Did RCA Have To Be Sold?

December 11, 1985…GE Buys RCA, A Dark Day For America Begins

Why this headline on the sale of RCA to GE?

Because on the grander scale, this was the first big corporate media take over…the kind that, until Ronald Reagan became president, would have not been allowed under anti trust laws. Since then, media consolidation has run rampant. By the way, it bears remembering that Reagan was GE’s spokesman for eight years…that’s where he cut his political teeth.

Ironically, RCA was founded in 1919 as a joint venture of General Electric and Westinghouse; NBC itself was born in 1926 as a joint venture of RCA, GE and Westinghouse. Even more ironic…trust busters forced the giants to divest RCA in 1931.

Ironies don’t stop there though. With all the bellowing about the liberal media, here are a few things you may not know that happened when GE’s Bob Wright took over as head of NBC. After firing 400 NBC employees at all levels and cutting the budget from $300 million to $250 million a year, one of the first things he did at NBC was set up a political action committee. Employees were asked to donate money to the fund so NBC could buy seats for republicans in congress.

That went over like a lead balloon and was quickly shelved, but “Neutron Jack” Welch, the head of GE, didn’t stop there. Welsh pushed hard to get the cable channel CNBC on the air so that he could give his favorite political commentator a nightly show…that was ‘The McLaughlin Group’.

In the next week or so, I’m going to post an editorial on the state of news and media in the US. It’s from a research paper I wrote last month in one of my college courses.

Below, is a seven page article from The New York Times written two years after the take over. It gives a very detailed look at how it all happened. The good news is that GE is gone and since they left, there is a definitely a spring in NBC’s step at all levels, especially in moral. -Bobby Ellerbee

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/20/magazine/did-rca-have-to-be-sold.html

Did RCA Have To Be Sold?

LEAD: THORNTON F. BRADSHAW WAS, TO AN EXTRA-ordinary degree, the epitome of a business statesman.

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18 Comments

  1. Thomas Coleman December 14, 2014

    Correct in all respects, tho things are looking up at the Peacock net after the disastrous attempt at the five night a week Jay Leno prime time strip, I shudder at a Comcast/Time Warner/NBC/Universal Mega Combo. Looking forward to your editorial post on the current state.

  2. Patrick Clancey December 11, 2014

    No one has mentioned the rise of “Sony Broadcast” which seemed to wipe RCA out of the terminal gear business. Companies used to buy “turnkey” television stations from RCA. They had a great finance programs to boot. Then along came Sony and it changed all that.

  3. Mark Gulbrandsen December 11, 2014

    And it went just about like this! http://youtu.be/sOEBgSBfko0

  4. David Breneman December 11, 2014

    The real beginning of the end of RCA was when Sarnoff’s son took over. Apparently business smarts aren’t genetic. The company is gone, but his “New Look” logo lives on.

  5. Chris Clementson December 11, 2014

    Let’s not forget that the divestiture of NBC’s blue network in an anti-trust action was how ABC came into existence.

  6. John Harrison December 11, 2014

    This was the death of the Liberal Media in America. And Felix Rohatyn had nothing to do with bringing Bradshaw and Welsh together. The three of them belonged to the same country club in Fairfield and often played cards together on Sunday for 25 years.

  7. Roberta Ecks December 11, 2014

    The death of a giant. 🙁

  8. Neil Gjere December 11, 2014

    I identify Ol’ Neutron as the beginning of the era where CEO’s were paid large sums of money to create steaming piles of $hit from the carcasses of once great companies. And then, move onto the next…

  9. Mike Hemeon December 11, 2014

    NBC went through a strike in 1987 and had all of the office staff running operations. When GE walked through the building they asked who was doing there jobs? The strike changed things.

  10. Wally Roper December 11, 2014

    It is a shame that RCA was decimated, their products have stood the tests of time…

  11. Steve Pomerantz December 11, 2014

    But we’re not bitter. 🙂

  12. Steve Pomerantz December 11, 2014

    So many ugly memories flooding back. Who else remembers that stupid quote by Neutron Jack when NBC’s ratings were up…
    “A bigger piece of a smaller pie”?
    Makes me want to puke.

  13. Steve Menke December 11, 2014

    … and now RCA mostly exists as a logo — even its music library is now in Sony’s portfolio.

  14. J.J. X Jackson December 11, 2014

    I worked at WRC-4 at the time, after the NABET strike of 87, the beginning of the per-diem daily hire employee.

  15. Steve Pomerantz December 11, 2014

    I read that book right after it was published. I need to go back and read it again.

  16. Mike Chapman December 11, 2014

    That and Letterman trying to deliver a fruit basket to his “new bosses” at the GE headquarters and getting thrown out! I still laugh when I watch it.

  17. Mike Chapman December 11, 2014

    Ken Auletta’s wonderful book “Three Blind Mice” documents the turmoil at the networks in the wake of their corporate takeovers. I worked at NBC News at the time, and I remember how morale – and our product – tanked during those first couple of years under Newtron Jack. GE just didn’t get it.

  18. Steve Pomerantz December 11, 2014

    Don’t forget to mention David Letterman and the “GE handshake”. One of the few light moments during a dark time at the peacock.