November 29, 1929…The NBC Chimes Sound For The First Time
November 29, 1929…The NBC Chimes Sound For The First Time
In July of 1921, RCA bought WJZ from Westinghouse, and five years later, in July of 1926, they bought WEAF from AT&T. The National Broadcasting Company was incorporated by RCA on September 8, 1926, and two months later, on November 15, the NBC Radio Network debuted.
The demand for a network service among local stations was mounting so rapidly, that less than two months after its first national broadcast, NBC split its programming into two separate networks…the Red (WEAF) and the Blue (WJZ) networks, to give listeners a choice of different program formats. That happened on January 1, 1927.
In those early days, at the end of a programs, the NBC announcer would read the call letters of all the NBC stations carrying the program. As the network added more stations this became impractical and would cause some confusion among the affiliates as to the conclusion of network programming and when the station break should occur on the hour and half-hour.
Some sort of coordinating signal was needed to signal the affiliates for these breaks and allow each affiliate to identify. Three men at NBC were given the task of finding a solution to the problem and coming up with such a coordinating signal. These men were; Oscar (O.B.) Hanson, from NBC engineering, Earnest LaPrada, an NBC orchestra leader, and Phillips Carlin, an NBC announcer.
During the years 1927 and 1928 these men experimented with a seven note sequence of chimes, G-C-G-E-G-C-E, which proved too complicated for the announcers to consistently strike in the correct order. Sometime later they came up with the three note G-E-C combination.
These three notes were first broadcast on NBC November 29, 1929 and were struck at 59 minutes 30 seconds, and 29 minutes 30 seconds past the hour. Now, the NBC audio logo is the most famous commercial sound in the world. -Bobby Ellerbee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnWfNZc0EtY
Degan “Studio” Chimes. Recorded through a RCA 4AA condenser microphone of the same vintage, circa 1931. The chimes were brought up to their original quality …
There was a story that NBC aired a General Electric Corporation commercial during one of their early programs that featured the “G-E-C” chimes ( the same conglomerate that later owned the network ). The chimes became so identified with NBC that they kept it as their own radio signature. Not sure if that’s true…but it makes for a good story!
I remember when the chimes came back. Dick Clark featured them in his short lived late 70s NBC live series.
During WWII, a “fourth chime” was often used to inform stations in the network that a news bulletin would follow shortly. The chimes would be G-E-C-(pause)-C.
http://www.kempa.com/the-fourth-chime/
G…E…C the chimes…
For anybody who wants to hear an early use of chimes on a complete NBC program, here’s my transfer of the Lucky Strike Hour from January 31, 1933. Notice there are chimes at the half-way point of this hour program (actually around the 26:20 mark), but not at the end of the program! It is possible that the recording was ended before the final chimes were struck: https://soundcloud.com/sammyjones-1/lucky-strike-hour-jan-31-1933-edit-eq-declick
Thanks for another fascinating post … you have become one of my favorite Facebook things!
I still think of this as the best riff on the chimes …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb1RrsIIITE
The late Tommy Newsom (who played in the Tonight Show band and led the band when Doc Severinsen was off or sitting in for Ed Mc Mahon with Johnny Carson ) wrote and recorded a wonderful big band jazz composition based on the three notes of the NBC chime.
I had also heard the General Electric Company story and I’m surprised to hear it was a myth. To all the people I’ve lied to over the years, My apologies! This is like HAL the 2001 computer being a one letter shift from IBM. It turns out that one wasn’t true either for those of you that believed me about that years ago.
Chimes were also struck on the quarter hour as long as a program wasn’t interrupted. The signal was actually a cue to AT&T engineers that the program had ended and they could re-route the network (if necessary).
Early NBC chimes were often C-A-F, which are the same intervals as G-E-C, but in a different key.