PSA: VHF, UHF and the FCC

Alright. Here's my first post in a series of lectures on stuff I've been forced to learn about early TV...in fact, I might call the series by that name, just so you're properly warned when one's coming.

Before it went into bankruptcy ten years after Robert "Bobby" Sarning left as president, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was the big pig in electronics. Bobby's father, David, known as "the General" in scholarship about his influence in RCA, had been at the helm of RCA when it more or less invented the concept of networks -- radio networks on AM channels, since this was 1926.

RCA had government contracts through the 1960s thanks to the General's focus on beating competitors in electronics -- including an ill-fated attempt to oust IBM in the early 60s -- and had started the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC...yes, that NBC) out of the desire to educate and, heck, to make profits while they were at it.

This is all background for the fact that RCA owned most of the patents that functioned in TV on VHF (very high frequency) when the FCC began to decide whether to set standards for television before it followed in the footsteps of radio as a broadcast medium and went public.

What patents RCA didn't own, it purchased the rights to from Philo Farnsworth after a legal battle in which RCA claimed to have already patented the technology Farnsworth had invented and patented (which it hadn't). RCA essentially had a monopoly on television equipment that received VHF signals at that point.

CBS, which had a "friendly rivalry" going with NBC on radio, also had plans for television. Because of RCA's monopoly on VHF, CBS worked on developing technologies for UHF (ultra high frequency), which would also allow for color, since the ultra high frequencies would be able to support the broadcast broader signals, and could potentially be higher quality than the VHF receivers RCA was already selling.

But the FCC had not ruled on specifications, instead opting for a wishy-washy statement saying they hoped that the fledgling television industry would be able to turn a profit while still doing the R&D necessary to make increasingly better TVs. RCA interpreted the wishi-washiness as weakness and began to sell TVs with force. By the time the FCC made a serious attempt to curb the sales, RCA claimed that so many TV sets had been sold that if the technology was changed, the obsolescence experienced by consumers would be prohibitive, even though only about half a million television sets were in use at that point, in only a few major city markets.

Thus, RCA had a monopoly on television set sales until the early to mid 1950s, and CBS's plans for UHF and color TV were stymied by RCA's corporate machinations.

More on corporate monopolies and the network system in future "Stuff I've Been Forced to Learn About Early TV."