What if….GE bought Cox in the 70s

[Jman8606]

What if GE bought Cox in the 70s? Would they have still bought NBC? Would WSB move back to NBC? By then, NBC was the top network.

 

[TheBigA]

What if GE bought Cox in the 70s? Would they have still bought NBC? Would WSB move back to NBC? By then, NBC was the top network.

GE didn't buy RCA to get NBC. They mainly bought it to get SatCom and shut the rest down. The only reason they kept NBC TV (they sold the entire radio division) was because it was #1. The Sarnoffs were gone, Bradshaw wanted to retire, plus RCA had a lot of cash and no debt.

So my answer is they would never in a million years have bought Cox.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Not sure if GE would buy Cox in the 1970’s. But in the 1970’s up to 1986 GE owned WNGE (now WKRN) Nashville, WRGB Albany, KOA-TV (now CBS News Colorado) Denver and KFOG (now KNBR-FM) San Francisco. I’m not sure who GE had to divest at that time for them to get Cox. But by 1986 GE divested all of their stations to different owners as part of the deal to get NBC.

And as of 2025 GE is split into different companies. GE Appliances is a label within Haier Inc. GE Aerospace, GE Healthcare and GE Verona are split from the original GE and yes NBCUniversal is with Comcast.

It's official: GE Appliances belongs to Haier

Haier, a Chinese manufacturer, paid $5.6 billion for the appliance division of General Electric. The companies announced the close of the sale today.

www.cnet.com

https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/ge-completes-three-way-split-breaking-off-its-storied-past-2024-04-02/

GE reveals identity of 3 companies after historic split

General Electric is revealing the names of the three companies that will operate on their own after the historic split of the one-time conglomerate.

apnews.com

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Here is the list of stations GE owned in the 1970's before they divested them to get NBC in 1986.

 

[gr8oldies]

The Cox properties would have had to change all the lightbulbs.

 

[TheBigA]

Here is the list of stations GE owned in the 1970's before they divested them to get NBC in 1986.

I'm not aware that GE had to divest any stations to buy NBC.

They transferred their Denver TV station to NBC. They wanted to sell radio.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

https://www.wkrn.com/our-history/

Now I see one of them but General Electric Inc sold WNGE-TV to Knight Ridder in 1983 way before GE even considered buying NBC and it’s O&O’s.

WNGE-TV changed ownership from General Electric Broadcasting to Knight-Ridder Broadcasting on November 28, 1983. WSIX radio stations were sold to Sky Communications of New York. Knight-Ridder changed the call letters to WKRN-TV (W-Knight-Ridder-Nashville). Young Broadcasting, Inc. acquired WKRN-TV from Knight Ridder Broadcasting on July 1, 1989.