David Sarnoff (1891-1971) was the iconic leader of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) for most of the company's history. For many years the only Jewish executive in the communications field, Sarnoff was highly influential in the development of radio and television.

Early Years

David Sarnoff was born on February 27, 1891 in the Jewish shtetl of Uzlian near the Russian city of Minsk. His father moved to New York City in about 1895 and was able to save enough money to allow the rest of the family to join him on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1900.

Sarnoff joined the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America as an office boy in September 1906. In December, he met the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) and with astonishing rapidity gained his confidence and support. Sarnoff was soon promoted to a wireless operator and served in various roles at shore stations in Massachusetts and New York and aboard ships.

In late 1912, Sarnoff was promoted to radio inspector for the New York District and became an instructor at the Marconi Institute. Within a year he was made chief radio inspector and assistant chief engineer for the entire company.

The experienced cable executive Edward J. Nally (1859–1953) became the Marconi Company’s general manager in 1914. Unfamiliar with the wireless side of operations, he relied heavily on the expertise of his energetic and ambitious deputy. Before the year was out, Sarnoff had added the title of contract manager to his position.

In 1915, Sarnoff wrote his famous "Radio Music Box" memo to Nally, which represented a revolutionary shift in the conception of radio. Rather than seeing wireless as a means for one-to-one communication, he imagined it as one-to-many. However, it would not be until the early 1920s that Sarnoff was in a position to implement his ideas.

When the Marconi Company established a Commercial Department in 1917, Sarnoff was appointed as its manager. He was still in that position when the Marconi Company became part of the new Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in 1919.

Radio Corporation of America

For purposes of brevity, the history of RCA will only be touched on in passing. For an excellent overview of the company's history, see the historical note to the RCA Victor Camden/Frederick O. Barnum III collection (http://findingaids.hagley.org/xtf/view?docId=ead/2069.xml).

Sarnoff became a promoter of having RCA expand into the domestic field in opposition to President Nally and others who wanted to stick to international communications. Chairman Owen D. Young (1874-1962) sided with Sarnoff and subsequently made him lead the negotiations with AT&T, Westinghouse, and the United Fruit Company to create the RCA patent pool.

This success, as well as Sarnoff's increasingly close relationship with Young, resulted in his appointment as general manager in 1921. Barely two months later, he signaled his view of RCA's future by orchestrating the famous broadcast of the Dempsey-Carpentier fight.

Made a vice-president in 1922, Sarnoff was passed over in favor of General James G. Harbord (1866-1947) as successor to President Nally at the beginning of 1923. However, Harbord's lack of subject knowledge and hands-off management style prevented any conflict with his hard-driving subordinate. The result was that Sarnoff was increasingly responsible for the strategic operations of RCA, as well as its day-to-day management.

By this time, RCA was faced with mounting public opposition to its patent monopoly, as well as the difficultly of enforcing its patent rights. In late 1923, Sarnoff proposed, and persuaded RCA to implement, the idea of providing patent licenses to other companies for a small percentage of the retail cost of the product.

As RCA's fortunes, and stock price, soared upwards in the mid to late 1920s, Sarnoff proved his adroitness as a negotiator. In 1926, after a complex dispute between AT&T and RCA over radio broadcasting, he successfully negotiated a deal resulting in the creation of NBC in 1926.

Two years later, Sarnoff proposed the takeover of the Victor Talking Machine Company. This deal, which turned RCA into a manufacturing power in its own right, was delayed as Sarnoff spent five months in Europe as Young's assistant on the Committee of Experts, which had been formed to address the German war reparations crisis that was crippling the German economy. He played a key, although then unnoticed, role in the protracted negotiations that resulted in the celebrated "Young Plan" (also known as the "Dawes Plan").

The 1929 stock market crash ruined RCA's stock price and the assets of Chairman Young. Likely as a result, Young stepped down as chair in favor of President Harbord. Sarnoff, who had gotten out of the stock market before the crash, was elected as RCA’s third president on January 3, 1930. Now possessing the title to match his control of RCA, Sarnoff was faced with the daunting task of guiding RCA through the Great Depression.

Depression

Less than six months into his presidency, Sarnoff was faced with a formal anti-trust complaint by the Department of Justice against RCA. After a year and a half of complex legal maneuvering and negotiations, Sarnoff convinced General Electric and Westinghouse to sell their holdings in RCA to settle the dispute. The result of this was not only the independence of RCA, but the removal of the last constraints on Sarnoff's freedom of action within the corporation.

Although RCA recorded its first ever losses in 1932 and 1933, Sarnoff was unfazed. He correctly judged that the market for radio remained strong and he also had another technology in mind. In 1929, Vladimir K. Zworykin (1888-1982), then at Westinghouse, had approached Sarnoff with his ideas on television development. Although mechanical television systems had been successfully demonstrated in the 1920s, Zworykin argued that only an electronic system could solve the technical obstacles to widespread introduction. Sarnoff eagerly backed Zworykin's research and became a frequent visitor to his laboratory at RCA Camden.

Two years before Zworykin and Sarnoff met, Utah inventor Philo T. Farnsworth (1906-1971) had patented an electronic pickup tube that functioned on different principles. In 1932, he successfully filed an action with the Patent Office against RCA on the grounds that its system was subject to his patent. After RCA's appeal was rejected in 1936, Sarnoff attempted to buy Farnsworth out, but the latter wisely refused and demanded that RCA license the patents from him. Unwilling to jeopardize the introduction of television with lengthy legal proceedings, Sarnoff agreed. The result was a system that Sarnoff believed would create an entire new industry.

Despite these successes, the widespread introduction of television would not happen for another decade. Until 1941, a complex and extremely bitter dispute over national technical standards for broadcast and reception roiled the industry. Although Sarnoff dramatically inaugurated NBC's television service at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, declaring "Now we add radio sight to sound," he was unable to convince the public to buy television sets that might not meet a future national standard. The settlement of the standards dispute in RCA's favor two years later would have lasting implications, but the entrance of the United States into the Second World War again delayed television’s arrival.

War

Sarnoff had entered the U. S. Army Signal Corps reserve as a lieutenant colonel in 1924 and been promoted to colonel in 1931. During the war, he was called up three times for active service. The first two occasions were relatively brief periods in 1942 in Washington and Philadelphia. In March 1944, he was assigned to the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF) in England and tasked with overseeing press communications and broadcasting for the invasion of France. Widely praised for his leadership, Sarnoff also established a close friendship with the Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969).

His most notable additional service after the invasion was the reestablishment of Paris's communications links with London and New York. Sarnoff was rewarded with a promotion to Brigadier General in November 1944 and was subsequently invariably referred to as "The General" by RCA staff.

Color

Returning to civilian life in December, Sarnoff laid the groundwork for RCA’s shift to peacetime mass production of television sets, which began barely a year after the Japanese surrender. In 1947, the terminally ill James G. Harbord resigned as chairman of the board and Sarnoff was elected as his replacement. Soon afterwards, Sarnoff turned over the position of president to Frank M. Folsom (1894-1970), but kept the title of CEO, as well as strict control over the company. Before long, Sarnoff became embroiled in a series of disputes over color television that were even more heated that the pre-war standards debates.

There were actually two separate controversies over color television. The first was the CBS attempt to leapfrog monochrome television by introducing a mechanical color system in the 1940s and 1950s. Despite winning FCC approval in 1951, the CBS system failed from a number of factors, including its inexperience with manufacturing, the outbreak of the Korean War, and RCA’s successful demonstration of a prototype electronic system.

When RCA started mass producing color televisions in 1954, it ran into an unexpected obstacle. Nobody wanted to buy them. This was the second controversy, which pitted a grimly determined Sarnoff against waves of criticism from the media, industry, and government. For six years, RCA was alone in manufacturing color televisions and each year it lost money on them. However, the corner was turned in 1960, when RCA, just barely, made a net profit on color. The next half decade was perhaps Sarnoff’s finest hour, as RCA made massive profits over a runaway demand for color televisions and competitors belatedly attempted to jump into the field.

Last Years

Sarnoff’s triumph in color television was his last major contribution to the industry. During the 1950s, he had become increasingly focused on his role as a public figure. He had always been a prolific writer and speaker on communications and other science issues and now expanded his subject matter to include subjects as diverse as the Cold War, education, law, and religion. Sarnoff also began seeking out honorary degrees and other awards, eventually amassing dozens of the former and hundreds of the latter. In 1967, he established the David Sarnoff Library at RCA’s David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton to house his writings, memorabilia, and awards.

In 1966, he stepped down as CEO in favor of his son Robert W. Sarnoff (1918-1997), but remained actively involved in RCA’s affairs. A serious attack of shingles in 1968 essentially ended David Sarnoff’s career. Now bedridden, he continued to insist on regular briefings from RCA staff and refused to step down as chairman of the board until the end of 1969. Now honorary chairman, Sarnoff remained hospitalized until his death on December 12, 1971.