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Zenith Electronics
Zenith Electronics, LLC is an American research and
development company that develops ATSC and digital rights Zenith Electronics, LLC
management technologies. It is owned by the South Korean
company LG Electronics. Zenith was previously an American
brand of consumer electronics, a manufacturer of radio and
television receivers and other consumer electronics, and was Type Private (LLC)
headquartered in Glenview, Illinois. After a series of layoffs, the Industry Technology,
consolidated headquarters moved to Lincolnshire, Illinois. For technology
many years, their famous slogan was "The quality goes in before licensing
the name goes on" (this slogan was borrowed from the Crown 1918 (as Chicago
Founded
Piano made by Geo. P Bent of Chicago).[2] LG Electronics Radio Labs)
acquired a controlling share of Zenith in 1995; Zenith became a Chicago, Illinois,
wholly owned subsidiary in 1999. Zenith was the inventor of U.S.
subscription television and the modern remote control, and the
first to develop High-definition television (HDTV) in North Founders Ralph Matthews
Karl Hassel
America.[3]
Eugene F.
Zenith-branded products were sold in North America, Germany, McDonald
Thailand (to 1983), Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, India, and Headquarters Lincolnshire,
Myanmar. Illinois, U.S.
Key people David Penski, CEO
Services Research and
Contents development
(ATSC and digital
History rights management
Famous products technologies),
Shortwave radio technology
Subscription television licensing
Remote controls Revenue US$444.7 million
Space phone (1999)

Zoom Number of 976[1]

employees
The porthole television
Parent LG Electronics
Hand wired chassis
Teletext Website Zenith Electronics
(http://www.zenith.c
See also om/)
References
External links

History
The company was co-founded by Ralph Matthews and Karl Hassel[4] in Chicago, Illinois, as Chicago
Radio Labs[5] in 1918 as a small producer of amateur radio equipment. The name "Zenith" came from
ZN'th, a contraction of its founders' ham radio call sign, 9ZN. They were joined in 1921 by Eugene F.
McDonald,[5] and Zenith Radio Company was formally incorporated in 1923.

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The fledgling company soon became known for its high-quality

radios and electronic innovations. Zenith introduced the first
portable radio in 1924,[5] the first mass-produced AC radio in
1926,[5] and push-button tuning in 1927.[5] It added automobile
radios in the 1930s with its Model 460, promoting the fact that it
needed no separate generator or battery, selling at US$59.95.[6]
The first Zenith television set appeared in 1939, with its first
commercial sets sold to the public in 1948.[5] The company is
credited with having invented such things as the wireless remote
control and FM multiplex stereo. For many years Zenith used the Zenith radio, Chicago Radio
slogan "the quality goes in before the name goes on". This phrase Laboratory
was used by the Geo. P. Bent piano company of Chicago as early
as 1906.[7]

Zenith established one of the first FM stations in the country in 1940

(Chicago's WWZR, later called WEFM, named for Zenith executive
Eugene F. McDonald), which was among the earliest FM multiplex
stereo stations, first broadcasting in stereo in June 1961. The station
was sold in the early 1970s and is now WUSN. Former Zenith logo

Zenith also pioneered in the development of high-contrast and flat-face

picture tubes, and the multichannel television sound (MTS) stereo system used on analog television
broadcasts in the United States and Canada (as opposed to the BBC-developed NICAM digital stereo
sound system for analog television broadcasts, used in many places around the world.) Zenith was
also one of the first companies to introduce a digital HDTV system implementation, parts of which
were included in the ATSC standard starting with the 1993 model Grand Alliance. They were also one
of the first American manufacturers to market a home VCR, selling a Sony-built Betamax video
recorder starting in 1977.

The 1962 Illinois Manufacturers Directory (50th Anniversary edition) lists Zenith Radio Corporation
as having a total of 11,000 employees of which at least 6,460 were employed in seven Chicago plants.
The corporate office was in plant number 1 located at 6001 West Dickens Avenue (north of the
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific railroad tracks) where 2,500 workers made radio and
television sets and Hi-Fi stereophonic phonographs. Plant number 2 was located at 1500 North
Kostner Ave. where 2,100 employees made government electronics, radio and television components,
transistors and hearing aids. Plant number 3 was located at 5801 West Dickens Ave. (also north of the
Milwaukee Road tracks) where 300 employees made electronics and servicing. Plant number 4 was
located at 3501 West Potomac Ave. where 60 employees performed warehousing. Plant number 5
located at 6501 West Grand Ave. employed 500-600 workers who made government hi-fi equipment.

A subsidiary of Zenith, the Rauland Corporation, located at 4245 North Knox Avenue, employed 850
workers who made television picture tubes. The other Zenith subsidiary in Chicago was Central
Electronics, Incorporated located at 1247 West Belmont Ave. where 100 employees made amateur
radio equipment and performed auditory training. The other Central Electronics plant was located at
State Route 133 and Grandview in Paris, Illinois where 500 employees made radio receivers, with the
total Zenith work force in Illinois being thus at least 6,960.[8]

In December, 1970, National Union Electric ("NUE") sued most of the Japanese television
manufacturers for violation of the Anti-Dumping Act and a conspiracy which violated American
antitrust laws.[9] During the pendency of that suit, Zenith Radio Corporation encountered increasing
financial difficulty as their market share progressively went to Japanese companies. Concerned about
losing market share to Japanese companies, Zenith filed suit in federal court in Philadelphia in 1974
against the major Japanese television and electronic manufacturers charging violation of the United
States Antitrust Laws and the Anti-Dumping Act of 1916.[10] Zenith joined two United States
companies Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Motorola, Inc. as co-plaintiffs.[11] The NUE suit was
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transferred to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the two suits

were consolidated for pretrial proceedings and trial.[9] The suit, styled
In re Japanese Electric Products Antitrust Litigation, sought $900
million in damages.[12]

By the end of 1983, Zenith had spent millions of dollars in connection

with the litigation.[13] In 1981, the trial court entered summary
judgment on the antitrust and antidumping claims and dismissed the
lawsuits.[14] Plaintiffs appealed and the appellate court affirmed the
summary judgment for Sears, Roebuck and Co., Motorola, Inc. and
Sony.[15] The case was appealed, and in March 1986 the Supreme Court
of the United States ruled in favor of the defendants on Zenith’s
antitrust claims.[16] Zenith's hopes to salvage a victory on the claims The last logo used during
that the defendants violated the Antidumping Act of 1916 ended in April the U.S.-owned period,
1987 when the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from the U.S. outside Zenith's corporate
District Court of Appeals in Philadelphia which upheld the ruling of the headquarters in Glenview,
trial court in favor of the Japanese.[17] Illinois, in 1995.

In 1979, Zenith entered the computer market with the purchase of

Heath Company from Schlumberger for $64.5 million, and formed Zenith Data Systems (ZDS).[18]
The company changed its name to Zenith Electronics Corporation in 1984, to reflect its interests
in computers and CATV, and since it had left the radio business two years earlier.

By the late 1980s ZDS's profits sustained Zenith while its television business had lost money for
years. To raise money for HDTV research efforts and reduce debt, Zenith sold ZDS to Groupe Bull in
October 1989 for $635 million.[19] By 1990, Zenith was in trouble and looking more attractive to a
hostile takeover. To avoid this, Zenith sold 5% of itself to the Korean company GoldStar (now LG
Electronics) as part of a technology-sharing agreement. With their analog line aging (the last major
update to the line had been the System³ chassis in 1978), and the adoption of HDTV in the United
States decades away, Zenith's prospects were not good.

In 1995 LG increased its stake to 55 percent, enough to assume controlling interest. Zenith filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1999, and in exchange for its debts, LG bought the remaining 45 percent of
the company. During this era, some of Zenith's products were being rebadged as OEM under the
Admiral name. Certain products also carried the Allegro brand (which originated in the 1970s as a
brand for Zenith's speakers and other audio equipment). Their profitable Network Systems division—
that produced set-top boxes for cable and satellite TV—was sold to Motorola in the summer of 2000
and became part of Motorola BCS (Broadband Communications Sector).[20]

The Zenith headquarters building was subsequently occupied by Aon and was demolished in 2018 to
create room for nearby Abt Electronics to expand.[21]

LG produced the Zenith DTT-900[22] and Zenith DTT-901[23] ATSC digital television converter box.
LG also offered some Zenith branded plasma, LCD, and direct view televisions through selected retail
outlets.

Famous products

Shortwave radio

Among Zenith's early famous products were the 'Royal' series of transistor radios and the 'Trans-
Oceanic' series of shortwave portable radios, which were produced from 1942 to 1981.

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Subscription television

Zenith was the first company to experiment with

subscription television, launching their Phonevision system
with experimental Chicago station KS2XBS (originally
broadcasting on Channel 2 before the Federal
Communications Commission forced them to relinquish it to
WBBM-TV). Their experiment involved a descrambler box
mounted on the television set, and plugged into the
telephone lead. When a preannounced broadcast was ready
to begin, viewers would call an operator at Zenith who would
send a signal with the telephone leads to unscramble the
video.[24]

While the Theatre Owners of America claimed the concept

was unsuccessful, Zenith itself claimed the experiment was a
success.[25] As Phonevision broadcast films, it was seen as a A Zenith Model 5-S-220 "cube" radio
potential competitor for traditional theatres. In spite of the circa 1937.
fact that the three films initially available to the first 300 test
households were more than two years old, about 18 percent
of Phonevision viewers had seen them at the movies, and 92 percent of Phonevision households
reported that they would prefer to see films at home.[25]

Remote controls

Zenith is, perhaps, best known for the first practical wireless television remote control, the Space
Command, developed in 1956.

The original television remote control was a wired version,

released in 1950, that soon attracted complaints about an
unsightly length of cable from the viewer's chair to the television
receiver. Eugene F. McDonald, Zenith President and founder,
ordered his engineers to develop a wireless version, but the use of
radio waves was soon discounted due to poor interference
rejection inherent in 1950s radio receivers. The 1955 Flash-Matic
remote system, invented by Eugene Polley, used a highly
directional photo flash tube in the hand held unit that was aimed
at sensitive photoreceivers in the four front corners of the
A Zenith Space Command 600
television cabinet. However, bright sunlight falling on the remote control.
television was found to activate the controls. It is worth noting
that these remote controls would activate a motor, causing the
tuning dial on the television to switch by itself, and this could be used for mischief if someone else
was attempting to tune the television.

Lead engineer Robert Adler then suggested that ultrasonic sound be used as a trigger mechanism.
This was produced in the hand held unit by mechanically-struck aluminum rods of carefully
constructed dimensions—a receiver in the television responded to the different frequencies this
action produced. Enough audible noise was produced by pressing the buttons that consumers began
calling remote controls "clickers". The miniaturization of electronics meant that, eventually, the
sounds were produced in the remote unit electronically; however, the operating principle remained in
use until the 1980s, when it was superseded by the infrared light system.

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The photograph is of a Space Command 600, which was the

remote control designed for use with their color television
receivers. The Space Command 600 was introduced in 1965 and
this particular design was in use until the end of the 1972 model
year. The Space Command 600 remote control had an additional,
distinctive feature—this remote control could also adjust color
hues. By pressing the mute button on the remote, a relay would
be activated at the television in which to transfer the VHF motor
drive tuner circuit to the motorized hue control. This would allow
the user to adjust the hue in increments by depressing the
A box advertising a remote control
channel up or down buttons on the remote control, and restore system often referred to as "Space
the television to normal tuning operation when the mute button Command Tuning"
was pressed again (mute off).

Space phone

Some models of Zenith's System 3 line of televisions made from the late 1970s to the early 1990s had
a feature called the Space Phone by Zenith. It was basically a hands-free speakerphone built into the
television set. It used the set's speaker and remote control, in addition to a built-in microphone. A
Space Phone-enabled television would connect to a telephone jack (using a built-in phone cord), and
making a call was performed by pressing a button on the remote to activate the Space Phone (which
would mute and begin controlling the program audio going to the speaker). The telephone number is
dialed using the numeric keys on the remote, which then displays the digits being dialed on-screen
(using the on-screen display features of the System 3 line). The user could then converse with another
caller hands-free, much like a regular speakerphone.

Zoom

A feature that was included in Zenith's "Space Command 1000" remote control first used in 1976 in
Chromacolor and later System 3 (1978) was the zoom feature. This feature allowed for the image
being displayed on the television screen to be zoomed into, by overscanning the raster of the CRT so
that the middle of the image would be displayed.

The porthole television

In the late 1940s, Zenith entered the television market. These sets were all-round tube sets. The main
feature was that the entire round screen was exposed. They were available in 12-inch, 16-inch and 19-
inch sizes. Later round-tube models had a switch that would show the picture in the 4:3 ratio, or have
the entire round screen exposed. These sets are very desirable among television collectors. Many
porthole sets used metal-cone CRTs, which are now scarce. It is not uncommon for collectors to
replace a bad metal-cone tube with an all-glass tube. Zenith porthole sets came in tabletop models,
stand-alone consoles and television/radio/phono combos.

Hand wired chassis

In the late 1950s, many electronic manufacturers, such as RCA, General Electric and Admiral, were
changing from hand-wired metal chassis in their radios and televisions to printed circuit boards.
While circuit boards save time and errors in assembly, they are not well suited for use with vacuum
tube equipment, in which high temperatures are generated that can break down boards, eventually
causing the boards to crumble if one attempts to remove a tube. Zenith, and to a lesser extent
Motorola, avoided this problem by continuing to use hand wired chassis in all their vacuum tube

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equipment. Zenith kept circuit boards out of their televisions until the
Chromacolor line of the early 1970s, and even then used them only
with solid state components, mounting the four tubes used in the
Chromacolor "4 tube hybrid" on the steel chassis. Zenith began using
circuit boards in radios when they converted to solid-state in the late
1960s, but even Zenith's early transistor radios were completely hand
wired with socketed transistors. Due to the use of this chassis
construction (and the high quality components), Zenith televisions and
radios of the 1950s to 1970s found today are often still working well,
needing little work to restore them to like-new operating condition.

Teletext

Zenith was one of the few manufacturers of television sets in North

America to support teletext on a wide basis. Beginning in 1983, the
company manufactured standalone teletext decoders as well as TV sets
with decoders built-in; initially, these were only offered in Cincinnati,
OH, where the Electra service had been started by Taft Broadcasting
at their flagship, WKRC-TV. The service expanded nationally two years
later, when Satellite Syndicated Systems inserted the service into the Zenith vacuum tube carton
VBI of the national feed of Superstation WTBS (which they were
responsible for uplinking). However, the teletext decoders were never
sold nationally and the TVs with built-in decoders were frequently the expensive "flagship" models,
which were bought by people more for these models' console cabinets and Bose speakers, reducing
teletext's reach. It was further complicated by the fact that Electra utilized the World Service Teletext
protocol, as opposed to the more complicated NABTS protocol which had been favored by CBS and
NBC during their teletext experiments early in the decade. In 1993, the Electra service was shuttered,
and by that point, Zenith dropped teletext support (as the teletext system was incompatible with the
now-required American standards for closed-captioning).

See also
Zenith (disambiguation)

References
1. https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0704074D:US
2. Advertisement in the periodical "The World Today" December 1906
3. "Zenith Heritage" (http://www.zenith.com/heritage/). Zenith. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
4. McMahon, Morgan E. A Flick of the Switch 1930–1950 (Antiques Electronics Supply, 1990),
p.187.
5. McMahon, p.187.
6. Mahon, p.189.
7. The World Today Dec. 1906
8. 1962 Illinois Manufacturers Directory, Manufacturers' News, Inc., Chicago, IL., copyright 1962, p.
1311
9. Lehr, Jr., Louis A. (2013), Arnstein & Lehr, The First 120 Years, Amazon p. 80
10. New York Times, September 21, 1974
11. Washington University Law Review, 58 Wash. U.L.Q. 1055 (1980)
12. Chicago Tribune, September 30, 1974
13. The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 15, 1983

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14. The New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast), March 28, 1981
15. Chicago Tribune, December 6, 1983
16. The New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast), March 27, 1986
17. The Wall Street Journal, Eastern Edition, April 28, 1987
18. "Zenith Radio Buys Heath" (https://books.google.com/books?id=UaKuzwnEiRMC&q=zenith%20h
eath&pg=RA2-PA91). Computerworld. 1979-10-15. p. 91. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
19. "Zenith Data Systems Sold to Groupe Bull" (https://books.google.com/books?id=cZXvAAAAMAAJ
&pg=RA1-PA88). U-M Computing News. 4 (18): 18. 13 November 1989.
20. "Motorola buys Zenith Network Systems" (https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/20/business/compan
y-news-motorola-to-buy-zenith-electronics-network-systems.html). The New York Times. July
2000. Retrieved 9 January 2015.
21. "2018: Abt's Year in Review" (https://blog.abt.com/2018/12/2018-abts-year-in-review/). abt.com.
Retrieved June 27, 2019.
22. "Digital TV Transition" (http://www.zenith.com/dtv/dtt900.html). Zenith.com. Retrieved
September 27, 2012.
23. "Converter Box — Digital TV Tuner Converter Box with Analog Pass-Through" (http://www.zenith.
com/products/set-top-atsc-digital-to-analog-converter-box/DTT901/). Zenith. June 23, 2008.
Retrieved September 27, 2012.
24. "Phonevision" Time January 8, 1951 (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,805681,0
0.html)
25. "Report on Phonevision" Time June 4, 1951 (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,8
58097,00.html)

External links
Corporate homepage (http://www.zenith.com/)

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