Broadcasting Company of America

Last updated May 08, 2023

The Broadcasting Company of America (BCA) was a short-lived subsidiary of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T). It was formed in May 1926 in order to consolidate AT&T's radio station and network operations into a single organization. However, just two months later AT&T announced that the subsidiary was being sold to the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). This sale took place on November 1, 1926, and RCA reorganized the BCA assets to form the core of National Broadcasting Company's (NBC) network operations, including its "Red Network".

Early AT&T radio development

AT&T had an early interest in radiotelephone development, although initially only as a method for establishing telephone links to locations where it was not possible to string wire lines. Lee de Forest's development of vacuum-tube amplification would prove invaluable for progress in a number of areas. In July 1913 the company spent $50,000 to purchase from the inventor the patent rights for telephone wire amplification, and in 1915 used this innovation to make the first transcontinental telephone calls. In October 1914, the company further purchased the commercial patent rights for radio signaling for $90,000, and in October 1915 conducted test radio transmissions from the Navy's station in Arlington, Virginia, NAA, that were heard as far away as Paris, France^[1] and Hawaii.^[2]

AT&T's main competitor in the radio field would be the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), which was formed in 1919 as a subsidiary of the General Electric (GE). Because no single company held sufficient patents rights to operate radio systems without infringing on other company's patents, a series of cross-licensing agreements were concluded between a series of companies holding key patents, and on July 1, 1920, AT&T signed a comprehensive agreement with GE. These agreements in effect assigned dominance in specified areas of the radio industry to individual participating companies, which eventually would meet with anti-trust challenges. In addition, conflicting interpretations of some of the pact's clauses by the signatories would lead to numerous disputes, especially between AT&T and the other participants, known collectively as "the radio group".

Network operations and the "WEAF chain"

Organized radio broadcasting was introduced in late 1920 and 1921, and by the end of 1922 there were more than 500 stations throughout the United States.^[3] AT&T soon recognized that it had the technical expertise and patent rights needed to play an important, and possibly dominant, role in the industry.^[4] As early as December 1921, a memo prepared by two AT&T engineers proposed that the company construct a nationwide radio network, using the company's longlines to connect together individual stations. They also noted that "this service would enable the national and local advertisers, industrial institutions of all kinds, and even individuals if they desire, to send forth information and advertising matter audibly to thousands".^[5] AT&T moved quickly to start implementation of its bold plan, and on February 11, 1922, formally announced its intention to develop a "national chain of radio transmitting stations".^[6]

A key component of the plan was the construction by AT&T of a well equipped New York City station, WEAF, that was the originating point for the new network, which became known as the "WEAF chain". The first network program was transmitted on January 4, 1923, linking just one additional station, WNAC in Boston, Massachusetts, to WEAF.^[7] A more ambitious three-month link began operation on July 1, 1923, when Colonel Edward H. R. Green arranged for AT&T to provide WEAF's programming for rebroadcast by his station, WMAF in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts.^[8] The summer of 1923 also saw the opening of WCAP in Washington, D.C., licensed to the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, an AT&T subsidiary. The resulting New York-to-Washington link was extensively used to gain engineering knowledge in using telephone lines for radio network connections.

Initially WEAF had few advertisers, so most of its schedule consisted of unsponsored "sustaining" programs which network stations had to pay for, although they were not charged for sponsored programs. An important early sponsored program was The Eveready Hour , which debuted over WEAF in December 1923, and began to be carried over a rapidly growing number of stations in early 1924.^[9] The first transcontinental link was made in early 1924, and that fall a coast-to-coast network of 23 stations broadcast a speech by President Coolidge. By the end of 1925 there were 26 affiliates in the standard WEAF chain network, extending westward to Kansas City, Missouri.^[7]

Reacting to AT&T's actions, RCA quickly began efforts to establish its own network, originating from its New York City station, WJZ, but was badly handicapped in competing effectively. AT&T maintained that the cross-licensing agreements gave it the exclusive right to sell airtime. AT&T also normally refused access to its high-quality telephone lines to competitors, so RCA's efforts generally used telegraph lines to connect stations, which would prove to have inadequate fidelity and reliability. RCA also investigated using high-powered or shortwave stations to establish network connections, but none of these alternatives matched the quality of AT&T's telephone links.^[10] Thus, while President Coolidge's March 1925 inauguration was sent over a growing AT&T transcontinental network of 23 stations, the WJZ chain's broadcast of the speech was carried by only four stations, all located in the East.^[11]

Formation of the Broadcasting Company of America

On May 11, 1926, AT&T announced that "The radio broadcasting activities heretofore carried on by the radio broadcasting department of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, under the general designation of WEAF, will be incorporated under the name Broadcasting Company of America." The new company's officers were: President, J. C. Lynch; Vice-president and General Manager, William E. Harkness; Manager of Broadcasting, George F. McClelland; Secretary and Treasurer, F. S. Spring; and Auditor, H. F. McKeon.^[12] Operations continued to be based at AT&T headquarters at 195 Broadway in New York City.

Unpublicized at the time were ongoing intense negotiations between AT&T and the radio group companies, led by RCA, about the status of the cross-licensing agreements, and the overall future of the broadcasting industry. AT&T's consolidation of its radio activities into the BCA subsidiary allowed for two possible outcomes: if AT&T decided to withdraw, then the transfer of its radio operations would be simplified, otherwise, the new entity could continue to be run semi-independently of the parent corporation.

During BCA's short existence, the standard WEAF chain configuration consisted of 17 stations, concentrated in the northeastern United States, but also extending westward to WDAF in Kansas City. Individual evening hourly station rates ranged from $170 for three stations located in smaller communities to $480 for flagship WEAF. The standard charge for an hour of evening programming over the entire roster of stations was $4,080, before any applicable discounts.^[13]

BCA sale to the Radio Corporation of America

Although the WEAF network operations were profitable and had a bright future, AT&T ultimately decided it was best to withdraw from radio broadcasting. The result was a total of twelve agreements, dated July 1, 1926, but signed six days later, between AT&T and the radio group companies. Included was the sale of BCA's assets, principally WEAF and its associated chain operations, to RCA for $1 million. A key feature of the agreements was that RCA was now cleared to sell airtime to advertisers. Equally important was a pledge by AT&T to make its telephone lines readily available to RCA. A Consolidated Press Association wire service review of the transaction noted that the sum paid reflected WEAF's position in the industry, as it represented a substantial premium over what radio stations were commanding in the marketplace, and estimated that 4/5ths of the purchase price for WEAF represented good-will and the securing of the use of AT&T's lines.^[14]

The sale was initially kept secret from the staff and the general public, and did not become publicly known until July 21. AT&T's press release announcing the sale stated that although operation of WEAF and the WEAF chain had been financially successful, the company had concluded that "while the technical principle was similar to that of the telephone system, the objective of the broadcasting station was quite different from that of a telephone system. Consequently, it has seemed to us after years of experimentation, that the broadcasting station which we have built up might be more suitably operated by other interests."^[15] WCAP in Washington, which had been sharing time on the same frequency as RCA's station WRC, was now considered redundant, and ceased operating as of August 1. This allowed WRC to begin broadcasting fulltime on the frequency.^[16]

On September 13, 1926, RCA's chairman of the board Owen D. Young and president James G. Harbord announced the formation of the National Broadcasting Company, Inc., to begin operations upon RCA's acquisition of WEAF on November 15.^[17] WEAF would go on to be the "key station" for the NBC radio "Red Network", which sometimes would still be referred to as the WEAF chain. The leased lines that figured so importantly in the acquisition of BCA would form the backbone for both NBC Red and its sister NBC Blue for the next fifteen years.

Related Research Articles

The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Company. In 1932, RCA became an independent company after the partners were required to divest their ownership as part of the settlement of a government antitrust suit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Broadcast network</span> Form of centralized broadcasting

A terrestrial network is a group of radio stations, television stations, or other electronic media outlets, that form an agreement to air, or broadcast, content from a centralized source. For example, ABC (U.S.), CBC/Radio-Canada (Canada), the BBC (UK), the ABC (Australia), DW (Germany), KBS, and NHK (Japan) are TV networks that provide programming for local terrestrial television station affiliates to air using signals that can be picked up by the home television sets of local viewers. Networks generally, but not always, operate on a national scale; that is, they cover an entire country.

WABC is a commercial radio station licensed to New York, New York, carrying a conservative talk format known as "Talkradio 77". Owned by John Catsimatidis' Red Apple Media, the station's studios are located in Red Apple Media headquarters on Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and its transmitter is in Lodi, New Jersey. Its 50,000-watt non-directional clear channel signal can be heard at night throughout much of the Eastern United States and Canada. It is the primary entry point for the Emergency Alert System in the New York metropolitan area and New Jersey. WABC simulcasts on WLIR-FM in Hampton Bays, New York, on eastern Long Island.

WFAN is a commercial radio station licensed to New York, New York, carrying a sports radio format known as "Sports Radio 66 AM and 101.9 FM" or "The Fan". Owned by Audacy, Inc., the station serves the New York metropolitan area while its 50,000-watt clear channel signal can be heard at night throughout much of the eastern United States and Canada. WFAN's studios are located in the Hudson Square neighborhood of lower Manhattan and its transmitter is located on High Island in the Bronx. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WFAN is simulcast over WFAN-FM, and is available online via Audacy.

WGY is a commercial radio station licensed to Schenectady, New York, carrying a conservative talk format which is simulcast full-time over WGY-FM. Owned by iHeartMedia, the station serves Albany, Troy and the Capital District of New York, and is a clear-channel station with extended nighttime range. WGY is also New York State's primary entry point station in the Emergency Alert System. WGY is one of the first stations in the United States and the oldest to operate continuously in New York State, having launched on February 20, 1922.

Radio broadcasting has been used in the United States since the early 1920s to distribute news and entertainment to a national audience. In 1923, 1 percent of U.S. households owned at least one radio receiver, while a majority did by 1931 and 75 percent did by 1937. It was the first electronic "mass medium" technology, and its introduction, along with the subsequent development of sound films, ended the print monopoly of mass media. During the Golden Age of Radio it had a major cultural and financial impact on the country. However, the rise of television broadcasting in the 1950s relegated radio to a secondary status, as much of its programming and audience shifted to the new "sight joined with sound" service.

The NBC chimes are a sequence of three tones played on National Broadcasting Company (NBC) broadcasts. Originally developed in 1927 as seven notes, they were standardized to the current three-note version by the early 1930s, and possibly as early as 1929. The chimes were originally employed as an audible programming cue, used to alert network control engineers and the announcers at NBC's radio network affiliates. They soon became associated with NBC programming in general, and are an early example of an "interval signal" used to help establish a broadcaster's identity with its audience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue Network</span> American radio network (1927–1945)

The Blue Network was the on-air name of a now defunct American radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945.

WOC is a commercial AM radio station, licensed to Davenport, Iowa, and serving the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois. WOC is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. It broadcasts a news/talk format, under the slogan "The Quad Cities News Leader." Its studios are located at 3535 East Kimberly Road in Davenport. Its transmitter is located at an antenna farm in Bettendorf, Iowa, near the campus of Scott Community College. WOC broadcasts with 5,000 watts with a directional signal to avoid interfering with other stations on 1420 kHz.

WTAG is a radio station in Worcester, Massachusetts. It is owned by iHeartMedia and airs a news/talk format. WTAG's studios are in Paxton and it broadcasts from a transmitter in Holden, Massachusetts. The transmitter operates at 5,000 watts day and night. WTAG programming is simulcast on FM translator W235AV at 94.9 MHz, licensed to Tatnuck.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NBC Radio Network</span> Former American radio network

The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network was an American commercial radio network which was in continuous operation from 1926 through 1999. Along with the NBC Blue Network, it was one of the first two nationwide networks established in the United States. Its major competitors were the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), founded in 1927, and the Mutual Broadcasting System, founded in 1934. In 1942, NBC was required to divest one of its national networks, so it sold NBC Blue, which was soon renamed the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). After this separation, the Red Network continued as the NBC Radio Network.

WCAP was a short-lived radio station located in Washington, D.C. during the mid-1920s. It was initially licensed in mid-1923 to the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company (C&P), and its call letters were chosen to reflect the station owner. C&P was controlled by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), and the station was the second of two, following WEAF in New York City, that would be established by AT&T. WCAP was high-powered "Class B" station, and it shared time on the 640 AM frequency with WRC, owned by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA).

The year 1926 saw a number of significant happenings in radio broadcasting history.

The Eveready Hour was the first commercially sponsored variety program in the history of broadcasting. It premiered December 4, 1923, on WEAF Radio in New York City. As radio's first sponsored network program, it was paid for by the National Carbon Company, which at the time owned Eveready Battery. The host for many years was the banjo-playing vocalist Wendell Hall, "The Red Headed Music Maker", who wrote the popular "It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'". Hall was married on The Eveready Hour in 1924.

AT&T Corporation is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies.

Broadcasting in the United States began with experiments with wireless transmission during the middle of the 19th century, with varying degrees of success. These transmissions were initially by radio hobbyists fascinated with the technology. Once techniques were perfected, radio became a necessity for military and commercial users alike. Eventually, broadcasting would come to have a major impact throughout the country. Growth divided television broadcasting into several genres, such as fiction, news, sports, and reality television. Cable television provided more channels, especially for entertainment. By the late 20th century radio (sound) broadcasting had similarly divided, with stations specializing in a particular musical genre, or news or sports.

WDY was an AM radio station located in Roselle Park, New Jersey, that was licensed to the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) from September 19, 1921 to February 20, 1923, although its broadcasting career only spanned the period from December 15, 1921 through February 17, 1922. Despite being short-lived, WDY was the first broadcasting station licensed in the state of New Jersey, and one of the first in the United States. It also marked RCA's entrance into the broadcasting field, which the company would dominate in the U.S. for the next half century.

WJY was an AM radio station located in New York City, licensed to the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) from May 1923 to early 1927. It was operated jointly with RCA's primary New York City station, WJZ. After RCA took over operation of a third New York City station, WEAF, WJY was discontinued as being no longer needed.

WMAF, known as "The Voice From Way Down East", was a radio broadcasting station licensed to "Colonel" Ned Green's Round Hills Radio Corporation in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts from September 1922 until 1931. In the summer of 1923 it began rebroadcasting programs originating from station WEAF in New York City, which is generally considered to be first sustained radio network connection in the United States.

KFKX was an AM radio station, first licensed in 1923 to the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company for operation in Hastings, Nebraska. It was initially used to test the practicality of linking together a national radio network using shortwave transmissions. This approach proved to be inferior to networking using specially prepared telephone lines, and the shortwave project was terminated in late 1926.

References

↑ "By Wireless 'Phone from Arlington to Paris", The Electrical Experimenter, December 1915, page 393.
↑ "Wireless Telephony Now From Washington to Honolulu", The Electrical Experimenter, November 1915, page 321.
↑ "Stations Licensed Up to March 1, 1923", Radio Service Bulletin, April 2, 1923, pages 14-22.
↑ At an AT&T company conference held in New York City beginning on February 26, 1923, A. H. Griswold stated: "We have been very careful, up to the present time, not to state to the public in any way, through the press or in any of our talks, the idea that the Bell System desires to monopolize broadcasting; but the fact remains that it is a telephone job, that we are telephone people, that we can do it better than anybody else, and it seems to me that the clear, logical conclusion that must be reached is that, sooner or later, in one form or another, we have got to do the job." ("Radio Conference, 1923", Telephone Investigation: Proposed Report, Federal Communications Commission, 1938, page 456.)
↑ Memo (American Telephone and Telegraph Company, Department of Operation and Engineering, John F. Bratney and Harley C. Lauderback), mid-December 1921, reprinted in Commercial Broadcasting Pioneer: The WEAF Experiment, 1922-1926 by William Peck Banning, 1946, page 66.
↑ "National Radio Broadcast By Bell System", Science & Invention, April 1922, pages 1144, 1173.
1 2 "Early History of Network Broadcasting (1923—26)", Report on Chain Broadcasting, Federal Communications Commission, May 1941, pages 5-6.
↑ A Tower in Babel (A History of Broadcasting in the United States to 1933, Vol. 1) by Eric Barnouw, 1966, page 144.
↑ Barnouw (1966) page 159.
↑ "Setting the Pace in Radio" by Jack Binns, Popular Science, July 1924, page 65.
↑ "The RCA Network", Report on Chain Broadcasting, Federal Communications Commission, May 1941, pages 6-7.
↑ Commercial and Broadcasting Pioneer: The WEAF Experiment, 1922-1926 by William Peck Banning, 1946, pages 288-290.
↑ "How Much It Costs to Broadcast" by Austin C. Lescarboura, Radio Broadcast, September 1926, pages 367-371.
↑ "Price Paid for WEAF Sets New Record in Radio" by Robert Mack (Consolidated Press Association), Oakland Tribune, September 13, 1926, page B12. ("Robert Mack" was a house byline used by multiple Consolidated Press reporters.)
↑ Big Business and Radio by Gleason L. Archer, 1939, pages 275-276.
↑ Archer (1939) page 279.
↑ "To Inaugurate Radio Service", The Pittsburgh Press, September 13, 1926, page 4.