David Sarnoff

David Sarnoff was a Russian-American businessman who rose through the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) to lead the company for several decades, becoming one of the most influential executives in the early commercialization of both radio and television broadcasting in the United States. Sarnoff founded the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 1926 as a radio network under RCA, and later backed Vladimir Zworykin's electronic television research at RCA, pushing the company toward an electronic television standard that competed with Philo Farnsworth's rival system and, separately, with Edwin Armstrong's FM radio technology, both of which led to extended legal disputes. Sarnoff's decades of leadership made RCA and NBC central institutions of twentieth-century American broadcasting.