Copyright 2020
Greenstone Media Consulting, LLC
American Broadcasting Company
                   Seattle - 1929


Network Radio in 1928
By the time he purchased NRS, Linden was
already thinking big -- envisioning a new radio
network based in Seattle. The existing networks
were all still new and the business seemingly
had nowhere to go but up.
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was
established late in 1926 but, even by 1928, it
wasn’t able to cover the entire nation. Network
stations were linked by leased telephone circuits
which had been built for AT&T’s voice telephone
network. While suitable for speech broadcasting,
they weren’t designed for music which
comprised a large portion of radio programming.
Converting circuits for music transmission was
a considerable undertaking and AT&T had
successfully developed those enhanced facilities
principally in the east and midwestern U.S. No
circuits were available all the way to
the west coast so network service
didn’t really exist in the Pacific and
Mountain states in 1928.
NBC was the more well-situated
network. Owned by the Radio Corporation of
America, it had access to capital
and a nationally significant
range of business
relationships. Yet, even NBC
was operating at a loss in
1928.
The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) had a
shaky start. Even when taken over by Paley, it
was still a network which covered even less of
the U.S. than NBC and lacked the financial
resources available to NBC. It took some years
for CBS to begin to operate profitably.
And both NBC (and its two networks, the Red and
the Blue) and CBS were headquartered in New
York.
Radio in the western U.S. had a somewhat
different character than the eastern radio
complex. With fewer stations who had to
develop without network programming, these
stations established local and regional impact
and traditions that were long-lived. And
westerners had long felt (and some still do) that
the eastern U.S. thinks of the western states as
“the provinces” so the idea of all networks being
run out of New York ran somewhat against the
grain of a visionary like Linden.
With the existing networks all based in New
York, Linden saw his enterprise as bringing a
unique perspective and one which would
resonate with the western U.S. radio stations
which, because the technology to link them to
the New York-based networks was slow to
evolve, largely lacked network affiliation.
Some smaller attempts to develop regional
western networks already existed, such as the
somewhat informal Triangle Network (which
linked KOMO/ Seattle, KGW/ Portland and
KHQ/Spokane. The most significant was the
regional NBC Orange Network, launched in 1927,
linking stations along the Pacific Coast. Don
Lee, the exclusive west coast distributor of
Cadillac automobiles, who had purchased San
Francisco’s KFRC in 1926 and Los Angeles’ KHJ
the following year, had also successfully linked
his two stations with telephone circuits. These
examples likely influenced Linden’s conclusion
that a western-based radio network was a
worthwhile venture.
By the time he purchased NRS, Linden was
already thinking big -- envisioning a new radio
network based in Seattle. The existing networks
were all still new and the business seemingly
had nowhere to go but up.
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was
established late in 1926 but, even by 1928, it
wasn’t able to cover the entire nation. Network
stations were linked by leased telephone circuits
which had been built for AT&T’s voice telephone
network. While suitable for speech broadcasting,
they weren’t designed for music which
comprised a large portion of radio programming.
Converting circuits for music transmission was
a considerable undertaking and AT&T had
successfully developed those enhanced facilities
principally in the east and midwestern U.S. No
circuits were available all the way to
the west coast so network service
didn’t really exist in the Pacific and
Mountain states in 1928.
NBC was the more well-situated
network. Owned by the Radio Corporation of
America, it had access to capital
and a nationally significant
range of business
relationships. Yet, even NBC
was operating at a loss in
1928.
The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) had a
shaky start. Even when taken over by Paley, it
was still a network which covered even less of
the U.S. than NBC and lacked the financial
resources available to NBC. It took some years
for CBS to begin to operate profitably.
And both NBC (and its two networks, the Red and
the Blue) and CBS were headquartered in New
York.
Radio in the western U.S. had a somewhat
different character than the eastern radio
complex. With fewer stations who had to
develop without network programming, these
stations established local and regional impact
and traditions that were long-lived. And
westerners had long felt (and some still do) that
the eastern U.S. thinks of the western states as
“the provinces” so the idea of all networks being
run out of New York ran somewhat against the
grain of a visionary like Linden.
With the existing networks all based in New
York, Linden saw his enterprise as bringing a
unique perspective and one which would
resonate with the western U.S. radio stations
which, because the technology to link them to
the New York-based networks was slow to
evolve, largely lacked network affiliation.
Some smaller attempts to develop regional
western networks already existed, such as the
somewhat informal Triangle Network (which
linked KOMO/ Seattle, KGW/ Portland and
KHQ/Spokane. The most significant was the
regional NBC Orange Network, launched in 1927,
linking stations along the Pacific Coast. Don
Lee, the exclusive west coast distributor of
Cadillac automobiles, who had purchased San
Francisco’s KFRC in 1926 and Los Angeles’ KHJ
the following year, had also successfully linked
his two stations with telephone circuits. These
examples likely influenced Linden’s conclusion
that a western-based radio network was a
worthwhile venture.