The NBC chimes of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) radio network in the United States was the first ever audio trademark to be accepted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The 3 notes of the chimes are G, E, and C, in that order. Beginning in 1931, the early version was actually a communications signal to the various stations and links in the network from NBC headquarters in New York City.
History
The famous 3-note chimes of NBC came about after several years of trying different musical note combinations. They were first broadcast over NBC's Red and Blue networks on Nov. 29, 1929. However, there are disagreements about the original source. One possibility is that they came from WSB in Atlanta which used it for its own purposes until one day someone at NBC headquarters in New York City heard the WSB version of the notes during a networked broadcast of a Georgia Tech football game and asked permission to use it on the national network. NBC started to use the 3 notes in 1931.
The NBC chimes were mechanized in 1932 with a unit invented by Richard H. Ranger, a former Radio Corporation of America (RCA) enginer who also invented an early form of the modern FAX machine. The NBC chime machine generated the notes by means of finely tuned metal reeds that were plucked by fingers on a revolving drum, much like a music box.
The purpose of the chimes was to send a low level signal of constant amplitude that would be heard by the various switching stations manned by NBC and AT&T engineers, and thus used as a system cue for switching different stations between the NBC Red network and NBC Blue network feeds. Because of fears of offending commercial sponsors by cutting their programs off in mid-sentence, the mechanized chimes were always rung by an announcer pushing a button; they were never set to an automatic timer, although heavy discussions on the subject were held between the Engineering and Programming departments throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
In 1950, NBC filed with the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office to make the chimes a registered service mark, the first such audible service mark to be filed with that office. It was given serial number 72-349496.
The use as a communications signal ended around 1971. However, in 1976, they were revived in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the network. Modern musical versions of the 3 tone chimes are still in popular use on NBC radio and television networks.
Trivia
- An alternate jingle was also used that went E-G-C-C, known as "the fourth chime" and used during wartime (especially in the wake of the Pearl Harbor bombing) and other disasters.
- Despite an urban legend, the three note combination of G-E-C was not related at all to RCA's original stockholder, the General Electric Company.
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