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Revision as of 09:04, 7 August 2023
Background
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial terrestrial radio and television network owned by NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York, with additional major offices near Los Angeles (at 10 Universal City Plaza), Chicago (at the NBC Tower), and Philadelphia (at the Comcast Technology Center). NBC is one of the Big Three television networks, and is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network", in reference to its stylized peacock logo, introduced in 1956 to promote the company's innovations in early colour broadcasting; it became the network's official emblem in 1979.
Founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), NBC is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States. At that time, the parent company of RCA was General Electric (GE). In 1932, GE was forced to sell RCA and NBC as a result of antitrust charges. In 1952, NBC Films (also known as "NBC Enterprises, Inc.", who would later reform in late 1970s) was founded. It was the production/distribution arm of the NBC Television Network for NBC off-network programs originally formed in 1952. In 1973, NBC later spun-off NBC Films and later sold it including the library to National Telefilm Associates because it was against the FCC regulations for a television network to distribute its programs under its own name. As of now, most of the library is currently handled by Paramount, through CBS Media Ventures and Spelling Television, except several episodes of You Bet Your Life by Buddy Hackett and non-public domain episodes by Groucho Marx are retained by NBCUniversal. Many others have fallen in the public domain.
In 1986, control of NBC passed back to General Electric (GE) through its $6.4 billion purchase of RCA. GE immediately began to liquidate RCA's various divisions, but retained NBC. After the acquisition by GE, Bob Wright became chief executive officer of NBC; he would remain in that position until his retirement in 2007, when he was succeeded by Jeff Zucker. In 2004, French media company Vivendi merged its entertainment assets with GE, forming NBC Universal. Comcast purchased a controlling interest in the company in 2011, and acquired General Electric's remaining stake in 2013. Following the Comcast merger, Zucker left NBCUniversal and was replaced as CEO by Comcast executive Steve Burke.
NBC has thirteen owned-and-operated stations and nearly 200 affiliates throughout the United States and its territories, some of which are also available in Canada and/or Mexico via pay-television providers or in border areas over-the-air.
The international rights to NBC's pre-2004 in-house television library (except programs that were produced by Revue Studios/Universal Television or its successors that the network ordered prior to the NBCU merger) are currently held by MGM Television on behalf of NBCUniversal while NBCU (through NBCUniversal Television Distribution) holds the domestic distribution rights to both the (post-1973 library) NBC in-house catalogue and shows produced by Universal Television that the network ordered prior to the NBCU merger.
