NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The headquarters of NBC is in New York City at the Comcast Building. NBC also has offices in Chicago at the NBC Tower.
For other uses, see NBC (disambiguation).Type
June 19, 1926
- Radio: November 15, 1926
- Television: April 30, 1939
Universal Pictures is founded
NBC is founded
Universal Cartoon Studios (later known as Universal Animation Studios) is founded
MCA Inc. establishes Revue Studios (later Universal Television)
NBC begins first compatible color broadcasts, preceding other networks by nine years
NBC's first peacock logo debuts
American Cable Systems is founded
NBC broadcasts the first Super Bowl
American Cable Systems rebrands to Comcast
Comcast began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
Universal releases Jaws
PolyGram renames Casablanca Record & Filmworks to PolyGram Pictures
Universal releases E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Walter Lantz Productions is sold to Universal
Universal releases Back to the Future
General Electric buys RCA for $6.4 billion, including NBC and a stake in A&E
NBC relaunches Tempo Television as CNBC
Universal Studios Florida opens
Law & Order premieres on NBC
Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting merge to form British Sky Broadcasting
Universal Cartoon Studios (later Universal Animation Studios) is established
Universal releases Jurassic Park
DreamWorks Animation is founded
Barry Diller purchases Universal's domestic television assets
Seagram acquires PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
Universal Television is renamed Studios USA Television
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment is folded into Universal Pictures
Universal Studios Florida expands to become Universal Orlando Resort
Grand opening of Universal Studios Japan
Universal releases The Fast and the Furious
Vivendi purchases Studios USA
NBC acquires Telemundo and Bravo
Studios USA assets are folded into Universal
Focus Features is formed
Comcast acquires AT&T Broadband for $44.5 billion
Universal becomes the first studio with five summer releases breaking the $100 million mark
GE and Vivendi merge NBC and Universal into NBCUniversal
The Office premieres on NBC
Comcast sets up a joint-venture with PBS, Sesame Workshop & HIT Entertainment to form PBS Kids Sprout
Comcast & Time Warner Cable jointly acquire Adelphia Cable assets for $17.6 billion
USA Network begins 13-year streak as #1 cable network in total viewers
Illumination is founded
Universal releases Illumination's first film Despicable Me
Vivendi divested in NBCU; Comcast buys 51% of NBCU from GE, turning it into a limited liability company
NBCUniversal Archives is founded
Universal celebrates its 100th anniversary
NBCUniversal divests its A&E Networks minority stake
Comcast buys GE's remaining 49% of NBCU
Comcast/NBCU assumes full ownership of Sprout
Comcast attempts to acquire Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion
NBCUniversal reaches a new long-term deal with WWE
NBCU acquires DreamWorks Animation
Sprout relaunches as Universal Kids
Comcast acquires Sky after a heated bidding war with 21st Century Fox
NBCU acquires Cineo Lighting
NBCU launches Peacock
Grand opening of Universal Beijing Resort
The Super Mario Bros. Movie becomes Illumination's highest-grossing film
Founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America, NBC is the oldest of the traditional "Big Three" American television networks and is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network" in reference to its stylized peacock logo, which was introduced in 1956 to promote the company's innovations in early color broadcasting.[1]
NBC has twelve owned-and-operated stations and nearly 200 affiliates throughout the United States and its territories, some of which are also available in Canada and Mexico via pay-television providers or in border areas over the air. NBC also maintains brand licensing agreements for international channels in South Korea and Germany.[2]
Related services[edit]
Video-on-demand services[edit]
NBC provides video on demand access for delayed viewing of the network's programming through various means, including via its website at NBC.com, a traditional VOD service called NBC on Demand available on most traditional cable and IPTV providers,[23] and through content deals with Hulu and Netflix (the latter of which carries only cataloged episodes of NBC programs, after losing the right to carry newer episodes of its programs during their current seasons in July 2011). NBCUniversal is a part-owner of Hulu (along with majority owner The Walt Disney Company, owner of ABC), and has offered full-length episodes of most of NBC's programming through the streaming service (which are available for viewing on Hulu's website and mobile app) since Hulu launched in private beta testing on October 29, 2007.[24][25][26][27]
The most recent episodes of the network's shows are usually made available on NBC.com and Hulu the day after their original broadcast. In addition, NBC.com and certain other partner websites (including Hulu) provide complete back catalogs of most of its current series as well as a limited selection of episodes of classic series from the NBCUniversal Television Distribution program library – including shows not broadcast by NBC during their original runs (including the complete or partial episode catalogs of shows like 30 Rock, The A-Team, Charles in Charge, Emergency!, Knight Rider (both the original series and the short-lived 2008 reboot), Kojak, Miami Vice, The Office, Quantum Leap and Simon & Simon).[28][29][30]
On February 18, 2015, NBC began providing live programming streams of local NBC stations in select markets, which are only available to authenticated subscribers of participating pay television providers. All eleven NBC-owned-and-operated stations owned by NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations' were the first stations to offer streams of their programming on NBC's website and mobile app, and new affiliation agreements have made a majority of the network's affiliates available through the network's website and app based on a viewer's location. The network's NFL game telecasts were not permitted to be streamed on the service for several years until a change to the league's mobile rights agreement in the 2018 season allowed games to be streamed through network websites and apps.[31][32][33][34]
NBC HD[edit]
NBC's master feed is transmitted in 1080i high definition, the native resolution format for NBCUniversal's television properties. However, 19 of its affiliates transmit the network's programming in 720p HD, while four others carry the network feed in 480i standard definition[20] either due to technical considerations for affiliates of other major networks that carry NBC programming on a digital subchannel or because a primary feed NBC affiliate has not yet upgraded their transmission equipment to allow content to be presented in HD.
NBC's master feed has not fully converted to 1080p or 2160p ultra-high-definition television (UHD). However, some NBC stations have already begun broadcasting at 1080p via ATSC 3.0 multiplex stations. One notable example is WRAL-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina (a station that re-joined NBC in February 2016), which is currently also broadcasting at 1080p via WNGT-CD, which is also serving as an ATSC 3.0 multiplex for the Raleigh area. While the equipment would allow the transmission of 2160p UHD, this was previously done through a secondary experimental station (WRAL-EX) where it transmitted limited NBC programming in UHD. The experimental station went off-air in 2018 as part of the FCC's repacking process.
Meet the Press was the first regular series on a major television network to produce a high-definition broadcast on February 2, 1997, which aired in the format over WHD-TV in Washington, D.C., an experimental television station owned by a consortium of industry groups and stations which launched to allow testing of HD broadcasts and operated until 2002 (the program itself continued to be transmitted in 480i standard definition over the NBC network until May 2, 2010, when it became the last NBC News program to convert to HD).[35][36] NBC officially began its conversion to high definition with the launch of its simulcast feed, NBC HD, on April 26, 1999, when
The Tonight Show became the first HD program to air on the NBC network as well as the first regularly scheduled American network program to be produced and transmitted in high definition. The network gradually converted much of its existing programming from standard-definition to high definition beginning with the 2002–03 season, with select shows among that season's slate of freshmen scripted series being broadcast in HD from their debuts.[37]
The network completed its conversion to high definition in September 2012, with the launch of NBC Kids, a new Saturday morning children's block programmed by new partial sister network PBS Kids Sprout, which also became the second Saturday morning children's block with an entirely HD schedule (after the ABC-syndicated Litton's Weekend Adventure). All the network's programming has been presented in full HD since then (except for certain holiday specials produced prior to 2005 – such as its annual broadcast of It's a Wonderful Life – which continues to be presented in 4:3 SD, although some have been remastered for HD broadcast).
The network's high-definition programming is broadcast in 5.1 surround sound.
International broadcasts[edit]
Canada[edit]
NBC network programs can be received throughout most of Canada on cable, satellite and IPTV providers through certain U.S.-based affiliates of the network (such as WBTS-CD in Boston, KING-TV in Seattle, KBJR-TV in Duluth, Minnesota, WGRZ in Buffalo, New York and WHEC-TV in Rochester, New York). Some programs carried on these stations are subject to simultaneous substitutions, a practice imposed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in which a pay television provider supplants an American station's signal with a feed from a Canadian station/network airing a particular program in the same time slot to protect domestic advertising revenue. Some of these affiliates are also receivable over the air in southern areas of the country located near the Canada–United States border (signal coverage was somewhat reduced after the digital television transition in 2009 due to the lower radiated power required to transmit digital signals).
Europe and the Middle East[edit]
NBC no longer exists outside the Americas as a channel in its own right. However, NBC News and MSNBC programs are broadcast for a few hours a day on OSN News, formerly known as Orbit News in Africa and the Middle East. Sister network CNBC Europe also broadcasts occasional breaking news coverage from MSNBC as well as The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. CNBC Europe also broadcast daily airings of NBC Nightly News at 00:30 CET Monday to Fridays.[41][42]
