DuMont, Allen B.

In 1931, Allen B. DuMont founded Allen B. DuMont Laboratories, Inc., in his garage with $1000-half of it borrowed. The company achieved its initial success as the primary U.S. manufacturer of cathode-ray tubes, which had become critical to the electronics industry. DuMont entered into television broadcasting---first experimentally, then as a commercial venture-in 1938. In fact, the only way to receive NBC-RCA's historic public broadcast of television outside their 1939 World's Fair pavilion was on sets made by DuMont Labs.

DuMont first became involved in broadcasting by building a radio transmitter and transmitter and receiver out of an oatmeal box while suffering from polio. In 1924, he received an electrical engeneering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute. After graduation, he joined the Westinghouse Lamp Company as an engineer at a time when 500 tubes a day were being produced. Later DuMont became supervisor and initiated technical improvements that increased production to 5,000 tubes per hour. In 1928, he worked closely with Dr. Lee DeForest on expanding radio, but left later to explore television.

DuMont achieved a number of firsts in commercial television practice, but with little success. He tried to expand his network too rapidly both in the number of affiliates and the number of hours of programming available to affiliates each week. Even as DuMont was developing into the first commercial television network, the other networks, most notably CBS and NBC, were preparing for the time when rapid network expansion was most feasible-experimenting with various program formats and talent borrowed from their radio networks, as well as encouraging their most prestigious and financially successful radio affiliates to apply for television licenses.

Prime-time programming was a major problem for DuMont. The network would not or could not pay for expensive shows that would deliver large audiences, thereby attracting powerful sponsors. When a quality show drew a large audience in spite of its budget, it was snatched by CBS or NBC. DuMont televised the occasional successful show, including Cavalcade of Stars (before Jackie Gleason left), Captain Video, and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's Life Is Worth Living. The network never seemed to generate enough popular programming to keep it afloat, however-possibly be- cause it lacked the backing of a radio network.

The NBC, CBS and ABC radio networks provided financial support for their television ventures while the fledgling industry was growing-creating what the FCC deemed 'an ironic situation in which one communications medium financed the development of its competitor." DuMont's only outside financial assistance came from Paramount Studios between 1938 and 1941. The company created and sold class-B common stock exclusively to Paramount for one dollar per share and a promise to provide affiliation with CBS and NBC. Analysts have suggested that DuMont's lack of primary affiliates was a key factor in the network's demise.

One important factor contributing to the demise of the DuMont Network was Allen B. DuMont himself. Many people thought of him as a "bypassed pioneer" with no head for business. Major stockholders began to publicly question the soundness of his decisions, especially his desire to keep the TV network afloat despite major losses. In 1955, concerned holders of large blocks of DuMont stock began to wrest control from the company founder.

When the fiscally weakened DuMont corporation spun off its television broadcasting facilities in 1955, Business Week claimed that DuMont had been forced into television programming in order to provide a market for his TV receivers. No evidence has been found to support this claim, however. In markets where licenses for television stations were being granted during the postwar period, there were sufficient license applicants to provide audiences with programming to stimulate set sales. One reason DuMont television sales lagged behind other manufactures was that his sets were of higher quality, and consequently much more expensive. In fact, in 1951 DuMont cut back television set production by 60%-although profits from this division had been subsidizing the TV network-because other manufactures were undercutting DuMont's prices.

After the DuMont Television Network and its owned- and-operated stations were spun off into a new corporation, there remained only two major divisions of Allen B. DuMont Laboratories, Inc. In 1958 Emerson Electric Company purchased the DuMont consumer products manufacturing division. DuMont was no longer employed by his own company when the last division-oscillograph and cathode-ray tube manufacturing--was sold to Fairchild in 1960. DuMont was hired by Fairchild as group general manager of the A. B. DuMont Division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation until his death in 1965.

DuMont may have remained in television broadcasting despite fiscal losses in order to uphold the title once given him, 'the father of commercial television."

His company pioneered many important elements necessary to the growth and evolution of the industry. DuMont engineers perfected the use of cathode-ray tubes as TV screens, developed the kinescope process, as well as the "magic eye cathode-ray radio tuning indicator, and the first electronic viewfinder. DuMont was an intelligent and energetic engineer who took risks and profited financially from them-becoming history's first television millionaire. But when the big radio networks entered the field of television, DuMont was unable to compete with these financially powerful, considerably experienced broadcaster.

-Philip J. Auter