Word: sarnoffs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...recede in importance as lawyers take center stage. As it happens, Zworykin had made a patent application in 1923, and by 1933 had developed a camera tube he called an Iconoscope. It also happens that Zworykin was by then connected with the Radio Corporation of America, whose chief, David Sarnoff, had no intention of paying royalties to Farnsworth for the right to manufacture television sets. "RCA doesn't pay royalties," he is alleged to have said, "we collect them...
...strong-willed management style gave him the label of not always being "talent-friendly," although he was close to great musicians like Arturo Toscanini. Sarnoff managed to survive a major raid orchestrated by CBS boss William S. Paley, who lured several major NBC stars. But if Sarnoff lost a battle, you could always bet on his winning the war. Under his leadership NBC had the first videotape telecast and the first made-for-television movie...
...Sarnoff retired as RCA chairman in 1970 and died a year later. RCA became a conglomerate, diversifying broadly--and unsuccessfully--before being taken over in 1986 by GE, the outfit that started RCA and was forced to divest...
...broadcast industry has changed since then, and is undergoing the same kind of technological revolution that occurred when Sarnoff introduced television. Still there are programmers and producers with great passion for the medium, and we count ourselves among them. But now these broadcasters have had to embrace other media as well--cable and the Internet--to avoid being crushed by the furious pace of technology...
...heady feeling is back with another technology revolution. But the basic truth Sarnoff articulated--television is a beneficial, creative force--still holds despite the tumult of vertical integration, ratings wars, new-media breakthroughs and Internet companies with zooming stock prices. Certainly, the General would have caught the new wave, if not led it, and embraced television's transformation by the digital age. His channel was always dialed to the future...