Zenith's demise.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Yamaha B-2

Actually, Zenith production moved to Mexico prior to the company being sold to LG. My '89 Zenith 27" is still used most every day as our bdrm unit. Only problem it has ever had is that the remote has gone bad. All else works just fine.

And, as you state, even the Japanese companies can no longer afford to make their own TV (and other gear) at home, except for the highest-end stuff. Yamaha no longer makes a CDP. All are rebadged from Philips or Samsung, etc. Oh, well, we get what we vote for in a democracy.

You are absolutely correct. I just looked at the back of my 1995 Zenith Sentry 2 color set, and found that it had been assembled in Mexico--same as my RCA CTC185. By the nineties, I think the only thing left of Zenith in Chicago were its business offices; they are still there today, although they have moved from Glenview, Illinois to Lincolnshire, both Chicago suburbs. The TV manufacturing plants are in Korea; the audio division moved there in the '80s. I once had a Zenith four-mode integrated stereo system which had been built in Korea to Zenith's specifications, so the audio/radio production arm of the company went offshore some 20+ years before the television plant left Chicago.

As to your Zenith 27" TV, I'm sure a universal remote will operate it just as well as did the original. (The only sets universal remotes will not operate are the very old ones that used ultrasonic signals from a mechanical or electronic hand unit, such as the first Zenith Space Command remotes up to about the 1980s; the universals are all infrared [IR] units, which will only work with modern TVs using IR remote receivers.) I've been using an All For One universal remote with my CTC185 RCA for some time, not necessarily because the original is defective or broken (in fact, it works great), but because the All For One remote will operate my entire video system, except my DVD player (a CyberHome unit that will not work with universal remotes ).

[NowhereMan 1966]

I know my 1998 Zenith 19 incher works with the remote from our 1982 "Space Command" Zenith System 3. IIRC, I think that remote came out in 1979 or so, so it has been for a while. The downside is that we cannot access the settings with it but to change channels and volume, it does the trick.

DE KA3WRW

[stereofisher]

I really do miss US Zenith. Sadly, we have to accept things the way they are. The best we can do keep a them alive by having some of their stuff around, I now have two Zeniths a Transoceanic 3000 and a Royal 755. Just got a GE AM-FM version of a P780,the AM only version. All made here!!!! Make me think of better times. Funny though, I own a bunch of Pioneer recievers and TEAC RTR's and cassette decks. I like the looks of them and while they are made in Japan, I like the looks of them. Started in 1969 with a PL 510??? turntable. Great looking and well made. Had a soft spot for them. Quality stuff. All these things are the best. Much of the stuff today is really crappy. Dont know what I will do if my 13 year old Sony Trinitron craps out. Anything built in Japan or here? Any suggestions???? Eric

[superdeez]

When I was 10, my dad gave me a 1970 made in the US Mallory AM/FM/Cassette. It worked flawlessly despite that half or more of its life was being stored in hot/cold garages and in dusty environments. Even played CDs through the line-in. Then it blew an output transistor (which was probably my fault due to a somewhat caviler repair). Even the cassette deck still worked great at 31 years old!

To replace it (and because he was tired of stairing at the carcass with a post-it saying "RIP" on the dial, he got me an "Aiwa" boombox, AM/FM/dual cass/CD. This thing is three times the size of that old mallory, and it weigs about 1/3 what it did. It worked alright for about two/three years, and then the tape heads started failing. Then the CD door latch broke, so I had to put something weighty on it to keep it playing. Then the power supply got loose, and it will randomly stop playing, and I have to jerk the power cord around to make it even work again. The volume down button broke on the unit, but the remote control that only works the CD and turns the unit off (but not on) still works alright. The last straw was when it blew a transistor and the right channel is completely dead. This is after just slightly over 4 years in average service. Made in Malasyia.

[Einar72]

Wow, lotsa venting in this thread. My turn...

BTW -- I was lucky enough recently to find tech work in an electronic manufacturing facility. Nice to have probes and a soldering iron in my hands again.

I, too, watched in sadness as the Corning Glass factory that had produced CRT faceplates since the roundie era was shipped off to Red China. Ditto the RCA plants in Ohio and Indiana going to Mexico, the last days at the St.Louis Zenith plant, all seen on the network news. I even saw Union film footage of aging TV manufacturing workers being sent home for good from an unnamed facility somewhere in the rustbelt.

Just a couple of subtle ironies in play here. Zenith's demise, along with (pre-Thomson) RCA and so many others began with simple lack of foresight. By the mid-1960's, an aging Sarnoff's insistance on shadow-mask CRT's and hesitance to embrace solid-state TV technology left RCA and the me-too others at what would prove to be a disadvantage. A decades-long run of labor-management squabbles didn't help, either.

Wall Street wanted its usual short-term profitability, and moving manufacturing plants away from higher-paid northern states along with accountant-freindly cost-cutting operations naturally became more important than developing improved technologies.

Blame is also deseved for lack of a national trade policy and blatant ignorance or even complicity among politicians all the way to the top. As American workers lost their jobs manufacturing cameras in the 1950's and portable radios in the early 1960's, Japan's late-1960's TV dumping in the U.S. and subsequent job losses was tolerated in trade for support of a war they weren't too supportive of previously.

And, for the ultimate sixties irony, the House Un-American Activities Committee didn't bat an eyelash whe Paramount ordered industrially-emaciated Dumont, owner of the Lawrence-designed Chromatron CRT, hand over the (at the time military-use) techchnology to SONY. Imagine one courageous politician (oxymoron) causing all the TV-manufacturing dollars spent at the box-office that had fattened their pockets for 20-odd years be spent defending (in front of TV cameras) a "business decision" which would eventually doom TV-factory families nationwide.
As it came to pass, the Hollywood establishment would soon pat the aforementioned on the back and at the same time spit in the eye of those same TV-factory workers by trumping-up an unwarranted Oscar for SONY's adaptation of the Chromatron.

[superdeez]

Ironically, unions designed to protect the American worker seem to be in the long run putting him out of a job. Look at the union factories of the 50s and 60s building electronics: with healthcare, retirement plans, and wage raises given at the threat of strikes, it raised the cost of manfacture, thus raising the price to the consumer. Meanwhile, in Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, etc., such unions didn't exist, and in some cases workers even worked almost at gunpoint (as is still the case I'm sure in some situations), for literally pennies a day. Thus, even though the device has to ride a frieghter several thousand miles to get to the North American shore, the cost to the consumer can be less, with still a decent margin of profit.

Now that manfacturing in the US is basically dead, it's the turn of the auto industry to be strangled by unions, namely UAW. Now, while UAW has kept standards of living high for decades, and protected the worker from corporate tyranny, it's costing manfacturers so much they can barely make a profit on sales of their new vehicles.

A case-in-point is GM, who is keeping several models which sell less than 10,000 vehicles a year on the whole of North America simply because certan UAW workers have a status for which they HAVE to be paid whether they work or not! This is why certan models are sold for "fleet sales" and not advertised to the public, nor are dealerships stocking them. An example is the Chevy Lumina. By all accounts it was "replaced" in 2000 by the Chevy Impala, however Chevy still manfactured it through 2001. Sales were nominal at best, but they still kept workers busy.

Another problem for American companies is stupidity at the top and stifiling corporate beauracracies that strangle ideas for years. Thus in the 70s and 80s comes the problem of the US consumer seeing the domestic product as inferior technologically, more expensive, and thus they flock to the foreign goods flooding our shores.

It happened in the electronics industry 25-35 years ago, and it's happening in the auto industry today. Chrysler has already gone out of business, sold to Diamler-Benz. It's no merger, folks. If you want to see the US car industry in a decade if nothing changes, look to the British car industry. I shudder to imagine a day when it is impossible to buy a new domestic vehicle.

EDIT: A lot of people don't understand our hobby, me personally I love these old electronics because of what they stand for: There's a quiet dignity about these old, heavy, well built machines that the junk from SE Asia doesn't have. Does anyone agree?

[peverett]

I am not a union member, but have the following comment.

Sure unions can and do go overboard, but without them we would have the same working conditions in the US that were had 100 years ago: No health insurance, no retirement, no vacation, six or seven 12 hour days, etc. In fact, this is what many workers in other countries have today. I am convinced that this is exactly what many in business are pushing for today in this country with the canceling of retirement plans through bankruptcy, etc.

Remember that FDR called businessmen "Attila The Huns in business suits". This is not true for most of them, but it is true of far too many. (Just remember Sarnoff of RCA, if you do not believe me).

I have a quote about corporations that I believe is very true:
"Do not love the company you work for it will not love you back."

[mzeitlin3348]

It's interesting - but where is the best High-end Audio made? You don't see Asian labels - certainly not from China.

And when it comes to Cars - same thing holds. They make great everyday cars, but the winners...over and over again are the U.S. and Europe (German, Italian, etc.).

It seems to me that innovation and 'the - next - thing' are still a domain of the U.S. and even Europe. We don't see the next thing coming out of China - yet. Eventually - but not now.

So - Zenith died because innovation at Zenith died. And that's the moral of the story. We are at our best when we set the direction.

Truth be told - our Asian friends have been better at building what we invent better than we build it ourselves. Kenwood anyone?

[Randy Bassham]

The Zenith plant in Missouri was located on East Kearney St in Springfield. I drove past it everyday on my way to work from 1980-1983. I'm not sure when it closed down but it's now mostly warehouses for Bass Pro. I can remember seeing about a bazillion TV antennas on the roof and all the Tractor-Trailers with "ZENITH" painted all across the trailers. At the time it was my understanding that they were building 13 and 19 inch sets there.

[superdeez]

Just to slightly clairify my rant (lol) I am not anti-union, but I just find it sad and ironic that in protecting the men and women that did our manfacturing, we ended up putting many of them out of a job.

Yay however to innovation continuing to come from the US and Europe.

[stereofisher]

Originally Posted by peverett

I am not a union member, but have the following comment.

Sure unions can and do go overboard, but without them we would have the same working conditions in the US that were had 100 years ago: No health insurance, no retirement, no vacation, six or seven 12 hour days, etc. In fact, this is what many workers in other countries have today. I am convinced that this is exactly what many in business are pushing for today in this country with the canceling of retirement plans through bankruptcy, etc.

Remember that FDR called businessmen "Attila The Huns in business suits". This is not true for most of them, but it is true of far too many. (Just remember Sarnoff of RCA, if you do not believe me).

I have a quote about corporations that I believe is very true:
"Do not love the company you work for it will not love you back."

I went to work for Sears in 1997. Back then they cared. Then we got involved with K-Mart and damned if we didnt marry the "Town Whore" of retailing. Load the floor with commission sales people so the good sales associates cant make any money. Give one choice for health insurance that really sucks, offers less coverage and costs more. Sears the only company thats happy to give up market share as long as we make a little money on less sales.Duh. They definitely dont give a damn about the Sales Associate that pays their over priced salaries. Corp weenies. No one person is worth what CEO's get in the US!! Sorry for the vent. Buying appliances from Gold Star and putting Kenmore on them is like dragging a good name thru the mud. My girlfriend asked me about the window AC I put in the bedroom. "is it a good one?" Its OK I said. Could not find the local Freidrichs dealer, who build their AC's here! Like I said in a prevoius post we need gov leaders with balls big enough keep this Chinese crap out of here. I cant beleive we let them in when they were hell bent to destroy us in the 60's. I hate our buyers at Sears. I could not beleive the old broad whose the buyer for our refrigerators. The Kenmores built by Whirlpool are great. I wont sell the Fridgedaires and the Gold Stars ( or LG what the hell the call themselves) are the low end of the food chain. Again sorry for the vent!! Shame on Corp America!!

Eric

[stereofisher]

If Sears and other retailers keep taking away I see a need for a union shop for retail workers!!! ET

[peverett]

Sears cares? BS.

1. According to a PBS show that I saw Sears was one of the first to bring in TVs below cost from the Japanese. American manufacturers sued and won, but by then it was too late.

2. When my father passed away, he left two credit card debts, Sears and Discovery. Sears hassled and hassled for full payment, her lawyer had to threaten them. Discovery let her pay the bill in once a month payments, no hassle.

3. Sears sold my mother a maintance agreement for many years on her washer. When it broke (the mainance agreement was still in effect) they tried to get out of it, say the washer was too old.

I have also ready of quite a few Auto repair and credit card scandals where Sears was sued and lost. I do not have much respect for them.

[Bill R]

My in-laws had a Sears maintanance agreement on all thier appliances. They had a 1980ish 19inch sanyo made color tv with no remote on the agreement. When it started to get a fuzzy crappy picture, well worse than normal, Sears sent a repairman out to "fix" it. He said they needed a new crt, which Sears ordered and replaced. When he brought the set back to their house the technician was going to converge it and the convergance ring assembly broke. He called parts and they could not find a replacement. So my mother in law went to the Sears store and explaned the problem, and were told to pick out the TV they wanted. They chose a new 27inch Sony with remote control, and Sears delivered it no charge. Sears didn't want the old set so it is with me. I installed the convergence ring assembly from a junker and it worked fine and it even has a new crt.

[holmesuser01]

I was working at Sears when the Brand Central idea began around 1991. I was there for 4 years. All we did was run from point A to point B and try to do as many service calls in a day that the district scheduler (100 miles away in Charlotte, NC) would send us. They couldn't even account for where the mountains are. I'm in western NC, and there are plenty of mountains!!!

As for MA's I condemned an early '70's Welles-Gardener built Sears set one day that had been under an MA from the beginning. She got a brand new cheap Sanyo built set for all that loyalty. It made me sick, but what could I do?