A New Age

When David Sarnoff, the founder of NBC, then a part of the Radio Corporation of America, stood at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 in Flushing Meadows to introduce television to the world, he said: “It is with a feeling of humbleness that I come to this moment of announcing the birth in this country of a new art so important in its implications that it is bound to affect all society. It is an art which shines like a torch of hope in a troubled world. It is a creative force which we must learn to utilize for the benefit of all mankind.”

With that moment, Mr. Sarnoff ushered in not just a new communications form for the masses, but also the first broadcast network, NBC, which would become a cultural force in America. At that same World’s Fair, Americans got their first televised glimpses of a president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Later that year, an NBC station broadcast major league baseball for the first time.

The RCA Building and its NBC Studios were the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center in New York, placing the network near the pinnacle of American corporate prestige and power.

Along the way, the network created cultural touchstones like the comedy-variety show, giving a platform to stars like Milton Berle, Dean Martin and Bob Hope. Its news division started the “Today” show in 1952 as the first early morning network news program. “Meet the Press” began in 1947 and is the longest-running program on TV.

For those growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, the three networks  NBC, ABC and CBS  were the driving forces of how they understood the world. “It was the type of place you aspired to be a part of,” said Tom Wolzein, who worked at NBC from 1976 to 1991 and is now a media consultant. “As a child of the ’60s, if you wanted to work in media, you aspired to NBC, or CBS.

“You had three choices. That was what defined the nation.”

During the 1980s and 1990s, the network produced numerous prime-time shows with cultural endurance  like “The Cosby Show,” which first appeared in 1984 and lifted the network out of a ratings downturn, and later sitcoms like “Seinfeld” and “Friends” and dramas like “E.R.”