November 29, 1929…The NBC Chimes Sound For The First Time

November 29, 1929…The NBC Chimes Sound For The First Time

In July of 1921, RCA bought WJZ from Westinghouse, and five years later, in July of 1926, they bought WEAF from AT&T. The National Broadcasting Company was incorporated by RCA on September 8, 1926, and two months later, on November 15, the NBC Radio Network debuted.

The demand for a network service among local stations was mounting so rapidly, that less than two months after its first national broadcast, NBC split its programming into two separate networks…the Red (WEAF) and the Blue (WJZ) networks, to give listeners a choice of different program formats. That happened on January 1, 1927.

In those early days, at the end of a programs, the NBC announcer would read the call letters of all the NBC stations carrying the program. As the network added more stations this became impractical and would cause some confusion among the affiliates as to the conclusion of network programming and when the station break should occur on the hour and half-hour.

Some sort of coordinating signal was needed to signal the affiliates for these breaks and allow each affiliate to identify. Three men at NBC were given the task of finding a solution to the problem and coming up with such a coordinating signal. These men were; Oscar (O.B.) Hanson, from NBC engineering, Earnest LaPrada, an NBC orchestra leader, and Phillips Carlin, an NBC announcer.

During the years 1927 and 1928 these men experimented with a seven note sequence of chimes, G-C-G-E-G-C-E, which proved too complicated for the announcers to consistently strike in the correct order. Sometime later they came up with the three note G-E-C combination.

These three notes were first broadcast on NBC November 29, 1929 and were struck at 59 minutes 30 seconds, and 29 minutes 30 seconds past the hour. Now, the NBC audio logo is the most famous commercial sound in the world. -Bobby Ellerbee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnWfNZc0EtY

Degan “Studio” Chimes. Recorded through a RCA 4AA condenser microphone of the same vintage, circa 1931. The chimes were brought up to their original quality …

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