Blue Network
The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945.
Type
- General Electric (RCA)
- (1927–1928)
- RCA (1928–1943)
- David Sarnoff (founder)
- Edward J. Noble
- (controlling shareholder,
- 1943–1945)
- Mark Woods (president)
January 1, 1927
- June 15, 1945
- (18 years, 165 days)
- NBC Blue Network
- (1927–1943)
National, through regional affiliates
Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), the independent Blue Network was born of a divestiture in 1942, arising from antitrust litigation. In 1945, the Blue Network formally became the American Broadcasting Company (ABC).
Early history[edit]
The Blue Network dates to 1923, when the Radio Corporation of America acquired WJZ in Newark, New Jersey, from Westinghouse, which had established the station in 1921.[1] WJZ moved to New York City in May of that year. When RCA commenced operations of WRC in Washington, D.C., on August 1, 1923, the root of a network was born, though it did not operate under the name by which it would later become known. Radio historian Elizabeth McLeod said it was not until 1924 that the "Radio Group" formally began network operations.[2]
The core stations of the "Radio Group" were RCA's stations WJZ and WRC, along with the Westinghouse station WBZ, then in Springfield, Massachusetts, and WGY, the General Electric station in Schenectady, New York.[2]
RCA's principal rival before 1926 was the radio broadcasting department of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. In 1921, AT&T began using this department as a test-bed for equipment being designed and manufactured by its Western Electric subsidiary.
The RCA stations operated at a significant disadvantage to their rival chain. AT&T used its high-quality transmission lines, and declined to lease them out to competing entities, forcing RCA to use the telegraph lines of Western Union, which were not as well calibrated to voice transmission as the AT&T lines.[3]
Nevertheless, the WJZ network sought to compete toe-to-toe with the AT&T network, which was built around a different New York station, WEAF. For example, both stations sent announcer teams to cover the 1924 Democratic National Convention, which was held in Madison Square Garden in New York City.[4] Promotional material produced in 1943 claimed certain "firsts" in broadcasting by WJZ, such as the first educational music program in April 1922, the first World Series broadcasts in 1922, and the first complete opera broadcast, The Flying Dutchman, from the Manhattan Opera House.[5]
Operations, 1927–1941[edit]
Cooperation with the Red Network[edit]
The Red and Blue Networks shared a common pool of engineers and facilities,[2] and would on occasion, broadcast the same events. There are two early examples, from the biggest news events of 1927. On May 20, 1927, both of the NBC networks covered the return of Charles Lindbergh to America from his trans-Atlantic flight, star announcer Graham McNamee doing the honors. Three months later, a combined hookup of 67 stations on the two networks presented the second Dempsey–Tunney fight, broadcast by McNamee and NBC colleague Phillips Carlin. Radio historian Elizabeth McLeod has published a discussion of surviving NBC broadcast material from this era.[17]
Divestiture, 1940–1943[edit]
Initial moves by the FCC[edit]
During the 1930s, accusations were leveled at both NBC and CBS, in part by their rival Mutual, that the two senior network systems engaged in a series of anticompetitive activities, by locking up talent through in-house talent bureaus, and tightly tying together the system of affiliated stations through onerous contracts.
In May 1940, after a three-year investigation, the Federal Communications Commission (which had had oversight over radio broadcasting since 1934) issued a scathing report (the "Report on Chain Broadcasting") attacking the affiliation policies of NBC and CBS, as well as the talent booking agency practices. The report proposed limiting each network to one affiliated station per city, which would have had a direct impact on NBC's dual-network ownership.[64] In May 1941, the FCC went a step further and issued formal rules to break up what it perceived to be monopolies in radio; one of these rules specifically barred a network from operating more than one hookup, which would have been aimed directly at NBC's ownership of its two networks, in a manner even more explicit than the June 1940 report.[65]
Litigation against NBC[edit]
Subsequent congressional hearings in the fall of 1941 resulted in the FCC watering down the rules, but the reprieve was short-lived, as the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, on December 31, 1941, filed an antitrust action against NBC and CBS, seeking to break up the networks' methods of operation. Mutual, at the same time, filed an antitrust suit of its own, in the amount of $10.275 million, according to the January 12, 1942, edition of Time.[66]
This account by Time[66] describes at least one of the accusations leveled against NBC by Mutual, from an affidavit by Mutual's general manager. In the fall of 1941, Mutual debuted a comedy-variety series sponsored by Ballantine Ale, called Three Ring Time, starring Milton Berle and Charles Laughton.[67] The show was set to debut on a 77-station network, but 14 of these stations were under contract to NBC, which had the power to exercise options on the most desirable time, in cities where there was limited competition. NBC eventually exercised options for six of these stations, with the result that Three Ring Time was being carried simultaneously on NBC Blue and Mutual.
While the antitrust suits were pending, NBC and CBS had appealed to the courts regarding the ability of the FCC to regulate the operations of radio networks.[68] While these appeals were in progress, NBC started the process of formally separating the operations of the Red Network and the Blue Network, a process which had begun in 1939 with the formation of a separate sales department for the Blue Network and which continued into 1940 and 1941 with the formation of other departments for the Blue Network.[63] NBC began to specifically identify the networks, contrary to its general practice, and began to divide personnel and facilities; eventually, it formed a separate corporate entity for the Blue Network on January 8, 1942, "Blue Network Company, Inc."[69] From this date on, while NBC still maintained ownership of the Blue Network, it was for most purposes an entirely separate network. NBC Red at this point became known as simply NBC.[70]
Television[edit]
By June 1945, commercial television in the United States had been frozen, owing to the lower level of priorities given to it as compared to war work. Furthermore, ABC was generally slow to move into television broadcasting. It did win approval to build five television stations; the first, WJZ-TV in New York was completed in the summer of 1948. WJZ-TV (whose callsign would later be transferred to a new ABC affiliate — and current CBS owned-and-operated station — in Baltimore) was followed by stations in Chicago and Detroit later in 1948; and San Francisco and Los Angeles during 1949–all five stations were assigned to broadcast on channel 7. (Four of these five stations are still owned and operated by ABC, with WXYZ-TV now owned by the E.W. Scripps Company.) Until those stations were built, ABC had to lease time and studio facilities from other stations including DuMont network New York flagship WABD, as well as other stations in Philadelphia and Washington which eventually helped form the core of the ABC television network.[117] It might be supposed that the Blue Network never existed in television, but as noted above, the Blue Network did make at least a few known forays into television prior to the June 1945 name change. For example, the Blue Network applied for a construction permit for a TV station in the upper VHF band, but all such applications were shelved during the war years. Experiments were also conducted by the Blue Network in television program production before it permanently became ABC and formally opened a network under the ABC name in 1948. The script for a February 25, 1945, broadcast of Ladies Be Seated, which was a relatively popular audience-participation/stunt game show on Blue Network radio, still exists, and is reprinted in full in Ritchie.[118] It is, in fact, the script for the first broadcast.[119] It was hosted by Johnny Olson, who would later become the long-running announcer on most of CBS's Goodson-Todman-produced game shows, most notably Match Game and The Price Is Right. Technically, this was not a network broadcast, as it was broadcast locally on WRGB, the General Electric television station in Schenectady, New York. However, the opening title card, according to the script, was for "The Blue Network of the American Broadcasting Company." No video copy of this broadcast is known to exist.