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overview
landmarks
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overview
This page deals with RKO and General Teleradio - former
film production, broadcasting and cable television groups
- and the Mutual Network.
It covers -
RKO
The Radio Keith Orpheum film group - more commonly known
as RKO and distinguished by its radio transmission tower
logo - integrated feature film production, distribution
and exhibition at the height of the 'studio system'.
RKO was formed in 1929 when RCA
merged its film interests with the Film Booking Office
(FBO) studio and KAO. It had acquired a stake in FBO in
1927, essentially to reinforce its position as a competitor
of Western electric in provision of recording equipment
for the new talkies.
FBO was controlled by speculator Joseph Kennedy (father
of the future US president), who had taken a stake in
the Keith-Albee-Orpheum (KAO) cinema chain that year.
Kennedy had previously gained control of Pathe-Exchange,
the distribution group that had spun off France's Pathe
and subsequently been driven by stockbroker Charles Merrill
(father of today's Merrill Lynch financial group).
Merrill and associates sold out of Pathe Exchange after
deciding that the cost of building or acquiring an exhibition
chain was too expensive. KAO dated from the beginning
of the century, bringing together theatres in vaudeville
circuits that had later become cinemas.
RKO absorbed Pathe Exchange in
1930 and became the distributor for Disney.
It enjoyed some success during the thirties and early
forties: highlights included King Kong and Flying
Down To Rio (1933), Bringing Up Baby (1938),The
Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and Citizen Kane
(1941). In 1948, amid jitters about dismantling of the
studio system (in particular the Paramount Consent Decree
highlighted elsewhere on this site) and demands for investment
in television, RCA sold a controlling stake to Howard
Hughes (1905-1976).
Hughes exited in 1955, splitting RKO into RKO Pictures
(a production and operation operation) and RKO Theaters
(real estate and cinema operations). RKO Pictures was
sold to General Teleradio, an arm of conglomerate General
Tire & Rubber, for US$25 million.
General Tire & Rubber
In 1959 it was rebadged as RKO General Inc, exploiting
its film library (with many features ultimately acquired
by Ted Turner) and selling its
studios to Desilu Productions.
General Tire & Rubber moved on to expand into the
emerging cable television industry.
studies
The major history of RCA is Robert Sobel's RCA
(New York: Stein & Day 1986). Benjamin Aldridge's
The Victor Talking Machine Co (New York 1964) offers
a view of RCA's roots. Context is provided by The
Global Jukebox: The International Music Industry
(London: Routledge 1996) by Robert Burnett, An International
History of the Recording Industry (London: Cassell
1998) by Pekka Gronow & Ilpo Saunio and Timothy Day's
A Century of Recorded Music: Listening to Musical
History (New Haven: Yale Uni Press 2000). Margaret
Graham's RCA & the Videodisc (Cambridge: Cambridge
Uni Press 1986) considers why RCA dropped the ball, influencing
Sony's decision to create both
content and hardware.
RKO features in Douglas Gomery's superb The Hollywood
Studio System (New York: St Martins 1986), and Thomas
Schatz' The Genius of the System (New York: Simon
& Schuster 1988). There's more specific treatment
in The RKO Story (New York: Arlington House 1982)
by Richard Jewell & Vernon Harbin.
Context
is provided by Donald Crafton's The Talkies: American
Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926-1931 (New York:
Scribner's 1997) and Scott Eyman's The Speed of Sound:
Hollywood & the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930 (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Uni Press 1997).
For
perspectives on finance and regulation see in particular
Movies & Money: Financing the American Film Industry
(Norwood: Ablex 1982) by Janet Wasko and Michael
Conant's Antitrust in the Motion Picture Industry:
Economic & Legal Analysis (Berkeley: Uni of California
Press 1960). The 1940s crisis and beyond is explored in
Hollywood in the Age of Television (Boston:
Unwin Hyman 1990) edited by Tino Balio and
Janet Wasko's concise Hollywood in the Information
Age: Beyond the Silver Screen (Oxford: Polity Press
1994).
 next
page (RKO landmarks)
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