Talk:NBC chimes

NBC chimes
Recently updated with paragraphs about the purpose of a network station ID signal. 3-23-06 Schweiwikist 20:03, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

In general I think this rewrite/addition is very well done. The other purpose of the chimes was a switching signal cue, so that NBC and AT&T engineers in charge of routing programs to affiliates would know when to rearrange the feeds so that the affiliates were receiving the correct feed - East Coast Red, East Coast Blue, West Coast Red, West Coast Blue, plus subfeeds in the case where a sponsor wanted to promote one product in the North and a different product in the South. It's not something that is easily condensed as elegantly as Schweiwikist has treated the local station ID announcements.

Now if we could just get rid of that WSB chimes myth! WSB was using chimes for at least two years before NBC was formed, but the idea that NBC got the idea from hearing a Georgia Tech football game being fed to the network via WSB is absurd. Georgia Tech had their own radio station, WGST, which was every bit as powerful as WSB and they were great rivals - WSB would not be promoting their competition by broadcasting their football games.

Shoshani 11:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Blurb for Did You Know section
Did You Know

...NBC chimes of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) radio network in the United States was actually a communications signal beginning in 1931 to the various stations and links in the network from NBC headquarters in New York City?

Actually it was a fourth chime (a repeat of the C note) added to the G-E-C tones that was used as a signal to alert certain NBC personell and it was first initiated on April 16, 1933.

Nightly News theme
"(and are the opening and closing notes of the current edition of the NBC Nightly News theme song),"

I believe that's actually the Dateline theme that does that, isn't it? (I have it somewhere, but can't get to it, and can't really trust the credit anyway...) --Baylink 05:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

source?
I read an external webpage link that says that the G-E-C stands for the General Electric Corporation yet this page clearly says this is an urban legend. What source was used for knowing this to be untrue? If important enough to be an urban legend, perhaps it's important enough to warrant a simple source footnote. Just my 2 cents.

in 1938, NBC engineer Morris made a trip to various European countries to observe the progress

of television in Europe. D. C. Brinkenshaw of the BBC commented how he liked to listen to the

States over short wave from the General Electric station at Schenectady N.Y. Mr. Morris states;

"He thought it most ingenious of them to use an aurally coded identification for the G. E. stations by

using chimes with the notes G-E-C for General Electric Company. I tried to persuade him that the chime

signal came from NBC and had nothing to do with General Electric. I'm not sure he really believed it." From the History of NBC Chimes website: http://wwwradioremembered.org/chimes.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chimes39 (talk • contribs) 05:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The article says that the NBC chimes cannot be associated with General Electric Corporation because GE did not own NBC (through RCA) until 1986. However, the Wikipedia article on NBC says that GE had previously owned RCA until 1930, when it was forced to divest it due to antitrust charges. I remember this being mentioned during the 1986 GE purchase of NBC. Hank Gillette (talk) 18:56, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I flagged the statement as unsourced because no source is given; when I tried to find a source, I found web pages that themselves had no source or seemed to be quoting this article. The history of NBC, RCA, and GE have been intertwined from the start, but I have no reason to believe that a desire to honor GE is the source of the notes. (Why then not just GE? Granted that would not sound as nice!) However, asserting in the article that they are not derived from G-E-C raises a question for the reader that is not answered with a source. Why not leave the statement out, rather than make a judgement pro or con in the absence of a source? Jim (talk) 05:25, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

GE and NBC were not intertwined when these notes were selected. Furthermore the original notes were different, and the second set was in another key. Anyone with access to an actually library can find a book that mentions this if they research the patent history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.142.99.18 (talk) 10:03, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I found a podcast from 99 percent invisible where they interviewed one of the last people to play the sound of the radio, and they covered this exact topic. I added the source. penne12 (talk) 20:51, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Fourth Chime - problem in text
''However, according to a handwritten note on an 1964 NBC internal memo on the history and usage of the standard chime, this chime variant was used one final time in 1985 to symbolize the merger with RCA. ''

Unless that memo was written by Nostradamus, this section needs repaired. Lambertman 23:30, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

 Schweiwikist    (talk)   12:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The handwritten note was added to the memo, which presumably was typed in 1964. Sorry for the lack of clarity. This info is from the radioremembered.org website.

That is correct, it was added at a later date than when the memo was issued. I have a copy of the memo and am the author of the History of the NBC Chimes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.112.138.106 (talk) 21:28, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Fourth Chime
This article says GECC, the NBC article says GECG. Never having heard it, which is correct? -- 22:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Did the composer Sir Alfonso D'Artega compose or arrange the NBC chimes theme?
This NBC chimes article seems inconsistent with the statement in the Alfonso D'Artega article that "He is perhaps most easily recognizable as being the arranger of "The NBC Chimes Theme" ". What was D'Artega's role? He isn't mentioned at all in the chimes article.ChoppityChop 02:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)