for: RCA (trademark)

RCA Corporation, founded as Radio Corporation of America, was an electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. Today, the RCA trademark is owned by the French conglomerate Thomson SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Thomson. The trademark is used by two companies, namely Sony Music Entertainment and Thomson SA, which licences the name to other companies like Audiovox and TCL Corporation for products descended from that common ancestor.

Before RCA

On August 4, 1914, the United Kingdom & France declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary starting World War I. Radio traffic across the Atlantic Ocean swelled after the Germans cut Allied cable telegraphs.

During World War I the U.S. Navy suppressed patents of the major companies involved with radio in the United States to facilitate the war effort. All production of radio equipment was allocated for either the army or the navy. The U.S. Navy sought to maintain a government monopoly of wireless radio; however, the wartime command system over radio was to eventually end by the tabling of the maintenance of government control by the U.S. Congress in 1918. The rejection of government monopoly did not prevent the Navy from creating a national radio system. On April 8, 1919, U.S. Navy Captain Stanford C. Hooper and Admiral W. H. G. Bullard met with General Electric Company executives to ask that they not sell their Alexanderson alternators to the Marconi companies. The premise of the Navy's proposal was that if GE created an American owned radio company, then the Navy would secure a commercial monopoly of long-distance radio communication. This marked the beginning of negotiations by which GE would buy American Marconi, a foreign owned company, and organize what would become the Radio Corporation of America.Fact: date=January 2009

The incorporation of the assets of British-owned Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, the Pan-American Telegraph Company and those controlled by the United States Navy led to a new firm started by General Electric in 1919. The subsequent cooperation among RCA, General Electric, United Fruit, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, and AT&T laid the groundwork for significant developments in point-to-point and broadcast radio, including the new National Broadcasting Company, NBC. The U.S. Navy turned over to RCA the former American Marconi radio stations seized during the war. Admiral Bullard received a seat on the RCA Board of Directors for his efforts in establishing RCA. The end result was government-created monopolies in radio for GE and Westinghouse and in telephone for AT&T.Fact: date=January 2009

History of RCA

RCA was formed in 1919 as a publicly held company owned by General Electric, which had a controlling interest in the company. The Radio Corporation of America (1919-1986) was organized as an American monopoly of radio technology by General Electric Company. After World War I, the United States Navy encouraged GE to buy the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America from its parent company in England. Its assets included the country's only radio stations, hundreds of installations in ships, and incidentally, David Sarnoff.