RCA Products

RCA has always been a solid choice for consumer electronics products, from the first radio sets that swept the country in the early 1920’s to today’s dependable and affordable digital home entertainment products. The story of RCA begins with the emergence of wireless communications made possible by the discovery of radio waves and amplification technology in the early years of the 20th century. What began as wireless telegraphy, sending dots and dashes through the air instead of over wires, grew to become voices and music transmitted and received over the air with the development of more sensitive transmission and receiving equipment.

The Radio Corporation of America – later shortened to RCA – was formed in 1919 with the assets of the American Marconi wireless company and key radio patents owned by General Electric, Westinghouse, and other players. Conceived as a “marriage of convenience” between private corporations and the U.S. government for the development of wireless communication, RCA soon grew in a different direction. Initially, the RCA brand was applied to consumer receivers manufactured by Westinghouse and General Electric. Pittsburgh radio station KDKA went on the air with the returns of the Harding-Cox presidential election and RCA itself delivered the world heavyweight boxing championship via wireless transmission – a marketing brainstorm of RCA General Manager David Sarnoff. By the time aviator Charles Lindbergh made his historic transatlantic flight, some six million radio sets were in use. Surveys indicated that an average of five people listened to each set, making a potential market of 30 million people. RCA’s Sarnoff saw the potential for a nationwide network, and in 1926 the first national radio network – dubbed the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) – was created. The Rose Bowl football game of 1927 was heard coast to coast, thanks to the NBC network.

In 1927, another remarkable development was about to change home entertainment forever. California engineer Philo Farnsworth sent out a signal in a pioneering television experiment. His broadcast sent a picture of a dollar sign through the air. A year later, the president of RCA predicted that Kodak’s newly-developed color film might someday be applied to television. Radio’s popularity in the U.S. market created new opportunities for RCA, which had been marketing radios built by GE and Westinghouse. In 1929, the three partners consolidated their research and development, manufacturing and marketing. Then, RCA purchased Victor Talking Machine Company and began manufacturing radios and phonographs in Camden, New Jersey.

In addition to acquiring Victor’s manufacturing operations, the merger also brought a famous Jack Russell terrier into the RCA family. “Nipper,” whose image listening to “His Master’s Voice” was prominently featured on Victor’s home phonographs, became the RCA dog. Nipper’s story stretches back to England in the late 1800’s. Scenic artist Francis Barraud of London saw his little dog, Nipper, sitting attentively in front of the talking machine. Barraud was so impressed that he decided to put it on canvas. The alert terrier with an ear cocked to listen to the phonograph was immortalized in a painting that later became the RCA Victor trademark. In the early 1920s, David Sarnoff publicly speculated on the possibility of “every farmhouse equipped not only with a sound-receiving device but with a screen that would mirror the sights of life.” The idea of television was not new, and mechanical systems had demonstrated crude pictures. But it was Sarnoff’s historic meeting with engineer Vladimir Zworykin that set the stage for RCA’s success at perfecting electronic television transmission and reception. The engineer had already successfully demonstrated his “iconoscope” camera and “kinescope” receiver. Sarnoff sought out the inventor to learn more about his work and ask what it would cost to continue his experiments and develop a marketable system. Zworykin replied “$100,000 and a year and a half.”