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Although the "big three" television networks are facing continued decline in audience share-losing viewers to cable TV and VCRs-the Fox Television Network appears to be headed toward artistic and financial success. In the beginning, press baron Rupert Murdoch purchased and organized a solid network foundation consisting of 20th Century Fox and its production facilities, and seven stations previously owned by Metromedia (Sterling and Kittross 471). From this starting point in the mid-1980s, his network has grown rapidly. With local independent UHF stations on the rise, and Fox-generated programming increasing annually, Murdoch has had little trouble convincing more and more independent stations who are looking for a way to counter-program both cable and the other broadcast networks.
The future was not so bright for the original-sometimes forgotten-fourth network, which officially ceased operations 30 years before Fox would begin.
DuMont Builds a Network
Allen Balcom DuMont began a career in electronics after receiving a degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1924 (White 107). He worked for a period at Westinghouse Lamp Company before joining the De Forest Radio Company as chief engineer in 1928 where he became interested in the cathode-ray tube. Before the depression closed the company in 1931, he had been promoted to vicepresident (White 108).
In 1931, Allen B. DuMont, with $500 of his own money and $500 from a friend, started the Allen B. DuMont Laboratories, Inc., consisting of a small research facility in his garage. During the late 1920s the cathode-ray tube (CRT) became an important instrument to American electronic researchers, enabling them to see electrical impulses graphically displayed (Rice 35). From 1931 to 1936 the DuMont organization was virtually the only company in the United States that mass produced cathode-ray tubes ("DuMont, Allen Balcom," 1946). Most of the rapidly growing company's profits, earned during its first five years, were reinvested in new research and production facilities. The 1930s were to become the means of financing DuMont's eventual entry into the field of television (Rice).
In 1937 DuMont turned his attention from the manufacture of industrial components to consumer products. Using the research and production experience he gained while producing CRTs, he began making television sets that could receive signals from the experimental television stations in the New York...