David Sarnoff

• Born: February 27, 1891
• Birthplace: Uzlyany, near Minsk, Russian Empire (now in Belarus)
• Died: December 12, 1971
• Place of death: New York, New York

Russian-born business executive

Sarnoff led Radio Corporation of America (RCA) to a dominating position in electronic manufacturing and radio and television broadcasting. His vision resulted in the acquisition of phonographic, motion-picture, and television resources, and he frequently outmaneuvered governmental and business opposition to the vast RCA complex.

Areas of achievement: Journalism; entertainment

Early Life

David Sarnoff (SAHR-nawf) was born in a poor village, the son of a house painter and paperhanger named Abraham Sarnoff and his wife, Leah Privin, whose father was an Orthodox rabbi. David Sarnoff had three brothers and a sister, all younger. His first language was Yiddish, but by the age of four he was reading scripture in Hebrew. Later he would study the Talmud in Aramaic. A slender but energetic boy, he was compelled to live a strenuous intellectual life, which left him no time for games as a child and encouraged him to develop few interests other than his work as an adult. His studies did not make him fervently religious, but they helped establish a moral sense that he claimed benefited him in his later life.

In 1895, Sarnoff’s father moved to New York City with the purpose of making enough money to establish a better life for his family; in 1900, he sent for them. Life in New York’s Lower East Side was utterly different from that in Sarnoff’s native village. Two months after arriving Sarnoff, having learned other languages, was quickly absorbing English in a language class for immigrants. He worked as a newsboy, he came to operate his own newsstand and employed other newsboys, and he sang in a neighboring synagogue for $1.50 a week.

At the age of fifteen, with his father bedridden by illness, Sarnoff left school and took a job delivering cablegrams in Manhattan for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America. In 1906, he met Guglielmo Marconi, who was famous for his work in wireless telegraphy. Sarnoff, who had at first hoped to become a journalist, made Marconi his hero. In 1908, Sarnoff became a telegraphic operator at the Marconi station on Nantucket and later at a station on the roof of Wanamaker’s department store in New York, where as manager he assisted in transmitting information about the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Throughout World War I he served as commercial manager for Marconi. On July 4, 1917, he married Lizette Hermant. The couple became the parents of three sons.

Life’s Work

The experiences of World War I convinced American naval officials that the Navy, not a foreign-owned business such as the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, should control telegraphic signals in the United States. In 1919, General Electric acquired the business, establishing it as the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), with Sarnoff remaining as manager under its chairman, Owen D. Young. As one of the few men at the time who realized that wireless telegraphy could be used to address a mass audience, Sarnoff arranged for the broadcast of the heavyweight boxing championship match between Jack Dempsey and George Carpentier in 1921. Heard by more than 300,000 people, the program made clear the potential popularity of radio in the American home.

Young made James G. Harbord, a well-connected general, president of RCA, and Sarnoff was named a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Signal Corps in 1924. This appointment would lead to promotion to brigadier general in the Army reserve in World War II. With this title and his commanding manner, Sarnoff eventually became known as “the General.”

A series of innovations in the late 1920’s earned him rapid advancement in the company. Sarnoff participated in the negotiations by RCA that launched the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 1926. Two years later he negotiated the creation of Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO), by which a number of theaters gained RCA sound for motion pictures, with the result that Sarnoff was made chairman of RKO. In 1928, Sarnoff proposed that RCA acquire the Victor Talking Machine Company, maker of phonograph records, and the following year the merger was completed. Early in 1930, he attained the position for which he is most famous: the leadership of NBC.

In two of the first three years of the Great Depression, RCA lost money, and the corporation also had to contend with a federal lawsuit charging restraint of trade. In effect, the government had granted the company a monopoly in the first place and then tried to revoke it. The struggle ended in 1932 with a dissolution of the ties among RCA, General Electric, and Westinghouse. In addition, in the 1930’s, the possibilities of television entranced RCA and also a young inventor from Utah named Philo T. Farnsworth, whose work challenged that of Vladimir K. Zworykin, Sarnoff’s man in charge of television operations at RCA. Sarnoff always sought control of competitors, but he had to arrange a cross-licensing pact with the independent Farnsworth.

In the late 1930’s, Sarnoff predicted that television would become the main source of entertainment and news. He enthusiastically battled the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission and rival businesses. However, RCA lost the battle for the system governing color to the rival Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). Another setback followed the inauguration of the first television network in 1939, when few people proved willing to buy expensive television sets with tiny screens to watch frequently imperfect presentations. Success did not come until after World War II.

Sarnoff reigned as RCA president until 1965, when his son, Robert, gained the post. Sarnoff remained as chairman of the board until December 31, 1969, when, with his health failing, he was replaced by his son. Sarnoff died of cardiac arrest in 1971.

Significance

The expansion of RCA and particularly of NBC, the first broadcasting network, reflects the commanding presence of Sarnoff. He was a pioneer in melding business management and technological advance: Sarnoff moved to associate radio, television, motion pictures, and phonographic recordings and to produce a media giant in a period of economic depression. His boldness sometimes proved excessive and increased the risk to capital, but overall his decisions brought prosperity to RCA and to its subdivisions. Sarnoff was an entrepreneurial pioneer who demonstrated pathways to impressive accomplishments that also raised perplexing questions about the conflicts between free enterprise and the need for regulation of big business. On rare occasions, he discussed his Jewish identity. Sarnoff valued the Jewish cultural tradition and believed that all Jews had the responsibility to counter anti-Semitism by leading responsible lives that would bring honor to Jews.

Bibliography

Bilby, Kenneth. The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. A life of the entrepreneur by a man who was associated with him for many years.

Lewis, Thomas S. W. Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. A blending of the careers of three radio pioneers, the technologically gifted Lee De Forest, inventor Edwin Armstrong, and Sarnoff.

Schwartz, Evan I. The Last Lone Inventor: A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. A business journalist establishes the case for Philo T. Farnsworth, rather than Vladimir Zworykin, Sarnoff’s engineer, as the true inventor of television.

Sobel, Robert. RCA. New York: Stein and Day, 1986. Although RCA is often considered the image of Sarnoff, Sobel uses many statistics to chart the company’s progress and analyzes Sarnoff’s weaknesses as well as his successes.

Stashower, Daniel. The Boy Genius and the Mogul: The Untold Story of Television. New York: Broadway Books, 2002. A more balanced account than Schwartz’s of the claims for the invention of television. Stashower argues that Sarnoff, having more resources, prevailed, thus obscuring Farnsworth’s claim for many years.