sent me these emails, was our ci A. And the

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Speaker 1: thing that really caught my eye is that in twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: our CIA is celebrating it's one anniversary. Our c A

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Speaker 1: has been a really important company in technology for lots

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Speaker 1: of different reasons, not just consumer tech, and our c

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Speaker 1: A is responsible directly for two of the big broadcast

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Speaker 1: networks in the United States, and indirectly it's responsible for

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Speaker 1: the third. I thought I would explore the history of

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Speaker 1: this company and what it's been through during the century

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Speaker 1: of its existence. So this is the first episode where

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the formation of our CIA.

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Speaker 1: But of course this also means that I'm going to

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Speaker 1: be doing a lot of backtracking because while our c A,

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Speaker 1: which was an initialism originally for Radio Corporation of America,

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Speaker 1: it would become an established company in nineteen nineteen, the

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Speaker 1: history actually dates further back. So we've got to talk

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Speaker 1: about some other companies and some politics and some other

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Speaker 1: big issues that would lead to the formation the founding

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Speaker 1: of our c A. So let's go back to the

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. In the late nineteenth century, invention and innovation

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Speaker 1: were rapidly changing the world. You had the Industrial Revolution,

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Speaker 1: and it had altered the way we do work. It

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Speaker 1: had impacted the price of goods. Things became cheaper because

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Speaker 1: it was easier to make a heck a lot more

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Speaker 1: of just about everything. People had more time on their hands,

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Speaker 1: and at the same time, you had engineers and inventors

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Speaker 1: who were experimenting with stuff like electricity and magnetism and

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Speaker 1: radio waves. Entrepreneurs from around the world, some of them inventors,

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Speaker 1: other just business not just but others of the business

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Speaker 1: minded people who saw opportunity through the invention of others,

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Speaker 1: began to form corporations that could exploit these discoveries for profit,

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Speaker 1: and they included companies like the American Telephone and Telegraph

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Speaker 1: Company also known as A T and T. Also General

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Speaker 1: Electric which grew out of several companies, one of which

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Speaker 1: was founded by Thomas Edison himself, and many more. The

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Speaker 1: discovery of radio waves and the technology that would allow

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Speaker 1: humans to produce, transmit, and receive radio waves in a

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Speaker 1: meaningful way is beyond the scope of these episodes. Besides,

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Speaker 1: I've talked about that a lot in earlier episodes of

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Speaker 1: Tech Stuff. You can search the archives. There tons of

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Speaker 1: episodes where I talk about radio waves and the history

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Speaker 1: of radio. But by the early nineteen hundreds, there were

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Speaker 1: a dozen or so radio operating stations in the United States.

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Speaker 1: Several of these stations were owned by foreign companies, and

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Speaker 1: almost all of them were dedicated to transmitting signals using

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Speaker 1: Morse code. So this wasn't about radio stations playing the

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Speaker 1: top forty or anything like that. At this stage, these

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Speaker 1: were communication and stations. They were meant to transmit signals

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Speaker 1: from one place to another, to send communications across the nation.

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Speaker 1: It was sort of analogous to the telephone infrastructure, so

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Speaker 1: not meant as a entertainment or news source. The telephone

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Speaker 1: companies had not yet entered into this business at this point.

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Speaker 1: These were all individual enterprises, some of which were getting

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Speaker 1: pretty large, and the biggest of all of them was

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Speaker 1: the American Marconi Company, named after Marconi, the guy who

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Speaker 1: gets the credit for inventing radio, that is, the transmission

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Speaker 1: technology of radio, though that is of course a matter

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Speaker 1: of great dispute in certain academic circles. Nicola Tesla would

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Speaker 1: be the other name that gets thrown around in that

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Speaker 1: and for good reason. Tesla was awarded a patent early on,

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Speaker 1: and that patent would eventually get overturned in favor of

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Speaker 1: Marconi's under somewhat shady circumstan answers. Anyway, in the summer

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Speaker 1: of nineteen fourteen, war broke out in Europe. Somewhat optimistically,

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Speaker 1: people were calling it the War to end all wars,

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Speaker 1: but now we call it World War One. Thus optimism

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Speaker 1: did not win out. Now, while the United States initially

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Speaker 1: maintained a neutral status during the war, the US government

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Speaker 1: was already making preparations in the event that the nation

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Speaker 1: would be pulled into the conflict, and part of that

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Speaker 1: was an executive order that was signed by Woodrow Wilson

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Speaker 1: on August five, nineteen fourteen. That executive order authorized the

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Speaker 1: United States Navy Department to censor international telegraph messages that

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Speaker 1: were sent by radio firms, the largest of which was

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Speaker 1: the Marconi Company. Now, Marconi Company challenged the legality of

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Speaker 1: this executive order, saying this censorship, you can't do it.

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Speaker 1: Legal battles would follow, and the Navy would have ultimately

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Speaker 1: shut down on Mark Cony radio transmission station for three

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Speaker 1: months until the company agreed to follow regulations in January

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen. Eventually, even this was thought to be too risky,

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Speaker 1: and the United States government effectively took over the American

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Speaker 1: Marconi Company. And the American Marconi Company was technically it

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Speaker 1: was a subsidiary. It was a subsidiary of a company

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Speaker 1: that had its headquarters in England. So the U. S

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Speaker 1: Government says, we want to maintain neutrality. We cannot have

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Speaker 1: stations that are located in the United States sending messages

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Speaker 1: on behalf of one or another of the parties that

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Speaker 1: are at war in Europe, because that would seem to

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Speaker 1: suggest that we are on a particular side and we

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Speaker 1: want to stay out of this. So the US says,

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Speaker 1: in order to do this, we're going to take over

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Speaker 1: your assets. They're not yours anymore. There ares Boo who

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Speaker 1: Now at the end of the war, the United States

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Speaker 1: still had those assets of the American Marconi Company, and

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Speaker 1: the government needed a way to offload them. They didn't

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Speaker 1: want to keep them. They also wanted to ensure that

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Speaker 1: those assets would remain under American control. They didn't want

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Speaker 1: foreign nations to have access to critical communications technologies with

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Speaker 1: you on US soil. So the government approached a group

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Speaker 1: of companies that included General Electric, which would become the

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Speaker 1: dominant partner in this group, Westinghouse, A T and T,

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Speaker 1: Western Electric, and the United Fruit Company. And if you're

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Speaker 1: like me, your reaction to that last partner was probably

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Speaker 1: hang on, did he say United Fruit Company? And indeed

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Speaker 1: I did. That company has a complex and controversial history.

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Speaker 1: It was involved in various levels of government in many

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Speaker 1: regions across the world, and particularly in Central and South

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Speaker 1: America and the Caribbean, and and it was operating as

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Speaker 1: an effective monopoly in a lot of places. Has a

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Speaker 1: lot of uh, a lot of tie INDs with colonization,

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Speaker 1: so there are a lot of negative things that kind

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Speaker 1: of tie into this company's history. But in nineteen thirteen,

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Speaker 1: the United Fruit Company had established the Tropical Radio and

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Speaker 1: Telegraph Company, which is kind of what brought it up

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Speaker 1: as a potential partner for this enterprise. So anyway, these

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Speaker 1: partners all got together and they formed the Radio Corporation

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Speaker 1: of America or r c A in nineteen nine. It

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Speaker 1: was essentially a government sanctioned monopoly in the radio industry

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Speaker 1: in the United States. The companies all pooled their patents

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Speaker 1: together in a series of cross licensing agreements to avoid

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Speaker 1: any conflicts of having one company attempt to leverage its

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Speaker 1: essential patents over the other partners in the operation of

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Speaker 1: r C as business. So essentially they were all saying,

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Speaker 1: here are all the patented technologies that we have our

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Speaker 1: disposal that relate to radio transmission technologies. We want to

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Speaker 1: make sure that we're not creating impediments for our c

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Speaker 1: A to do business. To head up this company, the

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Speaker 1: partners chose a guy named David Sarnoff. Sarnov himself had

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Speaker 1: a really interesting history. He was born in Russia in

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety one, but his family immigrated to America in

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Speaker 1: nineteen hundred. He had started working as a messenger boy

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Speaker 1: for a telegraph company in nineteen o six, and he

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Speaker 1: became a telegraph operator for the American Marconi Company a

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Speaker 1: couple of years later. Legend has it that he picked

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Speaker 1: up the distress calls from the Titanic in nineteen twelve

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Speaker 1: while working in the radio station that was owned by

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Speaker 1: John Wannamaker, but the truth appears to be that Sarnov

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Speaker 1: had instead picked up signals of rescue ships that were

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Speaker 1: responding to the Titanics distress call, and then he relayed

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Speaker 1: that information to the local press in New York. He

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Speaker 1: was promoted to chief inspector of American Marconi a few

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Speaker 1: years later, and he wrote a memo in nineteen sixteen

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Speaker 1: in which he proposed building radios for home consumers and

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Speaker 1: he called it a radio music box. So this is

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Speaker 1: before the days of commercial radio, but he had thought

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Speaker 1: this technology has the potential to bring culture, entertainment, news,

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Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff into the American home through transmission,

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Speaker 1: if we want to pursue that. This was in the

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Speaker 1: days when only amateur radio enthusiasts had any access to

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Speaker 1: radio equipment outside of the professional industry. Otherwise the only

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Speaker 1: places you would find it are in these radio stations

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Speaker 1: where they were acting almost like telegraph operators. So he

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Speaker 1: would then become the commercial manager for our c A

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Speaker 1: and eventually become the general manager, and then further down

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Speaker 1: the line the CEO. Sarnov was a really ambitious man.

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Speaker 1: He was also really good at self promotion and who

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Speaker 1: is also really good at sensing the potential impact of

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Speaker 1: radio broadcast technology as well as related technologies like television broadcasts,

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Speaker 1: which I'll talk more about in the next episode. Well,

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Speaker 1: in the early days of our CIA's history, it mainly

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Speaker 1: did two things. It operated the various radio stations which

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Speaker 1: were still almost exclusively transmitting messages in morse code, and

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Speaker 1: it sold radio equipment manufactured by the various companies that

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Speaker 1: had formed our CI. A. While this was intended to

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Speaker 1: build out a communications infrastructure similar to the telephone system,

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Speaker 1: something else was happening at the same time that changed

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Speaker 1: the course of the industry, and that something was the

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Speaker 1: rise of amateur radio operators. The United States had banned

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Speaker 1: amateur radio during World War One, saying that they needed

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Speaker 1: to have those radio waves free for communications, but the

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Speaker 1: the government lifted that ban on October first, and more

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Speaker 1: people were interested in radio communication and setting up our

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Speaker 1: own radio receivers at home. The rise in amateur radio

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Speaker 1: encouraged Sarnoff and gave credence to that idea he had

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Speaker 1: proposed a few years earlier about his radio music box. Well.

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Speaker 1: During World War One, there were some hints at what

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Speaker 1: would become the standard for commercial radio in use by

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Speaker 1: the military. In a publication called The Wireless Age featured

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Speaker 1: a short range system that could broadcast news and music

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Speaker 1: to hospitals to entertain convalescing soldiers. For example, on the

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Speaker 1: technology front, companies were exploring ways to make radio receivers

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Speaker 1: more compact and less expensive. To make radio signals loud

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Speaker 1: enough for commercial radio to be practical, those radios would

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Speaker 1: have to have amplification, and so companies began investing in

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Speaker 1: research and development to improve vacuum to manufacturing processes to

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Speaker 1: make radio as a practical consumer item. Before the transistor,

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Speaker 1: the vacuum tube was your primary way of taking in

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Speaker 1: an incoming week signal and boosting it to a stronger

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Speaker 1: outgoing signal and amplifier. In other words, I have more

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Speaker 1: to say about the early days of our CIA, but

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Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor.

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Speaker 1: And so is our CI A oversaw radio stations transmitting

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Speaker 1: communications across vast distances, and various companies began to work

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Speaker 1: toward a goal of building consumer radios. The race was

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Speaker 1: on for the first true commercial radio station, and it

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be our CIA to launch it. Instead, Westinghouse applied

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Speaker 1: for a license to operate such a transmission station. They

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Speaker 1: applied to the US government and received permission in nineteen twenty.

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Speaker 1: Westinghouse was in the business of manufacturing radios, but demand

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Speaker 1: for radios was lagging behind, and so leaders at the

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Speaker 1: company reasoned that one way to increase demand would be

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Speaker 1: to create programming. Now today that seems pretty clear that

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Speaker 1: if you want to sell a technology to someone, a

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Speaker 1: technology that allows people to access content, you need to

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Speaker 1: create content for people to access. Otherwise they just have

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Speaker 1: a useless tool. But this was a big step in

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty. Radio had mainly been used as point to

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Speaker 1: point communication at that At that stage, it's just that

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Speaker 1: the points were undefined because there were no wires, So

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Speaker 1: you know, you had a receiver that could pick up

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Speaker 1: a signal that would be a point. So this would

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Speaker 1: open up the possible uses for radio and allow them

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Speaker 1: to become entertainment devices. It was precisely the stuff Sarnoff

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Speaker 1: had been saying in his memo back in nineteen sixteen.

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Speaker 1: Westinghouse approached a ham radio operator named Dr Frank Conrad,

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Speaker 1: who had already been playing records over the radio for

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Speaker 1: some of his other amateur radio operator friends, and on

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Speaker 1: November two, nineteen twenty, Westinghouse launched k d k A

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Speaker 1: out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Yeah, it was the first commercial

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Speaker 1: radio station. Saranov had been working on his own approach,

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Speaker 1: receiving the blessing of the companies that founded our ci

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Speaker 1: A to do so. They gave him some funds so

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Speaker 1: that he could pursue this, and on July two, nine

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Speaker 1: Sarnof showed off the market potential for radio by broadcasting

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Speaker 1: a boxing match between Jack Dempsey and George Carpentier. Dempsey

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Speaker 1: was a celebrated US champion. Carpentier was a boxing hero

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Speaker 1: in France and he had a reputation for knocking out

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Speaker 1: British champions, so this was a super hyped event back

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Speaker 1: in n Dempsey would win by knockout in the fourth

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Speaker 1: round and the broadcast was a sensational hit. Our CIA

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Speaker 1: began to sell more radio receivers to customers, and radio

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Speaker 1: stations began popping up all over the United States. The

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Speaker 1: first radio commercial on record happened in August nineteen twenty two,

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Speaker 1: and a New York real estate developer aired an ad

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Speaker 1: in New York City. Two years later, in nineteen there

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Speaker 1: were more than six hundred commercial radio stations in the

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Speaker 1: United States. These were mostly independent stations, and that's when

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Speaker 1: r c A made a really big move in the industry.

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Speaker 1: Partnering with Westinghouse and A T and T, r ci

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Speaker 1: A formed a new company called the National Broadcasting Company,

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Speaker 1: or INBC, which had its first broadcast on November nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenty six. The concept was that NBC would produce material

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Speaker 1: for broadcast, which would then be sent out over different

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Speaker 1: radio stations in different regions, with the stations being part

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Speaker 1: of the overall network. Which was a new idea at

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Speaker 1: the time. You know, creates your your content in a

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Speaker 1: central location and then distribute it using these various radio stations.

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Speaker 1: That was revolutionary. NBC had two semi independent networks under

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Speaker 1: its governance shortly after it was formed, so it split

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Speaker 1: off its its operations into two networks. One was called

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Speaker 1: the Blue Network and one was called the Red Network,

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Speaker 1: So you had NBC Blue and NBC Red. The center

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Speaker 1: of the Blue Network was a radio station called w

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Speaker 1: jay Z, which had been founded by Westinghouse in nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenty one. The center for the Red Network was a

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Speaker 1: station called w e a F, which was founded by A.

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Speaker 1: T and T in nineteen twenty three. While all this

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Speaker 1: was going on, Sarnov was already looking at the potential

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Speaker 1: future of television. In nineteen twenty four, r C A

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Speaker 1: transmitted the first transatlantic radio photo from New York to London.

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Speaker 1: This was before the invention of electronic television's, when the

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Speaker 1: early prototype TVs were largely mechanical in nature, and I

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Speaker 1: talked about that in the History of Television episodes on

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Speaker 1: Tech Stuff. So there was a limited market for mechanical television's.

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Speaker 1: They really didn't make a lot of progress in the

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Speaker 1: consumer market. They were very expensive, they were very complicated,

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Speaker 1: and they had limited success full results, let's say. But

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Speaker 1: the real boon would come when inventors began to create

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Speaker 1: electronic televisions, and that wouldn't begin until the late nineteen twenties.

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Speaker 1: And when we talk about commercial TVs, you're talking about

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Speaker 1: two more decades on top of that. Now, this is

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Speaker 1: not entirely a happy story. In nineteen twenty nine, Sarnoff

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Speaker 1: met with an engineer at Westinghouse named Vladimir Zwarakin. And

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Speaker 1: if you've listened to my episodes about the origins of television,

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Speaker 1: you know Zarakin is one of two inventors who typically

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Speaker 1: get the title of inventor of television. The other would

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Speaker 1: be Philo Farnsworth. Saranoff convinced Westinghouse to fund Zarakin's work,

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Speaker 1: and in nineteen thirty r c A would take over

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Speaker 1: the research as Warakin would actually go over to our

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Speaker 1: CIA as well and become an r c A employee. Sarnoff,

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Speaker 1: seeing the power of patents, wanted to run out of

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Speaker 1: business any person or a company he felt was horning

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Speaker 1: in on his action, and so in ninety two our

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Speaker 1: CI A would file a patent suit against Philo Farnsworth.

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Speaker 1: The case would last seven years. Ultimately Farnsworth would win

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Speaker 1: that case and our c would have to pay fines

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Speaker 1: and royalties to him. But by that time his health

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Speaker 1: was in shambles. He had had a nervous breakdown from

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Speaker 1: all the stress. And I'm going to get back to

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Speaker 1: Starnoff's lutitious ways throughout these episodes, but bouncing back to

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Speaker 1: for a moment. So this is before all of the

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Speaker 1: legality issues with Farnsworth, I need to talk about another

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Speaker 1: company that would play a very important part in our

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Speaker 1: Cier's early history. Now, if you've heard my episodes about

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Speaker 1: the history of turntables, you'll remember the early days of

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Speaker 1: the phonograph and the graphophone and the gramophone. I covered

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Speaker 1: a little bit of the turbulent patent battles and the

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Speaker 1: cutthroat business strategies that were all part of the early

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Speaker 1: days of home audio, and I'll have to do a

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Speaker 1: more in depth series in the few sure to really

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Speaker 1: focus on it, because it gets nasty, y'all. But the

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Speaker 1: Victor Talking Machine Company was born directly out of all

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Speaker 1: that strife. Now, since this is not an episode about Victor,

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to give you the super short version, which,

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Speaker 1: let's face it, I'm Jonathan Strickland of tech Stuff. Super

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Speaker 1: short for me is a lecture for anybody else, but

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Speaker 1: let's go with it. The Berliner Gramophone Company of Philadelphia,

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Speaker 1: founded by Emil Berliner, was the company that really was

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Speaker 1: the focus of this this strife. Berlinard gets the credit

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Speaker 1: for inventing the first flat disc record. Before his invention,

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Speaker 1: engineers would press recordings onto cylinders. So you had these

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Speaker 1: cylinders that you would put on a spool essentially that

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Speaker 1: would then rotate and you could play it back on

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Speaker 1: various devices. The discs were much easier to store, right,

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Speaker 1: you didn't have as much space and as much bulk

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Speaker 1: as a cylinder did. They were easier to ship, and

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Speaker 1: once the manufacturing process was refined, they lasted a lot

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Speaker 1: longer than cylinders did as well. It took a while

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Speaker 1: to get the right materials, but once they did, those

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Speaker 1: discs just seemed more practical. Berliner made a deal with

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Speaker 1: an enterprising manufacturer and machinist named Eldredge R. Johnson. Johnson

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Speaker 1: developed a wind up spring motor for Berliner's gramophones. Now

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Speaker 1: previously those gramophones had relied on hand cranks, so you

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Speaker 1: would literally turn a crank which would then turn the

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Speaker 1: gears inside the device and turn the platter so that

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Speaker 1: you could listen to the disc being played back on

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Speaker 1: the gramophone. Johnson did good work. He created a spring

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Speaker 1: motor that worked reliably, but Berliner would enter into a

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Speaker 1: sales agreement with a man named frank Cman, and this

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Speaker 1: would lead to massive trouble. Frankie wanted more money for

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Speaker 1: himself and eventually began to sell knockoffs of Berliner's works

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Speaker 1: while simultaneously bringing legal action, much of its spurious in nature,

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Speaker 1: against both Berliner and Johnson. The process eventually prevented Berliner

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Speaker 1: from selling gramophones in the United States and nearly bankrupted

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Speaker 1: both Berliner and Johnson in the process. And this was

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Speaker 1: infuriating to them. I mean, they were the ones who

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Speaker 1: had created this technology, and now this salesman Day had

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Speaker 1: worked with was claiming that they were the ones infringing

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Speaker 1: on his patents, his ideas, and his trade secrets. But

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Speaker 1: in nineteen o one, Johnson, Berliner, and some other entrepreneurs

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Speaker 1: got together and founded a new consolidated company that took

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Speaker 1: Berliner's facilities and Johnson's manufacturing plants as the basis for

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Speaker 1: the new organization. And this was the Victor Talking Machine Company,

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Speaker 1: which incorporated on October third, nineteen o one. So the

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Speaker 1: Victor Talking Machine Company was older than the Radio Corporation

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Speaker 1: of America that would not be born until nine But

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Speaker 1: Saranov looked at the Victor Talking Machine Company and thought,

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Speaker 1: this is a way I could sell more radios. I

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Speaker 1: could take this company and take their product, the the

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Speaker 1: gramophones essentially, although they didn't call it that in the

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Speaker 1: United States, they couldn't. They started calling it things like

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Speaker 1: the Victrola that was one that the Victor Company made.

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Speaker 1: I can take that. I can incorporate a radio into

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Speaker 1: the design of those machines, sell it as a new product,

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Speaker 1: and sell more radios this way. Also, just as a

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Speaker 1: quick aside, the Victor trademark is one of the more

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Speaker 1: famous ones in business history. It shows a dog, specifically

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Speaker 1: a fox terrier, sitting in front of a gramophone horn

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Speaker 1: and the dog's head is tilted slightly. It's from a

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Speaker 1: painting titled His Master's Voice, and the artist was Francis

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Speaker 1: Borrowed and it was made in The dog was named

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Speaker 1: Nipper and once belonged to Burrowed's nephew Mark mark Ark

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Speaker 1: had tragically passed away. And then Francis saw a Nipper

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Speaker 1: one day sitting near a gramophone with his head cocked,

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Speaker 1: and that led Francis to wonder what the dog's reaction

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Speaker 1: would be if they had happened to be playing a

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Speaker 1: recording of his old master Mark speaking. That was the

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Speaker 1: inspiration for the painting. He tried selling the painting as

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Speaker 1: a magazine illustration to no avail, and ultimately sold it

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Speaker 1: to the Gramophone Company for the princely sum of one

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Speaker 1: hundred pounds. Sterling Johnson got permission from the Gramophone Company

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Speaker 1: to use it for his products under the Victor Company,

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Speaker 1: and berlinerd had trademarked the design and at some point

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Speaker 1: transferred that trademark over to the Victor Company. The whole

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Speaker 1: story is super fascinating, and I'm sure I'll devote a

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Speaker 1: future episode to the Victor Talking Machine Company, but for now,

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Speaker 1: let's remember that it started in nineteen one, and even

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Speaker 1: though it grew out of an older company and then

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00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:57,320
Speaker 1: would eventually get incorporated into our c A. I'll explain

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Speaker 1: more in just a moment, but first let's take another

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Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsor. The acquisition of the

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Speaker 1: Victor Talking Machine Company meant that our C A was

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Speaker 1: now getting into the consumer electronics business. Keep in mind,

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Speaker 1: up until nine nine, r c A was primarily in

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Speaker 1: the business of operating radio broadcast stations and selling what

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00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: was effectively industrial equipment. But now our c A owned

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Speaker 1: the company that had created the iconic Victrola machine, and

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00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: they created a subsidiary company called r c A Victor.

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Speaker 1: That company also took a majority ownership in the Japan

405
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Speaker 1: Victor Company, which is also known as j v C.

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Speaker 1: Also in ninety nine, r k O Radio Pictures released

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Speaker 1: a film called Synco Patient, which relied upon a new

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Speaker 1: technique called r c A photophone, which is not to

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Speaker 1: be confused with the technology developed by Alexander Graham Bell

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00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:00,880
Speaker 1: that was also called photophone. Now, this was a technique

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Speaker 1: of recording audio onto film for the purposes of synchronized

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Speaker 1: visuals and audio, in other words, a way of making

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Speaker 1: talking pictures. And the formation of r k O Pictures

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Speaker 1: itself is a great story that ties directly into our

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Speaker 1: history of our CI A. So the development of the

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Speaker 1: r C A photophone technology would date back to the

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Speaker 1: early nineteen twenties, there was a man named Charles A.

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Speaker 1: Haxie who was working on recording audio to photographic film

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Speaker 1: as a project for General Electric, which you'll remember was

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Speaker 1: one of the founding partners that created our c A. Now.

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Speaker 1: Hawxy's work at that time was more about preserving audio

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Speaker 1: recordings for playback, not necessarily as a way of creating

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Speaker 1: talking pictures, but just recording audio in itself. But by

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Speaker 1: the mid twenties, General Electric was thinking about applying Hawxy's

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Speaker 1: work in the direction of talking pictures. Now, the desire

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Speaker 1: to match sound to moving images dated back to the

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Speaker 1: earliest moving pictures. Edison himself worked on this challenge, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of different companies were taking various approaches to

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Speaker 1: this problem. So, for example, Warner Brothers had created a

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Speaker 1: system called Vitaphone. Vitaphone, you would record a soundtrack onto

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Speaker 1: a disk similar to an LP record, and when you

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00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: were ready to play the film, you would synchronize the

433
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 1: film playback with the audio from the disk. So that

434
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 1: was a pretty primitive approach, but it was how some

435
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,159
Speaker 1: early talking pictures were made, including the first one, The

436
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:35,199
Speaker 1: Jazz Singer, which debuted in ninete r C. A photophone

437
00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 1: used a totally different approach. The sound was recorded in

438
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:42,680
Speaker 1: a narrow band on the side of the frame of

439
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: film some actual photoreactive film. Uh, the band would be

440
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 1: out of you when the film was put through a projector.

441
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 1: There was a frame on a projector that covers up

442
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: the edges of the film, and the audio track is

443
00:27:56,640 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: on one of those edges. The width of this strip

444
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:03,160
Speaker 1: on the side of the film varies with the frequency

445
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 1: of the sound that was recorded onto the film. So essentially,

446
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: you have sound that's transmitted into a microphone. It is

447
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 1: turned into an electric signal, which in turn is used

448
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:19,879
Speaker 1: to treat this this photoreactive film, so that it has

449
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 1: this record of the frequency. It's almost like a wave form.

450
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 1: If you were to think of that, uh, you know,

451
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:27,879
Speaker 1: in a modern sense, if you were to look at

452
00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 1: an audio file on a audio editing software. So then

453
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 1: when you're playing it back, you have a bright lamp

454
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 1: that shines light through this narrow strip, and you have

455
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 1: a photo cell that picks up the light that's coming through,

456
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: and it generates an electric current that matches the amount

457
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 1: of light that's hitting the photo cell, and that signal

458
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 1: goes to a pre amplifier, which can then boost the

459
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: signal strength so it can go to an amplifier and

460
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 1: then ultimately speakers. The lamp for reading this optical sound

461
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: and the photo cell are not in the same position

462
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 1: as the projection lamp that would just get in the way.

463
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: So this is actually it creates something of a challenge.

464
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 1: It means that the soundtrack is offset from the actual

465
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 1: frames of the film itself. The soundtrack is either running

466
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: a little ahead or a little behind the action of

467
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: the film, depending upon the method that was actually used.

468
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: So in playback it's all synchronized because if you as

469
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: long as you put the film through the right type

470
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 1: of projector, the audio track gets read through the audio

471
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: system at the same time as the video or the film.

472
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 1: Rather the images are being projected through the projection lamp

473
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 1: and it all gets synchronized together. So in playback gets synchronized.

474
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: But if you were to look at the film itself,

475
00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: like if you took the film out of the projector

476
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: then you held it up to the light and you

477
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: saw where the audio track is, the audio you were

478
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: looking at would not be the audio that occurs in

479
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: synchronization with the image you're looking at the advantage of

480
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 1: that approach was that all the synchronization would be done beforehand.

481
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 1: You didn't have to set up a disc and a

482
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: film in separate chambers to try and match up to

483
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: each other. It was all in one piece of film.

484
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: But the format itself changed several times, sometimes with the

485
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:24,600
Speaker 1: optical soundtrack running ahead of the action, sometimes behind the action.

486
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 1: This meant the movie theaters had to invest in different

487
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: equipment to play back those films properly, because if you

488
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:34,960
Speaker 1: put in a film where the soundtrack ran a little

489
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: ahead of the action, but you put it in a

490
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: projector that was designed to run a film that had

491
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: the audio a little behind the action, you would have

492
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 1: terrible experiences because the audio would not be at all

493
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: synchronized with what was happening on screen. It would just

494
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: be a total mess. This ended up creating kind of

495
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: a format war that waged in the late twenties after

496
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: our CIA's approach debut. It is not the only audio

497
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: on film format, and it also did battle with the

498
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: vitaphone approach, where it was the recorded to disc version.

499
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: Now on the production side, if you were making films,

500
00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: it also changed how movies were made because If you

501
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 1: watch some of the early films with sound, like some

502
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 1: of the first films that had sound in it, you

503
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: might notice people don't move very much. Shots are pretty static.

504
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: Actors tend to remain in place well. This was largely

505
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: because the limitations of the sound recording equipment at the time.

506
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: Microphones were large and bulky and typically omnidirectional. Actors needed

507
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: to be close to the microphones so that they could

508
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 1: be heard clearly, but they also couldn't move around very

509
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: much because the microphones would pick up everything, so you

510
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: just have a lot of noise. The cameras themselves, which

511
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 1: had been motorized in the late nineteen twenties to create

512
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 1: a standard frame rate of twenty four frames per second

513
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:01,480
Speaker 1: that was necessary in order to have reliable sound playback,

514
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 1: those cameras made a lot of noise too in those

515
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: early days, and that could get picked up by the microphones.

516
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 1: So as a result, the common practice was to put

517
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:15,959
Speaker 1: the cameras in enclosed, somewhat sound proved chambers. The cameraman

518
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: camera operator, if you prefer, would be inside that chamber

519
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:23,480
Speaker 1: with the camera and they would be isolated from the

520
00:32:23,560 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: rest of the set, so that the sound wouldn't leak through.

521
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: They were jokingly referred to as ice boxes. I say

522
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 1: jokingly because it would actually get scorchingly hot inside those

523
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 1: as the cameras were running, and it limited what you

524
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 1: could do with a camera. You could pan the camera

525
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: a little bit on its tripod. That that was about it.

526
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 1: And so early talkies typically don't have very much movement

527
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: or action in them, which was a big change from

528
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: the early days of silent films because in those days

529
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: actors would make these really big dramatic movements in an

530
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 1: effort to tell a story because they could not be heard.

531
00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 1: Another thing that would change was that in the early days,

532
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 1: film crews captured audio and images on the same film

533
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: at the same time, so, in other words, the audio

534
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 1: and images were both being directly recorded to the same

535
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: strip of photographic film. This made editing really tricky because again,

536
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 1: the audio track wasn't in direct line with the images.

537
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 1: It was running a little ahead or a little behind,

538
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: so you couldn't just snip film to create a transition

539
00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: or cut out a mistake because the audio wasn't lined

540
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 1: up directly with whatever was happening in the image. And

541
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: that would eventually change when the industry began to capture

542
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 1: images and audio separately and would only combine them after

543
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: the editing process to create a master print. The audio

544
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 1: track and the images were still offset, but you could

545
00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 1: at least make edits to the film without messing up

546
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 1: the soundtrack, and you could do the same to the

547
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: audio track without messing up the film. R c A's

548
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: photophone would go up against not only the vitaphone system

549
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: from Warner Brothers, but another sound on film system called

550
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 1: movie Tone. Movie Tone came from a Western electric subsidiary

551
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 1: called Electrical Research Products Incorporated or e r p I.

552
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 1: That system was the dominant one when our c a

553
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 1: was ready to debut photophone. So again the company goes

554
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:19,840
Speaker 1: out and says, what can we do to really compete

555
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:25,200
Speaker 1: in this market? Ah, again, idea, let's make a new company.

556
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: So they go out. They purchased the Keith Albi or

557
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 1: Feum chain of theaters. That was a chain of theaters

558
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 1: that wasn't it wasn't just motion picture theaters but also

559
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: vaudeville theaters as well. So our CIO goes out and

560
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,880
Speaker 1: buys this company that owns these multiple theaters, and then

561
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: they merged that company with another company they buy called

562
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:50,400
Speaker 1: Film Booking Offices of America or FBO, and the merger

563
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:54,680
Speaker 1: of these two acquisitions becomes the Radio Keith Orpheum or

564
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 1: RKO Pictures Company. So our CIA created an entirely new

565
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 1: corporation in order to put its motion picture audio format

566
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 1: onto the market, and it worked. Photophone would eventually evolve

567
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 1: into the industry standard. Pretty audacious move and not the

568
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 1: last one from our CIA. In our next episode, we

569
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 1: will continue this story to talk about how our ce

570
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 1: A weathered the Great Depression and what it was doing

571
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: during World War Two. If you guys have suggestions for

572
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, let me know. Send me

573
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: an email. The address is tech Stuff at how stuff

574
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:34,879
Speaker 1: works dot com, or head over to our website that's

575
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:39,320
Speaker 1: tech Stuff podcast dot com. You'll see the archive of

576
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 1: older episodes. There in different ways to contact us, including

577
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: on social media. Don't forget to visit our merchandise store

578
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 1: that's over at t public dot com slash tech Stuff. Remember,

579
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:52,320
Speaker 1: every purchase you make goes to help the show, and

580
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 1: we greatly appreciate it, and I'll talk to you again

581
00:35:55,600 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 1: really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics.

582
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: Is that how stuff works dot com,