NBC Red
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| Type | Radio Network |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Availability | National, through regional affiliates |
| Owner |
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Launch date
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November 15, 1926 |
| Dissolved | 2004 |
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Former names
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The NBC Red Network is a defunct American radio network. Launched in 1926, it, along with the NBC Blue Network, were the two original radio networks of the National Broadcasting Company, and the first two commercial radio networks in the United States. CBS Radio was established a year later.
In 1943, NBC was required to divest itself of its Blue Network, which would eventually become the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). The Red Network continued as the NBC Radio Network. The NBC Radio Network itself no longer exists under its original configuration, having been spun off and gradually dissolved into eventual corporate parent Westwood One.
In 1923, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) acquired control of WJZ in Newark, New Jersey (now WABC), from Westinghouse, and moved the station to New York City. The same year, RCA obtained a license for station WRC in Washington, D.C. (now WTEM), and attempted to transmit audio between WJZ and WRC via low-quality telegraph lines, in an effort to make a network comparable to that operated by American Telephone & Telegraph.
AT&T had created its own network in 1922, with WEAF in New York serving the research and development function for Western Electric's research and development of radio transmitters and antennas, as well as AT&T's long-distance and local Bell technologies for transmitting voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, via both wireless and wired methods. WEAF's regular schedule of a variety of programs, and its selling of commercial sponsorships, had been a success, and what was known at first as "chain broadcasting" became a network that linked WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island (now WHJJ) and AT&T's WCAP in Washington, D.C. (now off the air).
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