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Welcome to 'Ding, Ding, Dong!', fanlisting for the American television network, NBC. It is such a pleasure to bring this awesome fanlisting to you. |
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What is a fanlisting? A fanlisting is a website that devotes itself to a certain subject matter (TV show, actor/ actress, characters, etc.) and asks others from all over to join in and show the world that they're a fan, too! |
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About NBC? The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American television network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center. It is sometimes referred to as the Peacock Network due to its stylized peacock logo. The network, known as National Broadcasting Company, is now a part of the media company NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric (GE) and Vivendi, and supplies programming to more than 200 affiliated U.S. stations. Formed in 1926 by RCA, control of NBC passed to GE in 1986 following GE's $6.4 billion purchase of RCA. Since this acquisition, the chief executive of NBC (now NBC Universal) was Bob Wright, until he retired, giving his job to Jeff Zucker. The famous three-note NBC chimes came about after several years of development. The three note sequence G-E-C may have been first heard over WSB in Atlanta which used it for its own purposes until one day someone at NBC in New York heard the WSB version of the notes during a networked broadcast of a Georgia Tech football game and asked permission to use it on the national network. NBC started to use the three notes in 1931, and it was the first ever audio trademark to be accepted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A variant sequence was also used that went G-E-C-G, known as "the fourth chime" and used during wartime (especially in the wake of the Pearl Harbor bombing), on D-Day, and disasters. The NBC chimes were mechanized in 1932 by Richard H. Ranger of the Rangertone company; their purpose was to send a low level signal of constant amplitude that would be heard by the various switching stations manned by NBC and AT&T engineers, and thus used as a system cue for switching different stations between the Red and Blue network feeds. Contrary to popular legend, the three musical notes, G-E-C, did not originally stand for NBC's current parent corporation, the General Electric Company; although General Electric's radio station in Schenectady, New York, WGY, was an early NBC affiliate. General Electric did not have ownership of NBC until 1985. G-E-C is still used on NBC-TV and a variant with two notes preceding them is used on the MSNBC cable television network. NBC's radio branch no longer exists. For many years NBC was closely identified with David Sarnoff, who used it as a vehicle to sell consumer electronics. It was Sarnoff who ruthlessly stole innovative ideas from competitors, using RCA's muscle to prevail in the courts. RCA and Sarnoff had dictated the broadcasting standards put in place by the FCC in 1938, and stole the spotlight by introducing all-electronic television to the public at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, simultaneously initiating a regular schedule of programs on the NBC-RCA television station in New York City. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appeared at the fair, before the NBC cameras, becoming the first U.S. president to appear on television on April 30, 1939. NBC's experimental New York City station was licensed for commercial telecasts beginning on July 1, 1941, adopting the call letters WNBT (it is now WNBC-TV). The first official commercial on that day was for Bulova Watches, seen just before the start of a Brooklyn Dodgers telecast. Limited programming continued until the U.S. entered World War II. Telecasts were curtailed in the early years of the war, then expanded as NBC began to prepare for full service upon the war's end. On VE-Day, 1945, WNBT broadcast hours of news coverage, and remotes from around New York City. This event was pre-promoted by NBC with a direct-mail card (http://www.tvhistory.tv/1945-Apr-20-VE-DAY-NBC-WNBT.JPG) sent to television set owners in the New York area. At one point, a WNBT camera placed atop the marquee of the Hotel Astor, panned the crowd below celebrating the end of the war in Europe. It was, by all reports, a thrilling prelude of things to come as television began its rapid ascent into the American household. After the war ended, development of television soared ahead and the NBC television network grew from its initial post-war lineup of four stations. The World Series of 1947 featured two New York teams (Yankees and Dodgers) and local TV sales boomed, since the games were telecast in New York. Stations along the East coast and Midwest were gradually connected by coaxial cable in the 1940s until September 1951, when the first transcontinental telecasts took place. The early 1950s brought massive success for NBC in the new medium, as it launched television's first superstar in Milton Berle, whose antics on the The Texaco Star Theater drew massive audiences. Also, the network launched Today and The Tonight Show, which would bookend the broadcast day for over fifty years, continuing to this day to draw more eyes than the comparable offerings of other networks. While rivals CBS and DuMont also offered color broadcasting plans, RCA convinced a waffling FCC that its color system should prevail, and in December 1953 the FCC agreed; the NBC network was to begin offering color programming within days of the FCC's decision. NBC began broadcasting certain shows in color in 1954, and the first NBC show to air all episodes in color, The Marriage, was shown that summer. In 1956 during a National Association meeting in Chicago, NBC announced that their Chicago TV station — WNBQ (now WMAQ-TV), was the first color TV station in the nation (at least six hours of color broadcasts a day). In 1961 and 1962, NBC-TV offered "Color Weeks" where most of the primetime schedule would be broadcast in color. The event was marked by promotional pushes for RCA Color TV. By 1963, most of NBC's prime time schedule was in color; without television sets to sell, rival networks followed more slowly, CBS in 1965 and ABC in 1966. Days of Our Lives was the first soap opera to premiere in color television. It was during the period of the 1970s and through the mid 1980s that NBC suffered its massive slide in the ratings. The network was beginning to lose some of its luster to other networks, particularly CBS. Fred Silverman, who had taken over NBC's programming department, had greenlit shows such as Hello, Larry, Marie, Pink Lady and Jeff, The Waverly Wonders, and the most notorious of all NBC series, Supertrain. All of these series and more did not survive a single season. Perhaps the low point was in 1983, when NBC began its new fall season with nine new series. These nine series were: Bay City Blues, Boone, For Love and Honor, Jennifer Slept Here, Manimal, The Rousters, Mr. Smith, We Got it Made, and The Yellow Rose. All nine of them were eventually cancelled before completing a year. This is the only time that a network's entire line of new series has failed to be renewed for a second season (not counting MyNetworkTV's 2006-07 season where the two series it introduced that year, Desire and Fashion House, were purposely designed to have their runs ended). Fortunately during this period there were two bright spots: Johnny Carson's Tonight Show solidly held its enormous ratings, and was reported to be the network's top money-maker in the 1970s. Also during this time, NBC suffered through the defections of several longtime affiliates in markets such as: Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and San Diego. Most of the defecting stations were wooed away by ABC, which was the number-one network during the late 1970s and early 1980s; in markets such as San Diego and Jacksonville, NBC was forced to replace the lost stations with new affiliates broadcasting on the UHF band. NBC would soon rebound in the ratings, thanks to new programming chief Brandon Tartikoff. During the 1980s and 1990s, NBC programmed several hit television shows and became a leader in comedy, most notably on its self-christened "Must See TV Thursdays". Sitcoms such as Cheers, The Cosby Show, Seinfeld and Friends, would each finish as a season's #1 show at least once and enjoy success in syndication afterwards. The network also aired several successful dramas, including Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law, and ER. With the loss of Friends in 2004, NBC was faced with several moderately-rated shows and few true ratings hits. This, combined with CBS's popular CSI franchise, FOX's American Idol, and ABC hits such as Lost, Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy, has led to NBC being currently ranked as the fourth most watched television network in the United States, after CBS, a resurgent ABC, and Fox. During the 2004-05 season, NBC became the first major television network to start producing its programming in widescreen, with the hopes of attracting new viewers. Though NBC did see a slight boost in viewers, NBC didn't get any real ratings rise, since widescreen television has yet to catch on in popular culture. In December 2005, NBC unleashed its first-ever week-long primetime game show event, Deal or No Deal, to big ratings by the end of its first week-long run and returned multi-weekly in March 2006. Having enjoyed sustained success, Deal or No Deal returned in the fall of 2006. But otherwise the 2005-06 season would be one of the worst for NBC in three decades, with only one series (My Name Is Earl) that debuted that fall surviving into a second season. The 2006-07 season was a mixed bag, with Heroes becoming a surprise hit on Monday nights, while the highly-anticipated Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip lost a third of its premiere-night viewers by week six. The return of NFL football (eight years after NBC originally lost their rights), the still-strong Deal or No Deal, and the third season of The Office (fresh off its Emmy Award win for Outstanding Comedy Series) has so far not helped NBC out of fourth place. It was reported in March 2007 that NBC will let viewers buy full-length prime-time television shows like The Office and Heroes on-demand to play on mobile phones. This will be a first for the United States. It is the latest effort by media and wireless companies to entice consumers to watch video on their phones. |
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About The Webmaster... My name is Amanda and I live in Brooklyn, NY. I am currently the owner of several websites, several fanlistings and namelistings and 3 forums. NBC has always been my favorite network and has hosted some of my alltime favorite television shows, including Friends, Days of Our Lives, ER, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and so many more from over the years. You can reach me anytime at Sel416331@aol.com and on AIM. All images, html, and codes are the property of me! Please visit the credits page for more info on those who helped out. |