Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

RADIO 'ROUND THE EARTH Future of Radio is Called "International" With New Markets in Prospect as People Throughout the World Seek to Gain the Benefits That Radio Spreads Across the Hemisphere. By Jay D. Cook Managing Director, International Department, RCA Victor Division THE Radio Corporation of Amer- ica is now, and always has been, internationally minded. The pres- ent-day scope and complexity of the international business of the RCA Victor Division derives from nearly half a century of diverse history, beginning as it does with the activi- ties of the old Victor Talking Ma- chine Company at the turn of the century. International radio communica- tion was the principal business of the Radio Corporation of America at the time of its formation in 1919. It was therefore natural that as its interest in product selling and merchandising developed, the Radio Corporation of America should promptly carry the promotion of each of its new businesses into the foreign markets. The contract which the Radio Corporation of America entered into with the Polish Government in 1923, under which the latter Gov- ernment purchased a 200 kw Alex- anderson alternator which was in- stalled by RCA at Warsaw, repre- sented the first important foreign sales transaction consummated' by the newly created American radio industry. That transaction pro- vided Poland with its first means of trans-oceanic communication and marked an era for the inter- national radio field. The develojMnent of relatively low-cost, long distance short-wave radio communication apparatus by UCA further stimulated the sale .•ibroad of radio communication ap- paratus. The first high power (20 i(ilowatt) short-wave communica- tion transmitter installation was shipped abroad by RCA to the Argentine in 1926; in 1927, a sim- ilar installation was shipped by RCA to Khabarosk, Siberia, and in 1929 a newly designed 20/40 kilo- watt transmitter was installed by RCA at Mukden, Manchuria. In 19.30, still another new field in radio communication was pioneered by RCA when it made the first ultra-high frequency radio commu- nication installation for the account of the Mutual Telephone Company in Hawaii to provide inter-island telephone communication. After the birth of the radio broadcast entertainment business in the United States the commer- cial development of this new indus- try was quickly carried to the in- ternational markets by RCA. In 1922, the first radio broadcast transmitter shipped abroad was in- stalled in P>uenos Aires by RCA and opened the market for the sale of broadcast receivers for home en- tertainment in Latin America. With the development of high power broadcast transmitters by RCA, the first 50-kilowatt radio broadcast transmitter was shipped by RCA to Italy in 1929. To the world-wide sale of radio communication apparatus, radio broadcast station equipment, and radio receivers for home entertain- ment, RCA added a new business when electronically reproduced sound was coupled with pictures in the cinema industry in 1927. In addition to the cultivation of this new business activity through its already established channels abroad, RCA set up subsidiary operations in England and Aus- tralia to specialize in this new industry. With the consolidation of the Victor Talking Machine Company and the Radio Corporation of America in 1929, RCA acquired a well established foreign distribu- tion organizatio::, experienced in the sale of specialty products. This distribution supplemented the elec- trical distribution channels upon which RCA had been previously dependent for the export sale of its radio broadcast receivers. Thus strengthened in its international merchandising activities, and for the first time possessed of complete control over its production facilities through the acquisition of the Vic- tor factories, both at home and abroad, the International Depart- ment of the RCA Victor Division was enabled to embark on a pro- gram of development of products especially designed for the needs of the export market. U'ith these factors in mind, RCA developed a line of export broad- cast receivers which proved very successful and enabled RCA to at- tain an outstanding position among American exporters of radio ap- MOBILE CI.NEMA UNIT EQUIPPED BY RCA RCA niOTOPHONE PTY., LTD. PARKED IN FRONT OF THE OFFICES OF . IN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA. [RADIO AGE 40]