Sarnoff, David (1891-1971)

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SARNOFF, DAVID (1891-1971)

David Sarnoff was born in Minsk, Russia. Sarnoff's serious adult demeanor evolved from a childhood of poverty and hardship. His family suffered through Cossack raids and repression that characterized life for millions of Jewish people in Russia. From the time he was four years of age, Sarnoff was drilled on the Torah and the Talmud because his parents hoped that he would become a rabbi. The family emigrated to the United States in 1900, first settling in Albany, New York, and then moving to New York City. After he arrived in the United States, however, Sarnoff's life took on the characteristics of a Horatio Alger story. His father's poor health meant young Sarnoff became head of the family. He began selling Yiddish newspapers, taking English lessons, and delivering telegraph messages.

After being fired from a telegraph delivery job because he requested time off from work for a religious holiday, Sarnoff was hired as an office boy at American Marconi, the struggling U.S. subsidiary of British Marconi. A chance opportunity allowed Sarnoff, at age fifteen, to introduce himself to Guglielmo Marconi, and the relationship that developed between the two of them enabled Sarnoff to pursue additional career opportunities with the company and to further his education.

His employment as a wireless operator for American Marconi, served as the basis for one of Sarnoff's feats of self-promotion. According to stories that he told later in life, Sarnoff monitored the first distress messages from the Titanic when it was sinking on April 14, 1912. According to Sarnoff's accounts, he did not leave his post for seventy-two hours because he was the lone wireless operator who was responsible for monitoring the wireless dispatches. In fact, Sarnoff was one of several dozen operators who may have heard transmissions from or about the Titanic. Tom Lewis (1991) notes that Sarnoff's wireless equipment was located atop the Wanamaker Department Store in New York City and that the store was closed on Sunday night, April 14, 1912. Therefore, Sarnoff probably did not have access to his equipment until the next day. Furthermore, because of his location in relation to the sinking ship, any reports he did hear would have probably been retransmissions of information received from ships at sea.

Some histories report that Sarnoff envisioned the use of radio as a source of personal entertainment during radio's infancy. The so-called radio music box plan was reported to have been written by Sarnoff to his boss at American Marconi in 1915. Neither the document nor the reply from his boss exists, nor do any other confirming documents from the time. Louise M. Benjamin (1993) notes that there is record of a 1920 memo from Sarnoff to Owen D. Young, who was the chief executive officer of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and General Electric at that time. The memo, which is twenty-eight pages long, discusses a number of possibilities for the development of radio broadcasting and was written at a time when a number of ventures were already underway to experiment with radio broadcasting for public consumption. Furthermore, a 1920 "prediction" lacks the foresight that is sometimes falsely attributed to Sarnoff, and the 1920 document illustrates the awareness Sarnoff's superiors already had regarding the future possibilities of radio broadcasting.

These historic myths, however, should not deprive Sarnoff of proper recognition for his role in the development of broadcasting. Sarnoff, who became general manager of RCA in 1921, helped push RCA beyond the business of selling radios and into the field of network radio broadcasting. The National Broadcasting Company (NBC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of RCA, began network service on November 15, 1926. As many as twelve million people were estimated to have heard the premiere broadcast. Soon thereafter, Sarnoff was operating two networks, NBC Red and NBC Blue. Sarnoff faced competition from William Paley and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) network. Paley reportedly admired Sarnoff's propensity for empire building and his Horatio Alger adeptness in creating an industry. Although Paley lacked Sarnoff's intellect and technological vision, his personal magnetism would create a strong rival for Sarnoff. Sarnoff sought to identify technology that would be useful to the development of both RCA and NBC. He purchased rights to mass-produce Edwin Armstrong's superheterodyne tuner in June 1922 and secured first refusal rights for all other Armstrong inventions. Sarnoff invested in television research in 1929 by hiring Vladimir Zworykin to develop an electronic television system. The RCA television system was publicly demonstrated at the New York World's Fair in 1939. Although inventor Philo Farnsworth successfully demonstrated electronic television in his laboratory in 1927 and in extensive public demonstrations in Philadelphia in 1935 and 1936—and won television patent infringement suits against RCA in 1940—history often reports Sarnoff and RCA as the inventors of television.

Sarnoff's plans for television were almost halted by Armstrong's invention of FM (frequency modulation) radio. While Sarnoff recognized the superior audio quality of the FM signal, he was unwilling to back the system because RCA was developing television. FM radio was seen as a competitor to the success of AM radio, and it would have diverted scientific and government attention away from television. FM service was first authorized in 1940 on the frequency range of 42-50 MHz. After World War II, Sarnoff was able to lobby the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move FM service to the frequency range of 88-108 MHz. Because this made all existing FM radio sets obsolete, the change effectively halted the development of FM radio, and Sarnoff moved ahead with his plans for television.

When CBS, in 1945, introduced a color television system that would have made all black-and-white receivers obsolete, Sarnoff used the resources of RCA to develop a color system that was compatible with the existing black-and-white system. Ultimately, the FCC adopted a color system patterned after the RCA system in 1953, giving Sarnoff his greatest company victory by maintaining RCA's dominance in set production and NBC's leadership in color broadcasting.

Sarnoff's service during World War II included planning the radio stations that would broadcast news and information during the D-Day invasion. He was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. After the war, Sarnoff instructed staff members to call him "General Sarnoff."

Sarnoff's RCA and NBC companies were, for him, the start of a dynasty. He retired as chairman of the board in 1970 and died a year later. Including his years with American Marconi, Sarnoff spent more than sixty years with RCA/NBC. Sarnoff's son Robert became president and later chief executive officer but was fired four years after his father's death. After that, Sarnoff's dynasty drifted, lacking a company vision and the necessary leadership. General Electric purchased RCA/NBC in 1985 and promptly sold the RCA assets, including the RCA name.