Word: sarnoffs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Sarnoff was born in Uzlian, Russia, in 1891 (the year the electron was christened; he often bragged they were born the same year) and traveled steerage to New York nine years later with his family. Knowing no English, he helped support his family by selling newspapers and with other small jobs. At 15 he bought a telegraph key, learned Morse code and, after being hired as an office boy for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Co. of America, became a junior operator...
Then, like so many people in the communications business, he was at the right place at the right time. On April 14, 1912, Sarnoff was working at the Marconi station atop Wanamaker's department store when he picked up a message relayed from ships at sea: "S.S. Titanic ran into iceberg, sinking fast." For the next 72 hours, the story goes, he remained at his post, giving the world the first authentic news of the disaster. Did someone...
...Sarnoff's technical ability propelled him quickly through the ranks at Marconi, and in 1915 he submitted an idea for a "radio music box" at a time when radio was mainly used in shipping and by amateur wireless enthusiasts. He believed his device would make radio a "household utility" like the piano or phonograph. "The idea is to bring music into the house by wireless," he wrote in a memo. It was regarded as commercial folly. But he would soon have another opportunity to find backing for his idea. After the Great War, in 1919, RCA was formed by General...
...Sarnoff had it all figured out: for RCA to sell radios, it had to have programming--music, news, sports. On July 2, 1921, he arranged the broadcast of the Jack Dempsey-Georges Carpentier prizefight (great ratings in the male demos), which was a watershed event. Within three years the radio music box, now called the Radiola (price: a hefty $75), was a success, with sales of $83.5 million...
...Sarnoff's career took off. His next epiphany: the fastest path to profits would be to create national broadcasts by stringing together hundreds of stations. In other words, a network. In 1926, as general manager of RCA, he formed the National Broadcasting Co. as a subsidiary...