Color TV, Morning News and Late-Night: NBC Has a History of Firsts in Broadcasting

The first-to-market advantage is built right into the name: the National Broadcasting Company.

NBC was created a century ago amid the maelstrom of a mid-1920s gold rush that emerged around the cutting-edge technology of radio broadcasting.

The pages of Variety in that era were filled with stories about new radio sta- tions signing on and others quickly going out of business. It wasn’t long before we were reporting extensively on legal skirmishes around copyright concerns, music royalties and charges of monopolies leveled against the biggest players in radio — including Radio Corp. of America, AT&T and Westinghouse Electric Corp.

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Those three pioneering communication firms joined forces in 1926 to solve the problem of a single station’s limited geographic reach. RCA purchased New York flagship WEAF from AT&T — which decided to get out of broadcasting — and used it as the flagship of the “NBC Red Network.” (NBC Blue, which originated on WJZ New York, was later divested and became ABC.) NBC debuted as America’s first national broadcast network on Nov. 15, 1926, the day its acquisition of WEAF was official.

The debut program was a four-hour live broadcast from a ballroom at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. AT&T’s telephone wires helped transmit the program to the 18 other stations in the network, with a reach that extended as far west as Kansas City. To emphasize that NBC comprised a network of stations, the telecast included a performance from singer Mary Gordon that originated out of Chicago, while humorist Will Rogers delivered a monologue from Independence, Miss.

From the start, NBC was rooted in the local affiliate-national network partnership that endures for broadcast TV to this day. NBC recruited independently owned radio stations in major cities to serve as affiliates, a win-win scenario that gave the local station high-quality programming while extending NBC’s signal across all the country. The model presented unprecedented clout with advertisers.

As NBC enjoyed exponential growth in advertising revenue and reach, it oversaw more firsts. Just six weeks after the Waldorf-Astoria telecast, NBC brought listeners the inaugural coast-to-coast coverage of a sporting event; on Jan. 1, 1927, they broadcast the Rose Bowl football game between Stanford and Alabama from Pasadena. (The game ended in a tie because there were no overtime rules in place.)

The vision that allowed NBC to get off the ground stemmed largely from one man, David Sarnoff, the leader of RCA and the Steve Jobs of his day. As radio took off with consumers in the early 1920s, Sarnoff saw the potential to combine hardware (RCA-made radio receivers) and software (NBC programming) into a world-beating company.

Here’s a look at a few of the historic innovations that were brought to you by NBC:

Commercial television

On April 30, 1939, Sarnoff flipped the switch at the New York World’s Fair on the first commercial television broadcast and the launch of the first regular schedule of TV programming via NBC. RCA had experimented with TV for a decade, and Sarnoff decided that the World’s Fair was the perfect launch pad (although TV would be put on pause by year’s end after World War II broke out in Europe). NBC’s programming beamed from an antenna on the Empire State Building, with an initial reach of about 55 miles in all directions.

Morning news

“We are in touch with the world. We’ll tell you what’s happening today.” That was the promise NBC announcer Jack Lescoulie made as he introduced the inaugural broadcast of “Today” on Jan. 14, 1952. Original host Dave Garroway was an erudite guide who shaped the mix of news, lifestyle and human interest stories that still define morning news programs.

Late-night

It wasn’t long after NBC saw success with “Today” that TV programming chief Pat Weaver conceived a late-night counterpart. “Tonight,” as “The Tonight Show” was originally known, went live from Broadway’s Hudson Theater on Sept. 27, 1954, with comedian Steve Allen at the helm. Allen opened the 105-minute telecast at 11:15 p.m. with a yarn about how the show’s plans for a “clever opening” were derailed when “the Cadillac remote unit had a flat tire.” Allen’s gabfests later in the episode — with guests including singers Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme and baseball star Willie Mays — set the tone for the conversational, anecdote-rich interviews that set the late-night vibe that remains today.

Color TV

RCA had every incentive to develop the technology that would allow NBC to broadcast programs “in living color,” as they were often billed. CBS also pursued a proprietary tech system for delivering color television, but NBC won the race. That win boosted RCA because consumers had to buy new sets to receive color telecasts. A big milestone came on Jan. 1, 1954, when NBC carried the Rose Parade in all its colorful splendor, although it would take about a decade and a half more before color became the norm for TV. It was the advent of color that spurred NBC to adopt the peacock as a mascot (and eventually, its logo).

(Pictured top: original “Today” anchor Dave Garroway)

This story is part of a retrospective series commemorating NBC’s centennial that Variety is publishing through a partnership with NBCUniversal.