The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial terrestrial radio and television network that is a flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, with additional major offices near Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia. The network is one of the Big Three television networks. NBC is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network", in reference to its stylized peacock logo, introduced in 1956 to promote the company's innovations in early color broadcasting. It became the network's official emblem in 1979.
Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen was an American vaudevillian and comedienne who became internationally famous as the zany partner and comic foil of husband George Burns, her straight man appearing with her on radio, television and film as the duo Burns and Allen.
Fibber McGee and Molly was an American radio comedy series. The situation comedy, a staple of the NBC Red Network for the show's entire run and one of the most popular and enduring radio series of its time, ran as a stand-alone series from 1935 to 1956, and then continued as a short-form series as part of the weekend Monitor from 1957 to 1959. The title characters were created and portrayed by Jim and Marian Jordan, a real-life husband and wife team that had been working in radio since the 1920s.
"The War of the Worlds" is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells's novel The War of the Worlds (1898). It was performed and broadcast live as a Halloween episode at 8 p.m. on Sunday, October 30, 1938, over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. The episode became famous for allegedly causing panic among its listening audience, though the scale of that panic is disputed, as the program had relatively few listeners.
Broadway Open House is network television's first late-night comedy-variety series. It was telecast live on NBC from May 29, 1950, to August 24, 1951, airing weeknights from 11pm to midnight. One of the pioneering TV creations of NBC president Pat Weaver, it demonstrated the potential for late-night programming and led to the later development of The Tonight Show.
Jessurun James "Jess" Oppenheimer was an American radio and television writer, producer, and director. He was the producer and head writer of the CBS sitcom I Love Lucy.
I Love a Mystery is an American radio drama series that aired 1939–44, about three friends who ran a detective agency and traveled the world in search of adventure. Written by Carlton E. Morse, the program was the polar opposite of Morse's other success, the long-running One Man's Family.
Vincent Edward Scully is an American retired sportscaster. Scully is best known for his 67 seasons calling games for Major League Baseball's Dodgers, beginning in 1950 and ending in 2016. His run constitutes the longest tenure of any broadcaster with a single team in professional sports history, and he is second only to Tommy Lasorda in terms of number of years associated with the Dodgers organization in any capacity. He retired at age 88 in 2016, ending his record-breaking run as their play-by-play announcer.
KNBR is a San Francisco, California AM radio station, broadcasting on a clear channel at 680 kHz from transmitting facilities near Belmont, California. KNBR's non-directional 50,000-watt class-A signal can be heard throughout much of the western United States and as far west as the Hawaiian Islands at night. For several decades, KNBR enjoyed a long history as the flagship station of NBC's West Coast radio operations.
Harry Rudolph von Zell was an American announcer of radio programs, and an actor in films and television shows. He is best remembered for his work on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, and for once mispronouncing President Herbert Hoover's name on the air, a slip that was exaggerated on a later comedy record album.
One Man's Family is an American radio soap opera, heard for almost three decades, from 1932 to 1959. Created by Carlton E. Morse, it was the longest-running uninterrupted dramatic serial in the history of American radio. Television versions of the series aired in prime time from 1949 to 1952 and in daytime from 1954 to 1955.
Major League Baseball on NBC is the de facto branding for weekly broadcasts of Major League Baseball (MLB) games produced by NBC Sports, and televised on the NBC television network. Major League Baseball games first aired on the network from 1947 to 1989, when CBS acquired the broadcast television rights; games returned to the network in 1994 with coverage lasting until 2000. There have been several variations of the program dating back to the 1940s, including The NBC Game of the Week and Baseball Night in America.
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson was an American talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise that aired on NBC from October 1, 1962 through May 22, 1992.
Carlton Errol Morse was a Louisiana-born producer/journalist best known for his creation of the radio serial One Man's Family, which debuted in 1932 and ran until 1959 as one of the most popular as well as long-running radio soap operas of the time. He also was responsible for the radio serial I Love a Mystery. A radio legend, he experimented with television and published three novels. Morse is considered by many to be one of the best radio scriptwriters.
Great Moments in History was a dramatic radio series broadcast on NBC in 1927–28. It offered recreations of famed historical situations.
Gang Busters was an American dramatic radio program heralded as "the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories." It premiered on January 15, 1936 and was broadcast over 21 years through November 27, 1957.
Michael Raffetto was an American radio actor who starred as Paul Barbour (1932-1956) in the NBC Radio series One Man's Family and as Jack Packard in I Love a Mystery during the heyday of radio in the 1930s and 1940s.
Harold T. "Hal" Gibney was NBC's West Coast announcer for more than 20 years.
Little Orphan Annie was an American radio drama series based on the popularity of the comic strip Little Orphan Annie. It debuted on Chicago's WGN in 1930, then moved to the NBC radio network Blue Network on April 6, 1931. It aired until April 26, 1942.
In 1950, the Mutual Broadcasting System acquired the television as well as radio broadcast rights to the World Series and All-Star Game for the next six years. Mutual may have been reindulging in dreams of becoming a television network or simply taking advantage of a long-standing business relationship; in either case, the broadcast rights were sold to NBC in time for the following season's games at an enormous profit.
