Recording Industry Timeline

I'm not entirely sure what kind of picture this will present. Just pulling the data from a wide variety of sources and we'll see what we can see.

1889 Edison and Columbia begin selling recordings. The record industry is born.
1926 RCA, GE and Westinghouse organize National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).
1927 CBS born as the Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System.
1929

When the Great Depression came the record companies were too weak to survive on their own. The phonograph division of the Thomas A. Edison company was the first to go, folding in 1929. Victor was bought by the Radio Corporation of America, and Columbia was purchased, appropriately enough, by the Columbia Broadcasting System. Paramount buys 49% of CBS. Most of the other names in the industry simply disappeared.

Walt Disney Productions formed.

1930

"Big Three" radio companies: Philco, RCA, and Zenith Corporation.

U.S. brings anti-trust suit against RCA and its patent allies.

1932

"Consent decree" from U.S. antitrust suit against RCA divorces GE-Westinghouse-RCA. NBC now wholly owned by RCA.

CBS buys back Paramount holdings.

1943 US Supreme Court requires NBC to sell one of its networks. Lifesavers candy scion Edward Noble buys American Broadcasting Company (ABC) for $8 million.
1951 ABC bought for $25 million by Leonard Goldstein and Paramount.
1996 September 9 -- Washington, DC - Following its September 5 semi-annual meeting in New York City, the Recording Industry Association of America's Board of Directors unanimously agreed to broaden its current substance abuse initiatives to combat this problem at all levels of the industry.

Sources