NBC got its start in 1926 as the first U.S. radionetwork. Its parent company, the Radio Corporation of America, figured peoplewould buy radios if they had interesting things to listen to.
NBC was the leading radio network in the early years, sopowerful in those days that it had two networks: NBC-Red and NBC-Blue. It wasforced by the Federal Communications Commission in the early 1940s to divestitself of one network. NBC-Blue eventually became ABC. In fact, all threeoriginal broadcast networks can be traced back to NBC. One of its originalowners, Westinghouse Electric Co., bought CBS in 1995.
Some of NBC's radio profits were funneled into researchingthe new television technology. NBC began television broadcasts in 1939 bycovering the opening of the New York World's Fair.
RCA's chief David Sarnoff took to the airwaves to introducethat broadcast, and his description of the moment — "the birth of a newart bound to affect all society" — was prescient and maybe evenunderstated.
In 1947 came the first NBC program that's still around today— Sunday morning's "Meet the Press." NBC had television's first bighit in "Texaco Star Theater" with Milton Berle. Many people boughttheir first TVs, or crowded around the few ones available, to see a comic who'dmine for laughs each week by wearing a dress.
Though it faced fierce competition over the decades, NBC wasformidable in the 1990s, with Thursdays declared a "must-see" nightof television. The network's run of memorable series including"Cheers," ''Seinfeld," ''ER," ''Frasier,"''Friends" and "The West Wing" represented a golden age.
NBC's decline has been slow, steady and sad. Its"must-see" series all ran their course, replaced by nothing comparable.Each of their rivals minted influential, highly popular reality series,including Fox's "American Idol" and CBS' "Survivor." Untilthis season, NBC sagged in fourth place, struggling to find a hit. Looking topare the costs of producing scripted shows, NBC even brought Jay Leno to primetime in 2009, only to reverse course.
In selling a controlling stake to Comcast Corp. in 2011,General Electric Co. began to unravel part of the legacy of former ChairmanJack Welch. In 1986, he had bought RCA and NBC to help his industrialconglomerate get a reliable source of cash while overseas manufacturingcompetition loomed.
Under Comcast, NBC did better than expected during lastsummer's Olympics and began showing clear signs of a comeback, improvingratings after nearly sliding into irrelevancy over the previous decade.
It had a new hit in "The Voice" and a consistentratings leader in "Sunday Night Football" during the autumn and earlywinter. By last autumn, NBC could boast that it was drawing the most viewers inthe 18-to-49-year-old demographic prized by advertisers for the first time in adecade.
Overall, NBC still ranked behind CBS and ABC, but at leastit was no longer bringing up the rear in fourth place, as had been the case forseveral years.
With Tuesday's deal, Comcast would get full ownership. GEwould end its ties with the network — one that dates back to NBC's origins.Until RCA became the sole owner of NBC in 1932, GE owned the company along withRCA and Westinghouse.