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#1
02-25-2005, 07:47 PM
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Zenith's demise.
Anyone know of the final days of Zenith Corp? Its really sad we let so many US companies fail by not protecting them from subsidizied foreign labor. It was unfair. So many workers lost thier jobs needlessly
 We have let far too many companies fall needlessly. Any one here know know the history of Zenith from say 1980 to when they sold what was left to Goldstar--yech!? We really need an administration with enough balls to put tarriffs on the cheap stuff coming here. Goldstar is slowly ruining the home appliance business. They are stealing patented designs from Maytag and Whirlpool. Korea has no laws on copy rights or patents. We need to start protecting whats left of US business against unfair business practices. Sorry for the vent. Its too bad our companies have given up  I miss Zenith, RCA, Motorola, etc. Both radio and TV.Eric Last edited by stereofisher; 02-25-2005 at 07:58 PM. 
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#2
02-25-2005, 09:13 PM
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Oh, it gets better all the time, pal. Last year, my uncle read in the "Wall Street Journal" there is virtually NOTHING made in the good ol' USA anymore that can't be made much cheaper in the Land of Yellow Peril. My dad's in cahoots w/this little farm machinery mfger in Texas, they got an inquiry from John Deere to make a part they've designed for JD. So we sent JD 2 of them, never heard back. Guarantee JD sent the parts to China, to see what they can be made for over there, which will prolly be 30% underneath our cost. It's a cryin' shame-pretty soon, there won't be any manufacturing base left in this country, at the rate we're going now. We thought Japan, Inc. was tough back in the '80s-the Chinese make them look like a Sunday-school picnic !!-Sandy G.
__________________
Benevolent Despot
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#3
02-25-2005, 09:25 PM
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I recall 'Zenith Radio Coporation" in Chicago. Correct? Chicago was a good place to grow up in in terms of radio through the 60-70-80s. WXRT may still even exist today.
 -sf
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#4
02-25-2005, 10:19 PM
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-and I heard Zenith was the last to manufacturer a television built in the US. IFIC, this had something to do with the Thompson Consumer Electronic Corp in Bloomington IN in the early 90s (true or false?)
-sf
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#5
02-26-2005, 12:21 PM
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Quote:
US 99, as the spot on the Zenith radios supposedly denotes, probably exists as something at that frequency, but not an arm of Zenith. Last edited by asynchronousman; 02-26-2005 at 12:24 PM. Reason: Need finger transplant and new guidance system was not the title, the reason instead...
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#6
02-27-2005, 11:47 AM
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Quote:
__________________
Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten.
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#7
02-27-2005, 04:18 PM
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I hear of WXRT Chicago periodically still, even though I've been just out of range for quite some time now. They were doing an amazing mixture of music when what is now called "classic rock" was maintstream pop through the 70s. (Connection for me to the thread is Zenith->Chicago->Radio, although as asynchro has pointed out, that seems to have been a paper tiger in the name "Zenith Radio Corporation" that one finds on the paper labels on the bottom of so many of those outstanding little plastic boxes.)
-sf Quote:
Last edited by sydsfloyd67; 02-27-2005 at 04:21 PM.
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#8
02-27-2005, 07:45 PM
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The Victor Talking Machine company was acquired by RCA in the late 1920's or possibly early 30's, thereafter the RCA-Victor trademark began to be used.
The Nipper trademark and the phrase "His Master's Voice" is licensed to different companies in different countries...if you look at EMI records from England, they use (or used, at least) Nipper and His Master's voice: likewise in Japan I believe JVC (Japanese Victor Corp) still uses the Nipper trademark...however any of these companies is forbidden from using the Nipper trademark on any items imported to U.S.A., likewise Thomson, G.E. or BMG, or the former RCA corp. (licensees of Nipper for USA) cannot use the Nipper trademark on exports. You will sometimes see Nipper on the back of modern RCA TV sets to help keep the trademark rights alive, even when Nipper is not used on the front panel logo.
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#9
02-26-2005, 01:17 AM
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There are actually quite a few TV plants operating in this country and at least one, maybe two that build private label sets.
The irony of the chinese mass production miracle is that they best us without firing a shot.....and they used the free market capitalist system to do it!! Do NOT get me started!!!! Anthony
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#10
02-26-2005, 03:55 PM
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Quote:
thanks -sf
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#11
02-26-2005, 05:44 PM
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I was only aware of Sony's plants but I'd suspect another Eastern giant has plants too.
Last edited by asynchronousman; 02-26-2005 at 06:20 PM.
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#12
02-26-2005, 05:30 AM
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Last I'd heard, Zenith had been taken over by Gold Star after bankruptcy troubles. There IS an American owned TV manufacturer in Kentucky, I believe, which makes sets for various famous brand names. If they'd not fought and won a federal lawsuit accusing Chinese manufacturers of dumping their products, even this company would have folded. I saw this on a PBS special about Wal-Mart about two months ago.
Tom http://www.zenith.com/sub_about/about_corp_history.html
__________________
Tom 
Last edited by OvenMaster; 02-26-2005 at 05:42 AM.
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#13
02-26-2005, 10:37 AM
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That's who I was referring to......also saw that same PBS show.
What's even more frightening is that there are only a couple of machine tool companies left in America....South Bend Lathe who once employed thousands now has about a dozen people on staff. DISGUSTING *EVERY*thing is based on machine tools---this is the answer to the chicken and the egg....if you don't have machine tools then you're back to a purely manual agriculture based society. Anthony
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#14
02-26-2005, 07:01 PM
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Zenith stopped making thair Black and White TVs here in the 70s, moving production to Taiwan. Some of their color TVs began to be assembled in Mexico in the early 80s, but they continued to make their consoles, CRTs, and a few table models here. I believe that Toshiba or Sharp may be assembling TVs here. Most of those big projection TVs are made in America.
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#15
02-26-2005, 07:16 PM
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Sony used to make color TVs in S.CA. Then moved to Mexico. They can't even compete in Mexico. Moved back to Asia. But, the Japanese are in about the same boat that we are. Except for the very high-end stuff, they can't afford to make in Japan, either. What goes around comes around. If we can survive. Chinese (both of them) and Korea, etc., are simply too cheap and too good. With everything being automated they only need to train folks as drones. Worker-bees.
Last company I was with in TX is making money hand-over-fist at the moment. Not because they are so good (but, since I built the place and ran it for the first five years, how could they be anything else  ) but because the exchange rate on the dollar makes our high-tech goods very cheap overseas. And we made double-side polished wafers and special epi wafers, so are in somewhat of a nitch market. But, in the long-run, they won't last, either. Will simply be overwhelmed by the cheap labor in Asia once they decide to attack the market. Nothing new under the sun.
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