In response to a request in the introductions thread, here is what I know about the legendary RKO Telepictures trademark a new member is using as her avatar:
Back in the early 1920’s AT&T, Westinghouse, and General Electric pooled their resources to form the “Radio Corporation of America” (RCA) to manufacture and mass market radios for consumers. Up until then it had been a hobby for those technically inclined, but all three entities had radio stations. They saw the sound boxes as similar to appliances, records and cars as the “wave of the future.”
The government saw RCA under control of these firms as a monopoly and made them sell their interests, but RCA by then was a major manufacturer. It was under the leadership of David Sarnoff, a Russian-born radio pioneer who first became of note as the radio telegraph operator on duty for the Marconi company the night of the Titanic disaster. Sarnoff realized that you couldn’t sell many radios without something to listen to and formed NBC (National Broadcasting Company) to supply programming to groups of radio stations, called “networks.”
RCA also purchased the Victor talking machine company to get into phonograph and record production distribution. As the movie industry moved into the “talkie” phase of sound production RCA engineers developed “Photophone” as an option. But there was a problem – there were other system among the Vitaphone, championed by Warner Brothers and Movietone, championed by Fox. Both these movie production companies had affiliated chains of theatres. RCA needed a production company and theatre chain to be competitive.
Joseph Kennedy, farther of the Kennedy political clan, had a production company loosely allied with the Keith Orpheum chain of vaudeville an silent movie houses. These competed with the Warner Bros and Fox theatre chains (as well as the smaller United Artists group). Sarnoff in October 1928 brought them together as RKO (Radio Keith Orpheum). Shortly after Warner Brothers licensed the RCA system, followed by Disney and Republic. This meant several major studios were now using the RCA system.
RKO became one of the big five studios of Hollywood’s golden age, but did not long remain under RCA control. Within a few years AT&T’s Westrex system, which after 1938 could handle stereo tracks and was preferred by Technicolor, gained ascendancy. RCA sold RKO and it had a chain of owners, among them the fabled Howard Hughes. In the early fifties General Teleradio, a subsidiary of General Tire and Rubber which owned several radio stations and radio networks, acquired control. Teleradio kept the RKO film library for use by its TV stations and sold the production facilities to Lucy and Desi Arnez for their Desilu productions.
In an interesting postscript, the AT&T Westrex system was also spin off and its new owners eventually adopted RCA’s abandoned Photophone trade name. RCA itself was a acquired by General Electric, which now also owns Universal Studios. Disney of course owns ABC television (ABC radio has been spin off) and Fox has its own television network (plus an arrangement with #1 owner Clear Channel). Due to anti-trust litigation in the late 1040’s no movie production company today owns movie houses. AT&T was also broken up and is out of the radio and movie businesses entirely.
The third original founder of RCA, Westinghouse, acquired Columbia Broadcasting and renamed itself CBS, Inc before selling its other units; CBS is now part of a larger conglomerate called Viacom that includes Paramount Studios, Infinity Radio and Westwood One (which has rights to the NBC and Mutual radio trademarks along with CBS radio). As for General Tire, its executives got caught in a Korean bribery scandal many years ago and were forced out of broadcasting by the FCC.
Back in the early 1920’s AT&T, Westinghouse, and General Electric pooled their resources to form the “Radio Corporation of America” (RCA) to manufacture and mass market radios for consumers. Up until then it had been a hobby for those technically inclined, but all three entities had radio stations. They saw the sound boxes as similar to appliances, records and cars as the “wave of the future.”
The government saw RCA under control of these firms as a monopoly and made them sell their interests, but RCA by then was a major manufacturer. It was under the leadership of David Sarnoff, a Russian-born radio pioneer who first became of note as the radio telegraph operator on duty for the Marconi company the night of the Titanic disaster. Sarnoff realized that you couldn’t sell many radios without something to listen to and formed NBC (National Broadcasting Company) to supply programming to groups of radio stations, called “networks.”
RCA also purchased the Victor talking machine company to get into phonograph and record production distribution. As the movie industry moved into the “talkie” phase of sound production RCA engineers developed “Photophone” as an option. But there was a problem – there were other system among the Vitaphone, championed by Warner Brothers and Movietone, championed by Fox. Both these movie production companies had affiliated chains of theatres. RCA needed a production company and theatre chain to be competitive.
Joseph Kennedy, farther of the Kennedy political clan, had a production company loosely allied with the Keith Orpheum chain of vaudeville an silent movie houses. These competed with the Warner Bros and Fox theatre chains (as well as the smaller United Artists group). Sarnoff in October 1928 brought them together as RKO (Radio Keith Orpheum). Shortly after Warner Brothers licensed the RCA system, followed by Disney and Republic. This meant several major studios were now using the RCA system.
RKO became one of the big five studios of Hollywood’s golden age, but did not long remain under RCA control. Within a few years AT&T’s Westrex system, which after 1938 could handle stereo tracks and was preferred by Technicolor, gained ascendancy. RCA sold RKO and it had a chain of owners, among them the fabled Howard Hughes. In the early fifties General Teleradio, a subsidiary of General Tire and Rubber which owned several radio stations and radio networks, acquired control. Teleradio kept the RKO film library for use by its TV stations and sold the production facilities to Lucy and Desi Arnez for their Desilu productions.
In an interesting postscript, the AT&T Westrex system was also spin off and its new owners eventually adopted RCA’s abandoned Photophone trade name. RCA itself was a acquired by General Electric, which now also owns Universal Studios. Disney of course owns ABC television (ABC radio has been spin off) and Fox has its own television network (plus an arrangement with #1 owner Clear Channel). Due to anti-trust litigation in the late 1040’s no movie production company today owns movie houses. AT&T was also broken up and is out of the radio and movie businesses entirely.
The third original founder of RCA, Westinghouse, acquired Columbia Broadcasting and renamed itself CBS, Inc before selling its other units; CBS is now part of a larger conglomerate called Viacom that includes Paramount Studios, Infinity Radio and Westwood One (which has rights to the NBC and Mutual radio trademarks along with CBS radio). As for General Tire, its executives got caught in a Korean bribery scandal many years ago and were forced out of broadcasting by the FCC.
