WEBVTT - The Birth of RCA 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.840 stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.280 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.280 How Stuff Works, and I heart radio and I love 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:24.640 all things tech. And while I was preparing for c 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.400 e S, which I am getting ready to travel to, 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.760 as I'm recording this, I'm recording this the Friday before 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:36.080 I jump on a plane and head out to Las Vegas, Nevada. Well, 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:38.120 I read a lot of emails from a lot of 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.239 different companies, and they're all attempting to entice me to 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:44.800 go to a particular part of ce S to see 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.760 their booth or their presentation, or maybe even to a 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.519 hotel suite off the exhibition floor, because you know, some 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.319 companies will rent out a suite of rooms rather than 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:57.279 secure exhibition space for lots of reasons. That's neither here 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:01.240 nor there anyway. One of these companies, the ones that 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:04.080 sent me these emails, was our ci A. And the 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.400 thing that really caught my eye is that in twenty nineteen, 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:12.200 our CIA is celebrating it's one anniversary. Our c A 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:17.039 has been a really important company in technology for lots 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.400 of different reasons, not just consumer tech, and our c 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:25.119 A is responsible directly for two of the big broadcast 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.160 networks in the United States, and indirectly it's responsible for 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.680 the third. I thought I would explore the history of 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.640 this company and what it's been through during the century 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.160 of its existence. So this is the first episode where 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.319 we're going to talk about the formation of our CIA. 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.040 But of course this also means that I'm going to 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.240 be doing a lot of backtracking because while our c A, 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:53.960 which was an initialism originally for Radio Corporation of America, 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.200 it would become an established company in nineteen nineteen, the 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:01.120 history actually dates further back. So we've got to talk 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:04.840 about some other companies and some politics and some other 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.480 big issues that would lead to the formation the founding 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.240 of our c A. So let's go back to the 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:17.560 eighteen hundreds. In the late nineteenth century, invention and innovation 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.720 were rapidly changing the world. You had the Industrial Revolution, 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:24.160 and it had altered the way we do work. It 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:28.040 had impacted the price of goods. Things became cheaper because 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.480 it was easier to make a heck a lot more 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:34.520 of just about everything. People had more time on their hands, 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.920 and at the same time, you had engineers and inventors 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.000 who were experimenting with stuff like electricity and magnetism and 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:47.239 radio waves. Entrepreneurs from around the world, some of them inventors, 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:51.000 other just business not just but others of the business 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.800 minded people who saw opportunity through the invention of others, 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:59.360 began to form corporations that could exploit these discoveries for profit, 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:03.440 and they included companies like the American Telephone and Telegraph 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:06.919 Company also known as A T and T. Also General 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.000 Electric which grew out of several companies, one of which 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.880 was founded by Thomas Edison himself, and many more. The 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.240 discovery of radio waves and the technology that would allow 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:21.040 humans to produce, transmit, and receive radio waves in a 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:25.320 meaningful way is beyond the scope of these episodes. Besides, 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.120 I've talked about that a lot in earlier episodes of 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.120 Tech Stuff. You can search the archives. There tons of 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.600 episodes where I talk about radio waves and the history 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.640 of radio. But by the early nineteen hundreds, there were 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:43.880 a dozen or so radio operating stations in the United States. 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:47.560 Several of these stations were owned by foreign companies, and 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.200 almost all of them were dedicated to transmitting signals using 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:55.240 Morse code. So this wasn't about radio stations playing the 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.600 top forty or anything like that. At this stage, these 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:03.080 were communication and stations. They were meant to transmit signals 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:08.120 from one place to another, to send communications across the nation. 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.240 It was sort of analogous to the telephone infrastructure, so 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:18.760 not meant as a entertainment or news source. The telephone 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.719 companies had not yet entered into this business at this point. 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:26.520 These were all individual enterprises, some of which were getting 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.680 pretty large, and the biggest of all of them was 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:34.800 the American Marconi Company, named after Marconi, the guy who 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:38.360 gets the credit for inventing radio, that is, the transmission 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.839 technology of radio, though that is of course a matter 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.040 of great dispute in certain academic circles. Nicola Tesla would 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.400 be the other name that gets thrown around in that 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.680 and for good reason. Tesla was awarded a patent early on, 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.960 and that patent would eventually get overturned in favor of 0:04:56.000 --> 0:05:02.520 Marconi's under somewhat shady circumstan answers. Anyway, in the summer 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:08.560 of nineteen fourteen, war broke out in Europe. Somewhat optimistically, 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.240 people were calling it the War to end all wars, 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:16.120 but now we call it World War One. Thus optimism 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.599 did not win out. Now, while the United States initially 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.880 maintained a neutral status during the war, the US government 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:27.240 was already making preparations in the event that the nation 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.400 would be pulled into the conflict, and part of that 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.719 was an executive order that was signed by Woodrow Wilson 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:38.560 on August five, nineteen fourteen. That executive order authorized the 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:44.159 United States Navy Department to censor international telegraph messages that 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:47.120 were sent by radio firms, the largest of which was 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:51.960 the Marconi Company. Now, Marconi Company challenged the legality of 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:55.160 this executive order, saying this censorship, you can't do it. 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.040 Legal battles would follow, and the Navy would have ultimately 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.200 shut down on Mark Cony radio transmission station for three 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:06.400 months until the company agreed to follow regulations in January 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:10.560 nineteen fifteen. Eventually, even this was thought to be too risky, 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.760 and the United States government effectively took over the American 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:18.359 Marconi Company. And the American Marconi Company was technically it 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:20.800 was a subsidiary. It was a subsidiary of a company 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:25.440 that had its headquarters in England. So the U. S 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:30.480 Government says, we want to maintain neutrality. We cannot have 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.960 stations that are located in the United States sending messages 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.279 on behalf of one or another of the parties that 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.320 are at war in Europe, because that would seem to 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.280 suggest that we are on a particular side and we 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.360 want to stay out of this. So the US says, 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:49.560 in order to do this, we're going to take over 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:54.800 your assets. They're not yours anymore. There ares Boo who 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.160 Now at the end of the war, the United States 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.680 still had those assets of the American Marconi Company, and 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.280 the government needed a way to offload them. They didn't 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.600 want to keep them. They also wanted to ensure that 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:12.240 those assets would remain under American control. They didn't want 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:19.520 foreign nations to have access to critical communications technologies with 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.240 you on US soil. So the government approached a group 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:27.160 of companies that included General Electric, which would become the 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:31.840 dominant partner in this group, Westinghouse, A T and T, 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.360 Western Electric, and the United Fruit Company. And if you're 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.800 like me, your reaction to that last partner was probably 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:43.280 hang on, did he say United Fruit Company? And indeed 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:48.280 I did. That company has a complex and controversial history. 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.880 It was involved in various levels of government in many 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.520 regions across the world, and particularly in Central and South 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:01.840 America and the Caribbean, and and it was operating as 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:05.080 an effective monopoly in a lot of places. Has a 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:10.080 lot of uh, a lot of tie INDs with colonization, 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.160 so there are a lot of negative things that kind 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.840 of tie into this company's history. But in nineteen thirteen, 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.200 the United Fruit Company had established the Tropical Radio and 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:23.640 Telegraph Company, which is kind of what brought it up 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:27.840 as a potential partner for this enterprise. So anyway, these 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.360 partners all got together and they formed the Radio Corporation 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:35.040 of America or r c A in nineteen nine. It 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:39.800 was essentially a government sanctioned monopoly in the radio industry 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:43.439 in the United States. The companies all pooled their patents 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.520 together in a series of cross licensing agreements to avoid 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.680 any conflicts of having one company attempt to leverage its 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:54.320 essential patents over the other partners in the operation of 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:56.679 r C as business. So essentially they were all saying, 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.199 here are all the patented technologies that we have our 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:04.640 disposal that relate to radio transmission technologies. We want to 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.439 make sure that we're not creating impediments for our c 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.000 A to do business. To head up this company, the 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:17.360 partners chose a guy named David Sarnoff. Sarnov himself had 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.400 a really interesting history. He was born in Russia in 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:24.040 eighteen ninety one, but his family immigrated to America in 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.760 nineteen hundred. He had started working as a messenger boy 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.600 for a telegraph company in nineteen o six, and he 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:34.000 became a telegraph operator for the American Marconi Company a 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.040 couple of years later. Legend has it that he picked 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.440 up the distress calls from the Titanic in nineteen twelve 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.040 while working in the radio station that was owned by 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.800 John Wannamaker, but the truth appears to be that Sarnov 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:50.920 had instead picked up signals of rescue ships that were 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.840 responding to the Titanics distress call, and then he relayed 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:58.840 that information to the local press in New York. He 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.320 was promoted to chief inspector of American Marconi a few 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.800 years later, and he wrote a memo in nineteen sixteen 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:09.560 in which he proposed building radios for home consumers and 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.680 he called it a radio music box. So this is 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.520 before the days of commercial radio, but he had thought 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:22.559 this technology has the potential to bring culture, entertainment, news, 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:28.000 all sorts of stuff into the American home through transmission, 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.200 if we want to pursue that. This was in the 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.080 days when only amateur radio enthusiasts had any access to 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:39.720 radio equipment outside of the professional industry. Otherwise the only 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.480 places you would find it are in these radio stations 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:47.280 where they were acting almost like telegraph operators. So he 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:50.079 would then become the commercial manager for our c A 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.400 and eventually become the general manager, and then further down 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:56.600 the line the CEO. Sarnov was a really ambitious man. 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.600 He was also really good at self promotion and who 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:03.959 is also really good at sensing the potential impact of 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:08.640 radio broadcast technology as well as related technologies like television broadcasts, 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:12.199 which I'll talk more about in the next episode. Well, 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.720 in the early days of our CIA's history, it mainly 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.280 did two things. It operated the various radio stations which 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:23.560 were still almost exclusively transmitting messages in morse code, and 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.160 it sold radio equipment manufactured by the various companies that 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.840 had formed our CI. A. While this was intended to 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:35.120 build out a communications infrastructure similar to the telephone system, 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:38.319 something else was happening at the same time that changed 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:40.960 the course of the industry, and that something was the 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.959 rise of amateur radio operators. The United States had banned 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.240 amateur radio during World War One, saying that they needed 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.760 to have those radio waves free for communications, but the 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:56.600 the government lifted that ban on October first, and more 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:00.080 people were interested in radio communication and setting up our 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:03.160 own radio receivers at home. The rise in amateur radio 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:06.560 encouraged Sarnoff and gave credence to that idea he had 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:11.000 proposed a few years earlier about his radio music box. Well. 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:13.959 During World War One, there were some hints at what 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.960 would become the standard for commercial radio in use by 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:22.040 the military. In a publication called The Wireless Age featured 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.960 a short range system that could broadcast news and music 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.960 to hospitals to entertain convalescing soldiers. For example, on the 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.800 technology front, companies were exploring ways to make radio receivers 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.760 more compact and less expensive. To make radio signals loud 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.600 enough for commercial radio to be practical, those radios would 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:44.480 have to have amplification, and so companies began investing in 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:49.440 research and development to improve vacuum to manufacturing processes to 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:53.000 make radio as a practical consumer item. Before the transistor, 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:58.000 the vacuum tube was your primary way of taking in 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.440 an incoming week signal and boosting it to a stronger 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.719 outgoing signal and amplifier. In other words, I have more 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.040 to say about the early days of our CIA, but 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.240 first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.560 And so is our CI A oversaw radio stations transmitting 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:26.200 communications across vast distances, and various companies began to work 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.960 toward a goal of building consumer radios. The race was 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:34.160 on for the first true commercial radio station, and it 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:39.960 wouldn't be our CIA to launch it. Instead, Westinghouse applied 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.840 for a license to operate such a transmission station. They 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:48.280 applied to the US government and received permission in nineteen twenty. 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.680 Westinghouse was in the business of manufacturing radios, but demand 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.840 for radios was lagging behind, and so leaders at the 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:59.160 company reasoned that one way to increase demand would be 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.920 to create programming. Now today that seems pretty clear that 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.760 if you want to sell a technology to someone, a 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.320 technology that allows people to access content, you need to 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.640 create content for people to access. Otherwise they just have 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:17.480 a useless tool. But this was a big step in 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:20.560 nineteen twenty. Radio had mainly been used as point to 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:24.160 point communication at that At that stage, it's just that 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.880 the points were undefined because there were no wires, So 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:29.280 you know, you had a receiver that could pick up 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:31.920 a signal that would be a point. So this would 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.520 open up the possible uses for radio and allow them 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:38.600 to become entertainment devices. It was precisely the stuff Sarnoff 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.280 had been saying in his memo back in nineteen sixteen. 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:46.000 Westinghouse approached a ham radio operator named Dr Frank Conrad, 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.440 who had already been playing records over the radio for 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.400 some of his other amateur radio operator friends, and on 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:58.080 November two, nineteen twenty, Westinghouse launched k d k A 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.000 out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Yeah, it was the first commercial 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.520 radio station. Saranov had been working on his own approach, 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:09.200 receiving the blessing of the companies that founded our ci 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:11.720 A to do so. They gave him some funds so 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.400 that he could pursue this, and on July two, nine 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:19.200 Sarnof showed off the market potential for radio by broadcasting 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:24.400 a boxing match between Jack Dempsey and George Carpentier. Dempsey 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:29.160 was a celebrated US champion. Carpentier was a boxing hero 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.080 in France and he had a reputation for knocking out 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:36.200 British champions, so this was a super hyped event back 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:40.160 in n Dempsey would win by knockout in the fourth 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:44.320 round and the broadcast was a sensational hit. Our CIA 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.440 began to sell more radio receivers to customers, and radio 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.960 stations began popping up all over the United States. The 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:55.840 first radio commercial on record happened in August nineteen twenty two, 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.960 and a New York real estate developer aired an ad 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:02.600 in New York City. Two years later, in nineteen there 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.760 were more than six hundred commercial radio stations in the 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:09.680 United States. These were mostly independent stations, and that's when 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:13.880 r c A made a really big move in the industry. 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.200 Partnering with Westinghouse and A T and T, r ci 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:21.040 A formed a new company called the National Broadcasting Company, 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:26.440 or INBC, which had its first broadcast on November nineteen 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:31.280 twenty six. The concept was that NBC would produce material 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.320 for broadcast, which would then be sent out over different 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:38.000 radio stations in different regions, with the stations being part 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.440 of the overall network. Which was a new idea at 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:43.640 the time. You know, creates your your content in a 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.840 central location and then distribute it using these various radio stations. 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:53.960 That was revolutionary. NBC had two semi independent networks under 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:57.280 its governance shortly after it was formed, so it split 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.360 off its its operations into two networks. One was called 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.480 the Blue Network and one was called the Red Network, 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.600 So you had NBC Blue and NBC Red. The center 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:10.560 of the Blue Network was a radio station called w 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.080 jay Z, which had been founded by Westinghouse in nineteen 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.520 twenty one. The center for the Red Network was a 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.879 station called w e a F, which was founded by A. 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:24.199 T and T in nineteen twenty three. While all this 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:27.760 was going on, Sarnov was already looking at the potential 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.680 future of television. In nineteen twenty four, r C A 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:36.560 transmitted the first transatlantic radio photo from New York to London. 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.439 This was before the invention of electronic television's, when the 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:44.199 early prototype TVs were largely mechanical in nature, and I 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:46.520 talked about that in the History of Television episodes on 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:50.640 Tech Stuff. So there was a limited market for mechanical television's. 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:54.359 They really didn't make a lot of progress in the 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.200 consumer market. They were very expensive, they were very complicated, 0:17:57.240 --> 0:18:01.720 and they had limited success full results, let's say. But 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.080 the real boon would come when inventors began to create 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:09.800 electronic televisions, and that wouldn't begin until the late nineteen twenties. 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:13.639 And when we talk about commercial TVs, you're talking about 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.760 two more decades on top of that. Now, this is 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:22.600 not entirely a happy story. In nineteen twenty nine, Sarnoff 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:27.000 met with an engineer at Westinghouse named Vladimir Zwarakin. And 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:30.080 if you've listened to my episodes about the origins of television, 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.200 you know Zarakin is one of two inventors who typically 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:36.760 get the title of inventor of television. The other would 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:42.359 be Philo Farnsworth. Saranoff convinced Westinghouse to fund Zarakin's work, 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:45.440 and in nineteen thirty r c A would take over 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.320 the research as Warakin would actually go over to our 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.879 CIA as well and become an r c A employee. Sarnoff, 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.720 seeing the power of patents, wanted to run out of 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.199 business any person or a company he felt was horning 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:03.080 in on his action, and so in ninety two our 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:06.879 CI A would file a patent suit against Philo Farnsworth. 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:12.360 The case would last seven years. Ultimately Farnsworth would win 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.280 that case and our c would have to pay fines 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.200 and royalties to him. But by that time his health 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.400 was in shambles. He had had a nervous breakdown from 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.320 all the stress. And I'm going to get back to 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:29.760 Starnoff's lutitious ways throughout these episodes, but bouncing back to 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.320 for a moment. So this is before all of the 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:37.199 legality issues with Farnsworth, I need to talk about another 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:39.800 company that would play a very important part in our 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.200 Cier's early history. Now, if you've heard my episodes about 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.520 the history of turntables, you'll remember the early days of 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.320 the phonograph and the graphophone and the gramophone. I covered 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:53.119 a little bit of the turbulent patent battles and the 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:55.879 cutthroat business strategies that were all part of the early 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:58.480 days of home audio, and I'll have to do a 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:00.800 more in depth series in the few sure to really 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:04.359 focus on it, because it gets nasty, y'all. But the 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:08.840 Victor Talking Machine Company was born directly out of all 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:13.160 that strife. Now, since this is not an episode about Victor, 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.399 I'm just going to give you the super short version, which, 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.040 let's face it, I'm Jonathan Strickland of tech Stuff. Super 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.840 short for me is a lecture for anybody else, but 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:27.320 let's go with it. The Berliner Gramophone Company of Philadelphia, 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:32.240 founded by Emil Berliner, was the company that really was 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.879 the focus of this this strife. Berlinard gets the credit 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.880 for inventing the first flat disc record. Before his invention, 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:44.399 engineers would press recordings onto cylinders. So you had these 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.119 cylinders that you would put on a spool essentially that 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:49.359 would then rotate and you could play it back on 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:53.600 various devices. The discs were much easier to store, right, 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:56.520 you didn't have as much space and as much bulk 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.760 as a cylinder did. They were easier to ship, and 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:03.600 once the manufacturing process was refined, they lasted a lot 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:06.400 longer than cylinders did as well. It took a while 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.840 to get the right materials, but once they did, those 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:14.199 discs just seemed more practical. Berliner made a deal with 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:19.560 an enterprising manufacturer and machinist named Eldredge R. Johnson. Johnson 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.600 developed a wind up spring motor for Berliner's gramophones. Now 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.879 previously those gramophones had relied on hand cranks, so you 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:31.560 would literally turn a crank which would then turn the 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:35.080 gears inside the device and turn the platter so that 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.360 you could listen to the disc being played back on 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.720 the gramophone. Johnson did good work. He created a spring 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:46.359 motor that worked reliably, but Berliner would enter into a 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:50.239 sales agreement with a man named frank Cman, and this 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:55.359 would lead to massive trouble. Frankie wanted more money for 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:59.399 himself and eventually began to sell knockoffs of Berliner's works 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:04.320 while simultaneously bringing legal action, much of its spurious in nature, 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:09.120 against both Berliner and Johnson. The process eventually prevented Berliner 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:13.560 from selling gramophones in the United States and nearly bankrupted 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:17.240 both Berliner and Johnson in the process. And this was 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:19.520 infuriating to them. I mean, they were the ones who 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:22.960 had created this technology, and now this salesman Day had 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:27.040 worked with was claiming that they were the ones infringing 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:30.840 on his patents, his ideas, and his trade secrets. But 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:34.920 in nineteen o one, Johnson, Berliner, and some other entrepreneurs 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:38.880 got together and founded a new consolidated company that took 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:43.760 Berliner's facilities and Johnson's manufacturing plants as the basis for 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:47.840 the new organization. And this was the Victor Talking Machine Company, 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:51.840 which incorporated on October third, nineteen o one. So the 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.880 Victor Talking Machine Company was older than the Radio Corporation 0:22:55.880 --> 0:23:00.600 of America that would not be born until nine But 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:03.399 Saranov looked at the Victor Talking Machine Company and thought, 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:06.600 this is a way I could sell more radios. I 0:23:06.640 --> 0:23:13.000 could take this company and take their product, the the 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.280 gramophones essentially, although they didn't call it that in the 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:18.840 United States, they couldn't. They started calling it things like 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:22.800 the Victrola that was one that the Victor Company made. 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:25.879 I can take that. I can incorporate a radio into 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:31.000 the design of those machines, sell it as a new product, 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:34.639 and sell more radios this way. Also, just as a 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:37.040 quick aside, the Victor trademark is one of the more 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:40.680 famous ones in business history. It shows a dog, specifically 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:44.000 a fox terrier, sitting in front of a gramophone horn 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:47.320 and the dog's head is tilted slightly. It's from a 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:51.520 painting titled His Master's Voice, and the artist was Francis 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:56.400 Borrowed and it was made in The dog was named 0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:00.159 Nipper and once belonged to Burrowed's nephew Mark mark Ark 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:04.040 had tragically passed away. And then Francis saw a Nipper 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:06.560 one day sitting near a gramophone with his head cocked, 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:09.480 and that led Francis to wonder what the dog's reaction 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:12.439 would be if they had happened to be playing a 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:16.879 recording of his old master Mark speaking. That was the 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:19.560 inspiration for the painting. He tried selling the painting as 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:22.359 a magazine illustration to no avail, and ultimately sold it 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:25.640 to the Gramophone Company for the princely sum of one 0:24:25.680 --> 0:24:30.960 hundred pounds. Sterling Johnson got permission from the Gramophone Company 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:34.399 to use it for his products under the Victor Company, 0:24:34.440 --> 0:24:37.040 and berlinerd had trademarked the design and at some point 0:24:37.040 --> 0:24:40.360 transferred that trademark over to the Victor Company. The whole 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:42.440 story is super fascinating, and I'm sure I'll devote a 0:24:42.480 --> 0:24:46.040 future episode to the Victor Talking Machine Company, but for now, 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:50.600 let's remember that it started in nineteen one, and even 0:24:50.600 --> 0:24:52.479 though it grew out of an older company and then 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:57.320 would eventually get incorporated into our c A. I'll explain 0:24:57.359 --> 0:24:59.399 more in just a moment, but first let's take another 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:09.960 quick break to thank our sponsor. The acquisition of the 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:12.760 Victor Talking Machine Company meant that our C A was 0:25:12.800 --> 0:25:16.240 now getting into the consumer electronics business. Keep in mind, 0:25:16.280 --> 0:25:19.480 up until nine nine, r c A was primarily in 0:25:19.520 --> 0:25:23.080 the business of operating radio broadcast stations and selling what 0:25:23.160 --> 0:25:27.240