The NBC chimes of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) radio network in the United States was/were the first ever audio trademark (and the first service mark of any kind, in as much as it denotes a non-tangible form of commerce) to be accepted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. It consists of a succession of three distinct pitches: G3, E4, and C4 (middle C), sounded in that order, creating an arpeggiated first-inversion C-major chord in the second inversion, within about two seconds time, and reverberating for another two or three seconds. The National Broadcasting Company or NBC is an American television broadcasting company based in New York Citys Rockefeller Center. ... A radio network is a network system which distributes programming to multiple stations simultaneously, or slightly delayed, for the purpose of extending total coverage beyond the limits of a single broadcast signal. ... A trademark, trade mark, ™ or ®[1] is a distinctive sign of some kind which is used by a business to uniquely identify itself and its products and services to consumers, and to distinguish the business and its products or services from those of other businesses. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Trademark. ... The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO or USPTO) is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that provides patent and trademark protection to inventors and businesses for their inventions and corporate and product identification. ...

An elegant solution: the station break

The chimes were originally conceived to help solve a problem inherent in early network radio broadcasting, the vast majority of which was live, rather than pre-recorded. At the top of each hour, any individual broadcaster (on radio, TV or other broadcast band) must identify themselves by callsign and the name of the community where its broadcast license has been issued, in compliance with FCC regulations. For example: "This is WNBC TV, New York." Therefore it might seem efficient for a small radio network (three to seven stations, for instance) to accomplish this chore by having a single announcer "on the network", whose voice is transmitted to all the local stations, read the short list of local callsigns and corresponding communities for about ten seconds each hour, during an extended broadcast period. However, this practice becomes quite inefficient as a network grows, consuming valuable commercial airtime [1]. Hence it was determined in early big-network radio days that this job, among others, had to be done locally, on a pre-determined cue from the network itself. The broadcast band is actually several chunks of the radio spectrum. ... Station identification is the practice of any type of radio station identifying itself, typically with a callsign. ... In broadcasting and radio communication, a callsign or call sign (also call letters) is a unique designation for a transmitting station. ... The United States government requires users of radio spectrum to obtain a broadcast license to use the airwaves, except for low-powered transmitters like CBs and Walkie Talkies. ... The abbreviation FCC can refer to: Face-centered cubic (usually fcc), a crystallographic structure Federal Communications Commission, a US government organization Farm Credit Corporation/Farm Credit Canada, a Canadian government organization Families with Children from China, an adoption support organization Florida Christian College, a college in central Florida Fresno City... WNBC, channel 4, is the flagship station of the NBC television network. ... Official language(s) English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  Ranked 27th  - Total 54,520 sq mi (141,205 km²)  - Width 285 miles (455 km)  - Length 330 miles (530 km)  - % water 13. ... A radio network is a network system which distributes programming to multiple stations simultaneously, or slightly delayed, for the purpose of extending total coverage beyond the limits of a single broadcast signal. ...

The simplest way to accomplish this is with a spoken announcement (sometimes called an outcue), and its special format has a familiar ring. For instance: "We pause now for ten seconds for station identification: this is the NBC Television Network". This phrasing alerts a local announcer to put him/herself on the air and formally identify the local station. The Today Show, broadcast for several hours live every weekday on NBC, uses a special spoken outcue for station breaks: "This is Today on NBC." Indeed, as a public relations technique, this task is often offered to a member of the live audience assembled in Rockefeller Plaza outside the Today studio. For the network pioneers at NBC in the late 1920s, a more simple, elegant and consistent solution than an announcer's voice, with its individual distinctiveness, was sought. Essentially, NBC wished to brand itself in sound, a sound that any listener would immediately recognize. Station identification is the practice of any type of radio station identifying itself, typically with a callsign. ... Today, commonly referred to as The Today Show to avoid ambiguity, is an American morning news and talk show airing weekday mornings on the NBC television network. ... Lower Plaza at Rockefeller Center. ...

History

The chimes came to their familiar configuration and sound after several years of on-air development. They were first broadcast over NBC's Red and Blue networks on November 29, 1929. However, there are disagreements about the original source of the idea. One possibility is that they came from WSB in Atlanta which used it for its own purposes until one day someone at NBC headquarters in New York City heard the WSB version of the notes during a networked broadcast of a Georgia Tech football game and asked permission to use it on the national network. NBC started to use the three notes in 1931. November 29 is the 333rd (in leap years the 334th) day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... WSB is a three-letter abbreviation with multiple meanings, as described below: The callsign of three broadcast stations in Atlanta: WSB AM, 750kHz WSB-TV, 2, DTV 39 WSB-FM, 98. ... Nickname: Hotlanta, The Big Peach, The ATL, A-Town Location in Fulton County in the state of Georgia Coordinates: Country United States State Georgia Counties Fulton, Dekalb Mayor Shirley Franklin (D) Area    - City 343. ... Nickname: Big Apple, City that never Sleeps Location in the state of New York Coordinates: Country United States State New York Boroughs Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Area    - City 1,214. ... The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is a public, coeducational university located in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and part of the University System of Georgia. ... United States simply as football, is a competitive team sport that is both fast-paced and strategic. ...

The NBC chimes were mechanized in 1932 with a unit invented by Richard H. Ranger, a former Radio Corporation of America (RCA) engineer who also invented an early form of the modern FAX machine. The NBC chime machine generated the notes by means of finely tuned metal reeds that were plucked by fingers on a revolving drum, much like a music box. Richard Howland Ranger (1899-1961) was an American electrical engineer and inventor. ... RCA, formerly an initialism for the Radio Corporation of America, is now a trademark used by two companies for products descended from that common ancestor: Thomson Consumer Electronics, which manufactures RCA-branded televisions, DVD players, video cassette recorders, direct broadcast satellite decoders, camcorders, audio equipment, telephones, and related accessories; and... A Samsung fax machine. ... The NBC chime machine was invented in 1932 by Richard H. Ranger. ... A musical box (or music box) is a 19th century automatic musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to strike the tuned teeth of a steel comb. ...

The technical purpose of the mechanical chimes was to send a low level audio signal of constant amplitude that would be heard by the various switching stations manned by NBC and AT&T engineers, but not disturb the listening audience. This would serve as the system cue for switching the myriad local stations between the NBC Red network and NBC Blue network feeds as scheduled, as well as signalling the pause for local station identification immediately thereafter. In essence, it was the audio equivalent of a traffic signal. Because of fears of offending commercial sponsors by cutting their live network programs off in mid-sentence, the mechanized chimes were always rung by an announcer pushing a button in conjunction with the program’s conclusion; they were never set to an automatic timer, although heavy discussions on the subject were held between the Engineering and Programming departments throughout the 1930s and 1940s. AT&T Inc. ...

On November 20 1947, NBC filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to make the chimes a registered service mark for identification of radio broadcasting services, the first such audible service mark to be filed with that office. Registration was granted on April 4, 1950; the registration number was 0523616, serial number 71541873. This registration expired on November 3, 1992, as NBC Radio became part of broadcasting history. However a separate service mark registration was made in 1971 for identification of television broadcasting services (serial 72349496, registration 0916522) and this is still active. April 4 is the 94th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (95th in leap years). ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

The chimes go modern

Their use as a formal network communications signal ended around 1971, the result of automation. Television flagship WNBC in New York kept the sound of the chimes alive, though. In 1974, it incorporated the sequence into the opening of its synthesized theme music for NewsCenter 4 (sharpening the pitch by a half-note). The stinger was heard at the opens to the newscasts' 5, 6 and 11 p.m. hours. Eventually, NBC Radio adopted WNBC-TV's NewsCenter 4 stinger as its top-of-the-hour news sounder. With alterations (and a brief interruption in the early 1990s), WNBC has used a form of the chimes on its newscasts ever since. WNBC, channel 4, is the flagship station of the NBC television network. ...

In 1976, the chimes were revived nationally in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the network. Modern musical versions of the three-note chimes are still in popular use on the NBC radio and television networks (and are the opening and closing notes of the current edition of the NBC Nightly News theme song), as well as in the closing logo of NBC Universal Television Studio, the TV production arm of NBC's current immediate parent, NBC Universal. NBC Nightly News is the flagship evening news program for NBC News and broadcasts from Studio 3C at the GE Building, Rockefeller Center in New York City. ... A closing logo is the logo that people see at the beginning of movies and at the end of television shows, like MGMs Leo the lion, Paramounts mountain scenery, and Columbias Torch Lady. ... NBC Universal Television Studio is the sister television arm of NBC Universal, formerly known in other incarnations as Revue Studios, and Universal Television. ... NBC Universal is a media and entertainment conglomerate formed in May 2004 by the combination of General Electrics NBC with Vivendi Universal Entertainment, part of Vivendi Universal. ...

From 1982 to the early 1990s, most NBC voiceover promos at the end of network shows would begin with the chimes. From 1982 to 1987, the chimes would blend into an instrumental version of the promo slogan that NBC would be using at the time.

The Today Show made the chimes the centerpiece of its theme in 1980, resolving a legal dispute between the network and the composers of the musical Godspell. The musical composers felt that the Ray Ellis-penned closing theme Today used since 1972 (which was also the show's opening theme since 1976) was lifted from the classic Godspell song "Day by Day." Using the chimes as his template, Ellis composed a new theme song, which stuck. Today, commonly referred to as The Today Show to avoid ambiguity, is an American morning news and talk show airing weekday mornings on the NBC television network. ... Godspell album cover (1971 Original Off-Broadway Cast) Godspell is a musical based on the Gospel of Saint Matthew with music and new lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by John-Michael Tebelak. ... Ray Ellis is a music producer, arranger and conductor. ...

Although Today has used a segment from John Williams' NBC News music package The Mission since 1985, Ellis's revised composition has been used on and off during portions of Today ever since. John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is one of the most widely recognized composers of film scores. ... The Mission can refer to: The Mission, a 1986 film starring Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons The Mission, the soundtrack from the movie of the same name The Mission (Cheung fo), a 1999 film directed by Johnny To The Mission (US band), an American spiritual music band The Mission...

The chimes in news music

Many composers have used the NBC chimes as their signature for their news packages, many of which were made exclusively for NBC stations. A few examples include:

• The Rock by Stephen Arnold
• The Tower by 615 Music
• The NBC Collection by Frank Gari

The Rock has several meanings: // People The Rock - the stage name of the American film actor and former professional wrestler, Dwayne Johnson. ... The Tower was a book of poems by William Butler Yeats, published in 1928. ... The NBC Collection is a television news music collection consisting of six different news theme packages, composed by musician Frank Gari. ... Frank Gari (born in New York City on April 1, 1942) is a popular singer and songwriter from the late 1950s and early 1960s. ...

The "Fourth Chime"

A variant sequence was also used that went G-E-C-C, and was known as "the fourth chime". According to an NBC Interdepartment Correspondence memo, dated April 7, 1933 documents the conception and initial purpose of the fourth chime. The memo states, "In anticipation of the Spring and Summer months, when many in key positions will not always be available at home telephones, the following Emergency Call System will go into effect on Monday morning, April 16th." The memo goes on to say that whenever a fourth tone is heard on the network chimes rung at fifteen minute intervals, it will indicate that someone on an attached list is wanted. Upon hearing this fourth chime, all personnel on the list are instructed to call in to the PBX operator to ascertain whether or not the Emergency Call is for them. The chime would continue at fifteen minute intervals over stations WEAF and WJZ until the wanted person communicated with the PBX operator. The list contained the names of the following NBC exectives: Sportsradio 66 WFAN AM 660 kHz, often referred to as The FAN, is a radio station in New York City. ... WJZ could refer to: WJZ-TV, a television station broadcasting on analog channel 13 / digital 38 in the Baltimore, Maryland area of the United States. ...

• John F. Royal
• John W. Elwood
• Frank Mason
• J de Jara Almonte

The list also included names of personnel from Engineering, Press, Programming, Traffic, and Service departments.

The "fourth chime" was also used to notify affiliates and their employees of pending urgent programming. This variant saw such use during wartime (especially in the wake of the Pearl Harbor bombing) and other disasters, most notably the destruction of The Hindenburg in 1937. According to NBC historians, the last official use of the "fourth chime" was in 1945, shortly after the end of World War II. However, according to a handwritten note appended to an NBC internal memo originally dated 1964 on the history and usage of the standard chime, this chime variant was used one final time in 1985 to symbolize the merger with GE. At the same time, no recording of this use has been discovered by researchers, and those working for NBC affiliates at the time have no recollection of the event. Satellite image of Pearl Harbor. ... On May 6, 1937 at 19:25, the German zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was utterly destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock with its mooring mast at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... NBC (an abbreviation for National Broadcasting Company, its former corporate name) is an American television network based in New York Citys Rockefeller Center and is shown on basic cable in Canada. ... 1945 (MCMVL) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... Combatants Major Allied powers: United Kingdom Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Major Axis powers: Nazi Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Harry Truman Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead... 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar). ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Ge may refer to: Gê, a group of indigenous Brazilian tribes and their Ge languages Ge (Cyrillic) (Г, г), a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet Ge with upturn (Ґ, ґ), a letter of the Ukrainian alphabet Nikolai Ge, a Russian painter Dagger-axe, an ancient Chinese weapon G.E. may stand for: Germanium, a... NBC (an abbreviation for National Broadcasting Company, its former corporate name) is an American television network based in New York Citys Rockefeller Center and is shown on basic cable in Canada. ...

Trivia

• MSNBC, the cable news counterpart of NBC and MSN, uses a five-chime sequence during bumper logo title cards between shows, with the G-E-C notes the final three.

• G-E-C are also the initials of the General Electric Company, who run NBC.
  • Despite an urban legend, the three note combination of G-E-C was not related at all to RCA's original stockholder (which became NBC's parent after it bought RCA in 1986 and is still its ultimate parent), the General Electric Company.

• Trains on Toronto's subway system also play the G-E-C chimes when their doors close. However, the G in this case is an octave higher than in the NBC chimes. The Toronto Transit Commission has its version of the chimes on its website.

• A theme by Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884) begins with the identical sequence of pitches, albeit 2 octaves higher.[2]

• The G-E-C theme also appears in the score of a fictional violin concerto within the postmodern novel Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto by Joshua Cohen. In that passage (abridged here) the narrator is arguing with the composer:

and if you want to know how the next movement begins, how the 2nd movement and the last last movement of Schneidermann’s last masterpiece if only, his 1st and only Violin Concerto that won’t ever begin again, how it begins, then I’ll tell you: it’s with three notes, MSNBC, a combination of Microsoft and NBC, is a 24-hour cable news channel in the United States and Canada, and a news Website. ... For other uses, see MSN (disambiguation). ... The General Electric Company, or GE, (NYSE: GE) is a multinational technology and services company. ... Urban legends are a kind of modern folklore consisting of stories often thought to be factual by those circulating them (see rumor). ... A subway train pulls into St. ... The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is a public transport authority that operates buses, streetcars, subways, and rapid transit lines in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ... Bedrich Smetanas statue in Plzen Smetana monument in LitomyÅ¡l BedÅ™ich Smetana listen â–¶(?) (March 2, 1824 LitomyÅ¡l, Bohemia,Czech Republic, (then Austria-Hungary) - May 12, 1884 Prague) was a Czech composer, whose best-known composition is the symphonic poem Vltava (The Moldau), second of a cycle of... Postmodernity (also called post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is a term used by philosophers, social scientists, art critics and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary art, culture, economics and social conditions that are the result of the unique features of late 20th century and early 21st century... Joshua Cohen, born in 1980 in Southern New Jersey, is a novelist and writer of short stories. ...

dumb dumb dumb if you’ll excuse my lip-numb humming,

numb numb numb I sing it to the stone eye of my Grand teevee screen at night, these three pitches sung high and sweet into the whirring hum of the mute, indeed these three notes they limn a major triad to begin the last and ultimate movement of this major non-tonal (not to misuse atonal) work: the notes being G,

E a sixth up and a

C to resolve it in the middle: an arpeggiated C major chord in second inversion if you want, if theory’s your brand of banality, if we have any Schenkerians out there in the audience tonight and all sounded on the oboe,

not on the xylophone like the NBC theme you didn’t say — indeed it is the NBC theme as I told Schneidermann, they’re the same notes to which Schneidermann he replied in that mafioso picked-up-at-the-movies American idiom he often sought refuge in only when he was angry, with me, Schneidermann he replied:

I don’t know no MBC (Schneidermann he was always half decorous, Old World European and half from-the-matinee-movies and so you never knew, what was irony or just senile strangeness, or what just wasn’t at all).

You can’t use that I said to him in the aquarium. Everyone knows that it echoed. An icthus agreed. It’s the old NBC sign-on/off theme, I said though they don’t do much signing either way anymore.

Schneidermann to me: but that’s a triad, a major triad, in 2nd inversion, fifth, third, tonic. Any Bach used it more times than you’ve breathed.[...]

That music is the music of an American business! A band of lawyers will set up camp in your hair!

Schneidermann to me: I’m bald and it’s music. It’s music’s.

But it’s so identifiable, artistically you can’t use it! as an aesthetic decision it’s indefensible! It’s even in the same key, octave, everything. N. — I sang (emphysemically aped) — B. C. Jesus God they’ll bankrupt you!

Schneidermann to me: I’m already bankrupt.

External links

• The NBC Chimes Museum
• History of the NBC Chimes
• History of the NBC chimes
• Detail on the Fourth Chime
• NBC chimes sound files
• NBC chimes machine
• NBC TV chimes
• Timeline of WNBC radio
• NBC Chimes article (1979)
• Web article on audio branding (2004)