October 20, 1951 – NBC releases Meredith Willson’s “Three Chimes of Silver” as the official song celebrating the network’s 25th anniversary.
In 1951, The National Broadcasting Company – NBC – celebrated its 25th anniversary, and in order to commemorate the special occasion, NBC-Radio executives asked their employee and long-time musical director – Iowa’s own Meredith Willson – to write a special song that paid tribute to NBC’s famed three-note trademark.
A sequence of three tones played on NBC broadcasts – the NBC Chimes – were originally developed in 1927 as seven notes, and were standardized to the current three-note version by the early 1930s. The chimes were originally employed as an audible programming cue, used to alert network control engineers and the announcers at NBC’s radio network affiliates of a programming transition, but soon, this three-note tune became associated with NBC programming in general, and is an early example of an “interval signal” used to help establish a broadcaster’s identity with its audience.
READ MORE ABOUT THIS IOWA STORY HERE.
Did you know? is an Our Iowa Heritage blog series that offers you a little bit of Iowa trivia from a large selection of stories on our website. Subscribe to this FREE blog and you’ll get a new email from us daily.
Join us for Our Iowa Heritage blog posts.
Learn some historical facts about Iowa City, Johnson County, or Eastern Iowa.
Amaze your friends.
Pingback: October 19, 1929. | Our Iowa Heritage