Comments on: RCA Ad: Freedom to LISTEN – Freedom to LOOK (Jan, 1948)

By: Blurgle

Blurgle — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:05:51 +0000

Well, to be fair, the cost of a television set in the 1950s was only a little less than the cost of a new car. If you could sell iPods for $10,000, you could give away music too.

Although they never gave away music – the cost of a single in 2007 is about the same as a cost of a single record in 1964 – about a dollar.

By: Rick Auricchio

Rick Auricchio — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 03:19:55 +0000

Here’s a great example of why the record labels are so dumb today. They complain that Apple makes money selling iPods, and they’re the patsies who simply provide songs.

What they don’t remember is that recordings were made to SELL RECORD PLAYERS. But they got out of the hardware business decades ago, and now they forget that was where the money was.

Thomas Edison began making films to sell his movie projectors to theatres. He made musical recordings to sell his cylinder players.

By: Snud

Snud — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:26:24 +0000

And most important of all, the freedom to be crushed by Sarnoff’s lawyers if you hold patents that take away from RCA’s complete domination of radio and television technologies, a la Edwin Armstrong (inventor of FM radio) and Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of electronic television).

By: Blurgle

Blurgle — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 16:50:21 +0000

The ad is trying to portray television and radio ownership as a patriotic act. It’s written almost as if it were a public service announcement, but obviously RCA, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of TVs and radios, had a huge interest in increasing radio and TV ownership.

I keep wondering, though, if RCA was also implying that not listening and looking was somewhat suspect, or if a reader in the age of McCarthy and Red scares could come to this conclusion.

By: kenji

kenji — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 13:46:35 +0000

sorry, but what’s the point of this ad? TV should be part of the RCA so RCA can ensure TV can have freedom of speech?