Zenith: How America's Most Reliable TV Died

Zenith built the last television ever made by an American company - and the sets were so reliable that the reliability is what killed it. This is the full history of Zenith Radio Corporation, 1918 to 1999. 00:00 Chapters (заполнить через /yt-chapters после монтажа) Two ham-radio operators in a Chicago garage, a Navy commander who sold shortwave radio to America from the Arctic, the engineers who cut the cord on the television remote, and a board that spent twenty years fighting Japanese pricing in federal court instead of on the factory floor. Zenith advertised hand-wired chassis with no printed circuit boards as proof of quality while its competitors automated. It invented the wireless remote control in 1955 and 1956. Its transmission scheme is still inside the standard American digital television uses today. It sold its computer division to pay for its television years, closed its last US plant in Springfield, Missouri, and went to LG in 1999. This is a business history, not a nostalgia reel: dates, prices, contracts and the decisions that made them. No invented quotes. Figures carry the year they were reported in. Which American-made thing in your house outlasted the company that made it? Leave it in the comments.