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More About Sarnoff, Part Two
In 1923, when federal investigators threatened to charge RCA, Westinghouse, and
its other partners AT&T and GE for conspiring to restrain trade in the
radio industry, Sarnoff suggested splitting off part of the conglomerate to
form NBC, the first national broadcasting network. This satisfied the Feds, but
the conglomerate remained unwieldy. Sarnoff understood that a complete break
would be necessary for him to realize his dream of an RCA empire.
The opportunistic Sarnoff saw his chance in May 1930, five months after being
named RCA president. The U.S. government announced its intent to pursue
anti-trust actions against RCA. Smaller companies had complained that the
patent-sharing system RCA, GE, and Westinghouse operated under resulted in
unfair competition. While other executives braced for struggle, Sarnoff instead
played compromise to his advantage.
Through two years of constant lobbying, the wily Sarnoff helped convince the
Feds that breaking up the patent-sharing system would cripple an American
communications industry already wounded by the Depression and pave the way for
foreign control of the airwaves. Instead, Sarnoff proposed that the business
relationship between RCA, Westinghouse, and GE be severed, and that RCA be
given the benefit of a two year non-competition agreement in the field of
radio. The Feds agreed. RCA became an independent empire, controlling
broadcasting stations and manufacturing facilities nationwide. David Sarnoff
ruled as its king.
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If King Sarnoff was capable of beneficent, compassionate leadership, he was
equally capable of despotic brutality. Sarnoff gladly considered the opinion of
any man, be it the one who shined his shoes or the president of his board of
directors. He rewarded loyalty grandly and supported his engineers
unreservedly. He seldom raised his voice or violated public decorum. But to
oppose David Sarnoff within the halls of his empire often resulted in a
scathing verbal assault--or a call to Sarnoff's palatial East Seventy-first
street home in the after hours, during which one would be summarily dismissed.
Sarnoff's assaults on those who opposed him from outside his empire were even
more brutal. He quickly calibrated the value of controlling patents, and used
the power of RCA lawyers to crush the businesses and ruin the lives of any who
got in the way. Edwin Howard Armstrong and Philo Farnsworth were two who had
the genius and the audacity to challenge Sarnoff in patent litigation; both men
paid dearly as a result.
In 1933, Armstrong, a friend of Sarnoff's since 1914, devised a new scheme for
radio broadcasting called frequency modulation, or FM. Superior to amplitude
modulation, or AM, radio which virtually all RCA broadcasting systems used, FM
drastically reduced static and provided a much clearer sound. Armstrong
proposed switching the RCA broadcasting system to FM; Sarnoff opposed this
vigorously.
Armstrong left RCA to start his own FM station. In 1948, he sued RCA and NBC,
alleging a conspiracy to influence the FCC in limiting the development of FM
radio. Sarnoff sent for his lawyers, and bludgeoned his former friend in the
courts for six years. In January, 1954, despondent and nearly destitute,
Armstrong committed suicide.
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Philo Farnsworth, the first inventor to patent a completely electronic
television system, received similar treatment at the hands of Sarnoff and RCA.
When RCA engineer Vladmir Zworykin applied for a new patent for television
based, in part, on information gleaned from a visit to Farnsworth's laboratory,
Farnsworth sued. The courts vindicated Farnsworth after a lengthy court battle,
but by that time Farnsworth's will had been broken, and his patent had nearly
run out. He would never see the millions he'd dreamed of; RCA reaped them
instead.
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Sarnoff would again muster his iron will in the battle for color television. In
1945, CBS presented the first color television system to the FCC for approval.
The mechanically-operated system was not compatible with RCA's existing
black-and-white television sets, which operated electronically. Sarnoff
realized that FCC approval of the new color system would devastate RCA. Anyone
who wanted to watch color television using a CBS set would have to discard his
RCA set. Sarnoff feverishly drove his engineers to develop an electronic color
system, simultaneously lobbying the FCC to approve a system compatible with
existing RCA sets.
In a blow to RCA, the FCC approved the CBS system in 1950. But Sarnoff's faith
in his engineers paid off. They developed an electronic color system that
worked compatibly with existing sets. Spurred by the mainstream press and
Sarnoff's efficient public relations machine, the FCC reversed its decision in
1953. Under Sarnoff's tenacious leadership, RCA had won again.
Sarnoff's leadership skills extended into the political arena as well, with
mixed results. He began his work with the government in 1929, negotiating a war
reparations treaty with Germany. But with Hitler leading Germany, the treaty
was ignored. During World War II, Sarnoff successfully directed the press
communications for D-day, earning the rank of brigadier general in the process.
General Sarnoff then returned home to fight the Cold War.
Sarnoff vigorously opposed Communism. In the 1950's and 60's, he wrote and
lectured frequently, encouraging American's to "prosecute the Cold War to the
point of victory." He corresponded frequently with Vice-President Richard Nixon
about effective anti-communist strategy. Sarnoff proposed dropping millions of
radios and compact phonographs on the Communist Bloc to broadcast pro-democracy
propaganda, and influenced the formation of the Voice of America broadcasting
network. His war against communism was even waged within his own company.
Sarnoff supported Senator Joseph McCarthy's Communist witch hunts, and condoned
blacklisting at RCA.
Sarnoff's belief in political solutions ran a distant second to his unflagging
faith in science and technology. He foresaw a future in which technology would
allow long-lasting peace, unmatched prosperity, and increased leisure time. As
far back as 1956, Sarnoff's picture of the future included biotechnology,
push-button weather control, aquaculture, nuclear reactors for the home, and
the computer revolution.
Working well into his seventies, Sarnoff continued to push RCA and its
engineers, investing money and work-hours in computers and aerospace
technology. The man who came to America during the infancy of radio lived to
see photographs delivered electronically from space to Earth in satellites his
company had made. In 1970, at age seventy-nine, Sarnoff retired from RCA. He
died in 1971, leaving behind a legacy of technological triumphs and insatiable
ambition.
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