36 Facts About David Sarnoff

David Sarnoff was a Belarusian-American businessman and pioneer of American radio and television.

David Sarnoff ruled over an ever-growing telecommunications and media empire that included both RCA and NBC, and became one of the largest companies in the world.

David Sarnoff is credited with David Sarnoff's law, which states that the value of a broadcast network is proportional to the number of viewers.

David Sarnoff was born to a Jewish family in Uzlyany, a small town in the Russian Empire, now part of Belarus, the son of Abraham Sarnoff and Leah Privin.

David Sarnoff spent much of his early childhood in a cheder studying and memorizing the Torah.

David Sarnoff emigrated with his mother and three brothers and one sister to New York City in 1900, where he helped support his family by selling newspapers before and after his classes at the Educational Alliance.

In 1906 his father became incapacitated by tuberculosis, and at age 15 David Sarnoff went to work to support the family.

David Sarnoff had planned to pursue a full-time career in the newspaper business, but a chance encounter led to a position as an office boy at the Commercial Cable Company.

David Sarnoff served at Marconi stations on ships and posts on Siasconset, Nantucket and the New York Wanamaker Department Store.

Schwartz questions whether David Sarnoff, who was a manager of the telegraphers by the time of the disaster, was working the key although that brushes aside concerns about corporate hierarchy.

David Sarnoff demonstrated the first use of radio on a railroad line, the Lackawanna Railroad Company's link between Binghamton, New York, and Scranton, Pennsylvania; and permitted and observed Edwin Armstrong's demonstration of his regenerative receiver at the Marconi station at Belmar, New Jersey.

Nally deferred on the proposal because of the expanded volume of business during World War I Throughout the war years, Sarnoff remained Marconi's Commercial Manager, including oversight of the company's factory in Roselle Park, New Jersey.

Unlike many who were involved with early radio communications, who often viewed radio as point-to-point, David Sarnoff saw the potential of radio as point-to-mass.

When Owen D Young of General Electric arranged the purchase of American Marconi and reorganized it as the Radio Corporation of America, a radio patent monopoly, Sarnoff realized his dream and revived his proposal in a lengthy memo on the company's business and prospects.

David Sarnoff is often inaccurately referred to as the founder of both RCA and NBC, but he was in fact founder of only NBC.

David Sarnoff was instrumental in building and establishing the AM broadcasting radio business that became the preeminent public radio standard for the majority of the 20th century.

David Sarnoff negotiated successful contracts to form Radio-Keith-Orpheum, a film production and distribution company.

David Sarnoff was determined to lead his company in pioneering the medium and met with Westinghouse engineer Vladimir Zworykin in 1928.

Zworykin pitched the concept to David Sarnoff, claiming a viable television system could be realized in two years with a mere $100,000 investment.

David Sarnoff opted to fund Zworkyin's research, most likely well-aware that Zworykin was underestimating the scope of his television effort.

In 1929, David Sarnoff engineered the purchase of the Victor Talking Machine Company, the nation's largest manufacturer of records and phonographs, merging radio-phonograph production at Victor's large manufacturing facility in Camden, New Jersey.

David Sarnoff became president of RCA on January 3,1930, succeeding General James Harbord.

David Sarnoff negotiated an outcome where RCA was no longer partly owned by Westinghouse and General Electric, giving him final say in the company's affairs.

At the onset of World War II, David Sarnoff served on Eisenhower's communications staff, arranging expanded radio circuits for NBC to transmit news from the invasion of France in June 1944.

In France, David Sarnoff arranged for the restoration of the Radio France station in Paris that the Germans destroyed and oversaw the construction of a radio transmitter powerful enough to reach all of the allied forces in Europe, called Radio Free Europe.

In recognition of his achievements, David Sarnoff was decorated with the Legion of Merit on October 11,1944.

David Sarnoff anticipated that post-war America would need an international radio voice explaining its policies and positions.

CBS had their electro-mechanical color television system approved by the FCC on October 10,1950, but David Sarnoff filed an unsuccessful suit in the United States district court to suspend that ruling.

In 1959 David Sarnoff was a member of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund panel to report on US foreign policy.

David Sarnoff strongly advocated an aggressive, multi-faceted fight in the ideological and political realms with a determination to decisively win the Cold War.

David Sarnoff retired in 1970, at the age of 79, and died the following year, aged 80.

David Sarnoff is interred in a mausoleum featuring a stained-glass vacuum tube in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.

The majority of the estate went to his widow, Lizette Hermant David Sarnoff, who received $300,000, personal and household effects in addition to the David Sarnoff home, located on 44 East 71st Street.

On July 4,1917, David Sarnoff married Lizette Hermant, the daughter of a French-Jewish immigrant family who settled in the Bronx as one of his family's neighbors.

Eldest son Robert W Sarnoff succeeded his father at the helm of RCA in 1970.

David Sarnoff was initiated to the Scottish Rite Freemasonry in the Renovation Lodge No 97, Albion, NY.