NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY INC. (NBC)

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) debuted as a radio broadcast network on November 15, 1926, with a four-and-a-half hour music and comedy presentation. The show was broadcast from New York City over a network of 25 stations, and nearly half of the country's five million radio homes tuned in. NBC was jointly owned by RCA, General Electric, and Westinghouse until 1932, when RCA bought out the other two owners.

It is hard to overestimate the importance of the first coast-to-coast radio broadcasts. The very first one took place on New Year's Day, 1927, when NBC broadcast the Rose Bowl football game. Other early highlights of NBC Radio included the first special events broadcast, when aviator Charles Lindbergh arrived in Washington, DC, on June 11, 1927; the radio coverage of national political conventions in 1928; the presidential inaugurations in 1929 and 1933; and President Franklin Roosevelt's (1933–1945) first soothing "Fireside Chat" to a worried nation, on a cold night in 1933.

Radio also unified the national culture and advanced the assimilation process of millions of immigrants who up to that point had existed within the bounds of their own national cultures. For the first time in the nation's history millions of people hundreds of miles apart had the simultaneous experience of listening to the new sounds of swing music, as "dance shows" brought this powerful music genre to the radio-listening public. Benny Goodman, Paul Whiteman, Tommy Dorsey, and, way down in Texas, Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys all became the pulse of the nation, which, thanks to radio, was now beating as one.

From the beginning, the demand among local radio stations for NBC's network service was high and the company split its programming into two separate networks, called the "red" and the "blue." In 1941 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that no organization could own more than one network, and NBC sold the blue network, which became the American Broadcasting Company (ABC).

In 1939 NBC demonstrated television, a new invention, at the Chicago World's Fair, and began regular television programming from New York City. Television was made possible by the invention of the cathode ray tube in 1906. NBC founder David Sarnoff spearheaded RCA's research into "the art of distant seeing" through the 1920s and 1930s. In 1941 NBC obtained a commercial television license from the FCC for WNBT-TV, which became the world's first commercial television station.

World War II (1939–1945) slowed the growth of television, and programming was limited to a few hours a day during the war. NBC Radio broadcast onthe-scene reports from military bases and battle zones, and on D-Day, June 6, 1944, it provided continuous news coverage of the European invasion.

Television began to expand rapidly after the war: the number of homes with television sets grew from 14,000 in 1947 to nearly a million in less than two years. Television networks began to expand news coverage. New weekly variety and drama programs were created, and popular radio shows were adapted for television. Meet the Press, beginning on radio in 1945, switched to television in 1947 and became the longest running show on television.

NBC started its television network with four stations and by 1951 it had installed regular coast-to-coast network service. Two programming mainstays were introduced in the 1950s: Today (1952), an early-morning news and talk show, and The Tonight Show with Steve Allen (1954). In 1953 NBC introduced color television, presenting the first coast-to-coast color transmission. Later that year the FCC approved an RCA-backed standard for color compatibility, making it possible for people with black-and-white sets to receive network programs even if they were broadcast in color.

When NBC organized and broadcast the first presidential debates in 1960 between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, the full impact of television on politics was felt. The way Kennedy looked on television was thought to have strongly influenced the outcome of the debates and the subsequent election. When Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, NBC provided an unprecedented 71 hours of coverage in which the whole nation once again participated in a national experience together and gave full vent to their grief. In 1964 NBC presented the first made-for-television movie, thus establishing a new genre of television program. During the 1960s NBC expanded its programming, launching popular shows such as I Spy, which featured Bill Cosby as the first African American lead in a television series, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, among others.

During the 1970s NBC's most popular programming included blockbuster movies, family series such as Little House on the Prairie, the comedy series Saturday Night Live, and several popular miniseries.

NBC Television suffered a drop in ratings during the early 1980s. By replacing low-rated programming it managed to climb back to the number one spot in 1985. Popular shows introduced by programming chief Brandon Tartikoff included Cheers, Hill Street Blues, and St. Elsewhere. Miami Vice (1985) and The Late Show with David Letterman (1982) also helped lift NBC's ratings.

In 1986 General Electric Co. (GE) acquired RCA for $6.4 billion and became NBC's parent company. Robert C. Wright was named to succeed Grant Tinker as NBC's president and chief executive officer (CEO). In 1988 NBC decided to leave their radio business, which had been struggling, and the company sold seven of its eight radio stations. In 1991 Tartikoff left NBC to head Paramount Pictures.

From NBC's early days as a radio broadcast network, sports programming had been an important component of its broadcasts. NBC dominated coverage of the Olympics in 1988 with its broadcast from Seoul, South Korea. It acquired the rights to the 1992 and 1996 summer Olympics and every summer and winter venue (except Nagano 1998) through 2008.

With cable television making more of an impact on television viewing habits, NBC began aggressively marketing the Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), to cable systems in 1988. CNBC began with a base of 10 to 13 million subscribers. It was originally conceived as a 24-hour all-business news channel, but consumer news was added to the mix before the channel launched in April 1989.

CNBC competed directly with Turner Broadcasting System's Financial News Network (FNN). In 1991 NBC acquired the bankrupt FNN for $154 million, increasing CNBC's subscriber base to 40 million households. Political consultant Roger Ailes was named president of CNBC in 1993. Under his direction CNBC underwent a makeover with better graphics and interviews during the day and a variety of talk shows during prime time in the evening. New talk show hosts added in 1993 and 1994 included Charles Grodin, Tim Russert, and Geraldo Rivera.

By 1997 CNBC had become a cash cow for NBC, generating about $120 million in revenues, a 33 percent increase over 1996. CNBC reached about 64 million households, or 90 percent of all cable subscribers. In 1998 CNBC's Wall Street coverage enabled CNBC to surpass CNN's viewership among 25–to 54–year–olds for the first time, even though CNBC reached 12 percent fewer households than CNN.

In 1996 NBC-TV and Microsoft joined forces to create MSNBC, an all-news cable channel designed to compete with CNN. When it debuted in July 1996, MSNBC enjoyed immediate distribution into nearly 20 million homes, with a goal of 35 million homes by 2000. It was distributed in Europe on NBC's Super Channel and CNBC, as well as in Latin America and Asia. As part of the joint venture, MSNBC Online would be launched via the Microsoft Network.

During nearly every season of the 1990s, including three consecutive seasons starting in 1995-96, the NBC television network was most-watched network in the United States. Comedy shows such as Seinfeld, Frasier, and 3rd Rock from the Sun were complemented by popular drama and prime-time news programs. From 1993 through 1998 NBC reported double–digit gains in earnings annually, achieving $5.2 billion in revenue and pretax operating profits of about __BODY__.15 billion in 1997.

NBC had also become stronger during the 1990s through strategic acquisitions and alliances. It owned 12 television stations reaching 26 percent of U.S. households. In 1993 it became an international broadcaster by purchasing a minority interest in Superchannel, a London-based pan-European satellite television service. In 1997 CNBC and Dow Jones entered into an alliance that was finalized in 1998 to share news–gathering and programming. In 1998 the company sold its one-third interest in the money-losing Court TV cable network to partners Time Warner and Liberty Media.

Throughout the decade other companies sought to purchase NBC from GE, but GE chairman John F. (Jack) Welch, Jr., turned them all down. Paramount offered $4.5 billion for NBC in 1992, and then Walt Disney Co. made a bid of $6 billion in 1994. Even media mogul Ted Turner attempted to negotiate an offer. After Seinfeld ended its nine-year run in May 1998 and NBC lost the network auction to televise National Football League games, reports began to surface that NBC was again up for sale. Possible buyers included Viacom, headed by Sumner Redstone, and USA Networks Inc., headed by Barry Diller.

In spite of such setbacks NBC was in a strong position at the end of the 1990s. It was the number one broadcast network. CNBC was a leader in business television, and the fledgling MSNBC was on track to break even by 2001. At the end of 1997 NBC president Robert Wright estimated NBC was worth about $17 billion overall, with its cable assets worth about four billion dollars and NBC-owned television stations worth about $7.5 billion. Following setbacks in 1998 outside analysts predicted NBC's earnings growth would flatten for the near-term future.

NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY INC. (NBC)

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