nbc chimes ephemera

We are pleased to present to you on this site the surviving internal NBC correspondence regarding the NBC Chimes and their use on radio, as preserved in the Library of Congress. These documents formed the research basis for both this site and Radio Remembered’s “Three Famous Notes of Broadcasting History - The NBC Chimes”.

Click any link in the secondary navigation bar above or below to read actual NBC correspondence, internal and external, concerning the NBC Chimes and their development. This correspondence spans a period roughly from 1933 through 1953, and is organized by subject. The correspondence is presented in chronological sequence within each subject.

Press clippings and publicity announcements are included as well, and are interspersed among the correspondence based on their dates of publication.

PDF scans are now uploaded and linked under their quoted website counterparts. These were taken from photocopies made from the Library of Congress NBC Chimes files, and some are actually pretty dreadful, their darkening yellow tint from age becoming speckled grey on the photocopies. But this was the primary material for my research into building this website, back in 2005. Yes, it’s taken nearly two decades for me to finally make them available.

The Sights & Sounds link in the main navigation bar will take you to our audio and video holdings and links. These contain both linechecks and airchecks, as well as a few commercial records and an embedded film clip or two—all of which appear by kind permission of several contributors.