Zenith's Decline
 

I threw together some notes on Zenith's plant closings here in the U.S. while reading through old news stories, and I thought some of you may be interested:

c. April 1978 - Watsontown, Penna. plant cuts manufacture of TV & stereo cabinets and suffers large layoff. Most work shifted to Evansville, Ind.

c. July 1978 - Sioux City, Ia. plant closed - mfd. stereo and TV compnents.

These two plant closings ended Zenith's domestic audio production. It also marked the end of the all-American TV. Zenith estimated their sets henceforth would contain 1/3 foreign-supplied parts.

As of 1978 the Trans-Oceanic 7000, made in Chicago, was the last American-made radio in production.

Mar 1982 - Watsontown, Penna. audio products plant closed. Made speakers and cabinets. Production shifted to Taiwan & Mexico.

1983 - Paris, Ill. plant closed - Agua Prieta, Mexico plant expands workforce.

Jan 1987 - Lynch Road cabinet plant in Evansville, Ind. closes; replaced bt plant in Juarez, Mexico.

March 1992 - TV production ends in Springfield, Mo. Plant molds plastic cabinets until 1994, when operation consolidated with Reynosa, Mexico plant.

July 17, 1995 - Zenith Electronics Corporation, the last American-owned TV
manufacturer, agrees to sell controlling interest to LG Electronics.

1998? - Melrose Park, Ill. picture tube plant closed.

If Zenith didn't sell out (for the most part) to LG until the third week of July 1995, I guess that makes my 19" Sentry 2 table model, which I got on July 9 of that year, one of the last sets ever manufactured by the company when it was still based in suburban Chicago (my set has a label on the back that says "Zenith Radio Corporation, Glenview, Illinois). I didn't see any references to Zenith subsidiaries in Mexico or anywhere else. Perhaps this explains why the TV still works as well as it does (with no repairs) after nearly 15 years, and why it still has its original CRT.

BTW, as I have said many times before, it is a crying shame that Zenith sold out to LG; after all, Zenith was the last American television manufacturer after Admiral, Magnavox, et al. left our shores for the Pacific Rim, and they really knew their business. I had several Zenith TVs that were made in the US, the first one being a 23" VHF-only model K2739 from 1963 that I found on a neighbor's treelawn in my hometown, circa 1969. Someone had filched all the tubes but the 1J3 HV rectifier when I found the set, but a new set of tubes got it working almost like new. My other Zenith TVs were a 1959 transformer-powered 19" portable (with a 5U4 rectifier tube), found at a rummage sale in the 1980s, a 1969 SC300 19" portable, "The Ventura", found on a treelawn in my old neighborhood in the mid-'70s, and a J121Y solid-state 12" portable that I bought new in 1978, after the '69 Ventura developed AGC problems (probably caused by a very gassy horizontal output tube--I couldn't find a replacement at the time).

My first new color TV, and the next one after it, were 13" Zenith color portables bought new in 1979 and 1982, respectively, but by now the sets were being made offshore. Actually, I think even my '78 Zenith solid-state b&w portable was made by a Mexican subsidiary of theirs, as I remember seeing a label on the back cover, above the vertical hold control IIRC, stating that the set had been manufactured in Mexico; might well have been Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, but I'm not sure anymore.

My 14-year-old Zenith Sentry 2, as I said, may very well have been one of the last televisions ever made by the original Zenith Radio Corporation. When did the Glenview, Illinois plant close, if there ever was a production facility located there (might have been only for CRTs)? :scratch2:

From reading your post, it would seem that most of Zenith's operations had been moved to Mexico, and later offshore, by 1998 or thereabouts. I had a Zenith four-mode integrated stereo system, bought new in 1982, that had a notice printed on the back cover to the effect that the system had been built in Korea to the standards of the Zenith Radio Corporation; my 1980 Zenith H480 AM/FM stereo clock radio also has that notice stamped on the cover, so the company's radio and stereo plants must have left Chicago long before the TV division.

I had no idea, however, that Zenith's radio or TV production facilities were ever in Evansville, Indiana for any length of time; since Zenith was always headquartered in Chicago, I would have exprected anything the company made would have come from that area. I could have understood them having plants in Crown Point, LaPorte or St. John, Indiana (if such plants existed, which I know they did not--all of Zenith's operations in their glory days and until they sold out to LG were in Illinois suburbs of Chicago), as these are all northwestern Indiana suburbs of the city; but Evansville? :scratch2:

Evansville was a cabinet plant as the OP said. Not sure why you find that unbelievable. Many manufacturers had cabinet plants in more Southern rural areas.

Glenview was never a manufacturing facility. Only admin and engineering/advanced development.

I didn't say I did not believe it; however, I was surprised. The mention of Evansville, Indiana as being associated with Zenith surprised me because, as I said in my post, I knew most of Zenith's operations were based in or near Chicago before LG bought them out. I wouldn't have been so surprised if their cabinet works had been in a northwestern Indiana city such as Gary, Crown Point, et al., as these are suburbs of Chicago; what puzzled me was why Zenith's cabinet plant was in a city so far removed from there. Evansville, Indiana is closer to Owensboro, Kentucky than it is to Chicago.

If Glenview, Illinois was the location of Zenith's administration and engineering departments, why does the label on the back of my 1995 Sentry 2 19" color TV have that address plainly printed on it? "Zenith Electronics Corp., Glenview, IL 60025" This is why I thought Zenith must have had a television plant there until the LG takeover. My second Zenith color portable (bought new in 1982) also had a label on the back with basically the same information, except at that time the label read Zenith Electronics Corp., Springfield, MO. Was this another engineering/administration facility before LG barged in and smashed Zenith's reputation all to bits? For that matter, what happened to these facilities (the one in Glenview, IL and the other in Missouri) after the takeover? Are they still standing, and if so, what if anything is in the buildings today? :scratch2:

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I used to own one of those 14" Zenith flat tube monitors along with the Zenith computer that it went with.

I think that Zenith CRT quality started going down with the introduction of the system 3 in '78. And, quality continued to decline throughout the '80's and then things hit rock bottom in the '90's.

I had one of those as well. Someone threw it out, and IIRC the deflection was way overscanned. Found some circuit board breaks that once fixed, made the deflection behave (not osverscan). Not sure why that would be, maybe a feedback loop became repaired when I fixed the breaks in the circuit board traces.

I do remember the very limited resolution options. Also I think it had cooling fans inside. Think it finally died about ten years ago, salvaged some parts and tossed the rest.

As I understand it, Zenith spent something like $80 million on the Flat tension mask (FTM) crt, and got very little return on that investment. At the same time, they did not invest in improvements/upgrades to their CRT mfg plant, so they were stuck with a maximum size crt of 27"....In hindsight, not a smart choice.
Zenith developed a lot of technology and made a nice product, but they also made many errors in judgment... They were already "down for the count" before LG bought them out.
I also understand that our present marginal DTV system was chosen partially as an attempt to "save" Zenith from going bankrupt. :sigh:

jr

Zenith's decline ? Same as virtually ALL American industry. They stopped paying attention to "product development" & became slaves to cost accounting. I got an MJ-1035 about a couple of years ago. One of my Objets De Lust for a long time. Didn't work, so I took it to Terry, & he of course got it going again. But I was pretty underwhelmed-to say the least. This was the TOTL radio of a proud company-12 tubes. Does it receive all that well on AM or FM ? No, not really. AM is OK, but nothing spectacular, & FM is muted to where it only picks up the REALLY "Blowtorch" stations. OK, I know they set these up to "Selectivity" rather than "Sensitivity", but come on...OK, but at least it SOUNDS good, right ? Well....no. I mean its OK, but on a radio of this caliber, I'd expect a LOT better. And the whole thing sorta has an aura of "Cheap" about it- The finish on the wood is mediocre, the plastic is carnival side-show chintzy, & the plastic knobs are chrome plated by the same people who chromed bumpers on AMT model kits...Compare to a Grundig, Emud, Telefunken, SABA...They had GORGEOUS finishes, TO ME, about all of 'em I've seen are more sensitive, the knobs seem somewhat more substantial & have a better "feel" to 'em, you have better/more of a variety of tone controls, plus, the Germans gave you a tuning eye tube, & shortwave capability, something Zenith, of all firms, should have known Americans MIGHT have liked to hear...I mean, in many ways, Zenith's TOTL table set comes across as sort of a somewhat slightly gussied-up version of the loss-leader bedside "Wake-Me-Upper"...And it SHOULD have been better than that. Helluva shame.

Well, starting in the late 60's the Japanese dumping color sets over here didn't help matters any. And from what I've read the government wasn't too interested in doing anything about it, despite years of protests and concern by all the domestic television manufacturers.

Well, WHY didn't RCA, Zenith, Admiral, et al, w/their resources, marketing savvy, etc, come upw/products that blew 'em outta the water ? The party was over for us as soon as the Sony 5-303 series hit the stores...Helluvit was, WE developed most all of the technology that made IT possible...The Japs come out w/a 5" transistor B/W TV ?-Hell, WE shoulda come out w/a 5"-9" SS COLOR one-Take THAT, Morita...Where's the spirit of Commander McDonald, & the innovative products he introduced ? We were more interested in making the biggest, gaudiest "entertainment centers" than innovative products...

In short, I'd say it all came down to price. The Japanese were selling sets to America at or below cost while making a healthy profit at home. It forced American manufacturers to close up, sell to foreign interests or move production to Mexico in order to compete. (The only company that really fell victim to shoddy work was Warwick; Sanyo turned that factory around and added a couple of thousand workers in a few short years.)

That's my take from researching the fates of companies still in business after 1960. I'm sure others here saw this firsthand and could add insight.

As one who lived through the period in question, my own reaction when I first saw a Sony Trinitron was "oh oh, game over for American TV manufacturing". These sets typically sold for about $100 more than a comparable US set, but delivered superb picture quality. On top of that, most of the US sets at that time still used at least a few vacuum tubes. It was easy to make the calculation that a few service calls to replace weak tubes would, over time negate the initial price advantage of the US products. I bought Sony, and never looked back.
jr

Whats funny about all this is I prefer my mid 60's all tube zenith set. Still works, decent pic. I dont have a lot of experience with Japanese sets of the same era, I wonder if they are still holding up. Somewhere along the line the idea of well built stuff that that you would just keep and fix got lost in the desposable replace with the latest wizz bang products. I still prefer hand crafted quality vs. machine made plastic junk. Granted there are no cell phones, Wii, playstations, what ever, but I dont own those and could careless to. Buy good, buy once, save your money and stay out of debt.

yea I know a HD Flat screen has a better pic than my 1960's zenith, but I only watch old shows anyway that I assume would not look much better on current stuff anyway.

Same goes for cars, my newest is a 2000 and that was a fluke, I would much rather have something from the 1960's or earlier anyway.

My First Sony
 

I don't have any real data on Japanese sets from that era either. The little 60s Sony 5" B/W portables usually work ok, sometimes need a few caps at most, the earlier 8" Sonys usually have not held up as well, and are sometimes difficult to repair.
The first Trinitrons appeared in 1968 or 1969. I know of at least one of these that is still "in service", although I think the CRT has been replaced.
My KV-9000 Trinitron that I bought brand new in the early 70s ($350+?) is still working fine, with no repairs other than a new power cord. I still use it in my shop, sometimes to watch a program, or in this case, I was using it to check out a Heathkit generator that I was restoring.
jr

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I have a few early Japanese sets in my collection. A Sony KV1200u and a KV1220u and a Hitachi CVA450. These are late 60's sets and are built like a tank. I know that instead of connectors things were hardwired to boards. Circuit boards are like what you would see if you popped open a 90's trinitron. Amazing technology even back then. But the american sets were built like a tank too and chassis in those sets were built with quality too.

Quality did slip within Sony too you know. I believe it was somewhere within 1986 to 1989. I have a KV-1926RA 19" Sony from 1989 that has had HOTs blow and bad sloppy solder connections al over the board including FBT. BPC too, the picture quality was still good. Athough it showa signs of convergence issues in the corners.

Then I have a KV-1917 19" Sony from 1984. This set is still going strong, no problems, near perfect convergence and I believe it was built in San Diego, CA. I opened this one up before to clean it out. It's in my machine shop and gets used a bit. Board quality and Soldering in this one is top notch. I seems Sony's had issues all the way up with sets being built in Mexico. Sure the pictury quality was still there but the inital quality suffered.

I have a 2001 Sony KV-36XBR450. Nasty when it comes to repair. Another one to bad solder connections.

It's all about cutting costs and maximizing profits. Sad but true. Zenith moved out cause the cost of making here was too much, even though us Americans take pride in our work.

Can't disagree with that... my '94 27" (KV-2720? ) only lasted 14 years, I perhaps should have spent a little more time trying to fix it, but the lure of the 16:9 sets was also a factor. I suspect that the LCD set will not last as long as the 27" did. The old KV-9000 will likely still be going after the LCD set quits.
I don't know the exact timing, but was the transition to low lead solder a factor in the declining quality/poor solder joints? :scratch2:

jr

I've had two of the 14" displays in my collection. They were very, very nice looking. The screen was almost completely black when off, and the colors were very rich and bright. The VGA only resolution was a real bummer, and the main reason I got rid of them. In heindseight I wish I had kept one as I bet they're quite uncommon now. Both came attached to Zenith branded PCs.

I wouldn't have called them truly flat though, the front was flat but the inside seemed to curve in around the edges.

Sorry to bump this old thread, but I was actually thinking back to these displays yesterday and wondering if there was any info about them on this board. The blackness of the screen and richness of the color really sticks with you.

-J

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I would have to say that Zenith REALLY started to go downhill, by the mid "70's and stopped the "overbuilding" of their products...INCLUDING the CCII sets. For example, look at the TOTL, and even second from TOTL, Zenith console stereos from about 1968 or so. The big one had a BIG amp with BIG sinks and a heavy metal chassis....and was built JUST like a tube amp...with the "big stuff" on top,(sinks, PT, filter caps, fuse) and the "low level" parts underneath. NO circuit boards..PtP wiring. The 26YT20 "all in one" chasiss...built the same way. By then, RCA, Zenith's competitor had gone to PC boards and small frames...and ..by about 1974...so had Zenith. I recently picked up a long-sought-after1973 RCA stereo, VRT-84, the BIG one--and the LAST of the "decent models" RCA made. Not bad--but STILL FAR behind the Zenith quality of the time--on their "big one"--which STILL looked much as it has since 1969, and still nearly ALL PTP wiring. But by the next year..even Zenith had "given in" and their full line was PC boards, no full metal chassis, cheap cabinets, etc. Even the Chromacolor II sets--which we ALL love...were INFERIOR to the build of the tubes sets of the '60's .

Perhaps it HAD to happen. People tell me that a good stereo or Color tv back 40 years ago was an EXPENSIVE item--and NOT something one could just "buy at a whim"....like now. According to many...IF the TV's and stereos and such were bulit like "we like them"....then NONE of us could afford them now, as a color tv--a BASIC 25" set-- would today cost OVER 3K--and an "average " stereo receiver or console--let alone the GOOD ones--would cost over 2K!! IN reality..one can get a 55" LCD set for about 3k or LESS today.

SO--I guess to cause electronic items to be one of those "gets cheaper over time" things..the quality just had to go... What a SHAME!!

Speaking of Zenith console stereo's, someone brought me one of the last ones from around '79 that they just had to have fixed. I tried to talk them out of it; but, no luck. It was one of those models with an 8-track player, cheap Garrard changer, and what looked to be an imported tuner/amp chassis (all on a PC board with IC's for the audio outputs). Both the output IC's were blown and I was lucky enough to still be able to find NOS ones. The changer was so messed up that I just replaced it with a BSR, since the motorboard was cut to accept either a BSR or Garrard. The owner promptly picked it up and I never heard from him again; but, that stereo was no where near the quality of the ones from just 10 years earlier. And, I don't know when the last console stereo was made; but, i do know that '79 was pushing the end of the console stereo era.

I've had the pleasure of seeing some of those late '60's Zenith solid state consoles and they were very nice with their all metal handwired chassis and VM built "micro touch" record changers. The highest end models even had belt driven changers.

I have an MJ1035 which I got from a VK member about a year and a half or two ago. It worked when it arrived here, but the radio had two very loose pots that weren't even attached to the chassis. I had the chassis in and out of the cabinet so much (to reseat the loose controls) that I must have pulled a few leads off the volume control. I took the volume pot completely out of the circuit and now get some sound, but nowhere near what it should be. The reason the pots were so loose on the chassis was, as I found out much later, that the radio had been subjected to extremely rough handling by UPS between Arizona (where the set's former owner lives) and my apartment in northeastern Ohio. I'm amazed the set worked at all once it got here.

My point is that the problems with my MJ1035 were not necessarily the fault of Zenith, although my set does have all the shortcomings yours has (cheap cabinet parts, less than perfect cabinet finish, etc.). Mine will receive every FM station in Cleveland and surrounding areas simply with a 6' length of wire on the antenna terminals (I can tell because the neon stereo FM indicator on the front panel lights on just about every station). Nothing wrong with the RF signal circuits; however, my set does have a very loud AC 60-Hz hum that suggests to me I either lost a ground connection somewhere, or one or more sections of the power supply filter capacitor are bad. I'm not looking forward to replacing that cap, because the terminals are hidden under at least one layer of wiring under the chassis; I may have to cut out most of that just to get to the capacitor.

The reason your MJ1035 won't pick up much other than very strong local stations may be that the FM muting control on the chassis is set far too high. Did the radio work well at Terry's, picking up lots of stations and so on? If so, the problem could well be the setting of that mute control. It may be presently set to allow the radio to pull in most stations in a moderate to strong signal area (you have mentioned that Terry is in Knoxville or some other large city in Tennessee), but the setting could be so high that the mute circuit blocks all but extremely strong local stations in your area. I'd try backing that pot down until the stereo indicator comes on, when the radio is tuned to the strongest station in your area.

The MJ1035 may not be the best of Zenith's design efforts, but it must be borne in mind that this radio was the company's very first attempt at stereo FM in a table radio, so there are bound to be shortcomings in the design, none (or very few, if any) of which can be corrected at this late date. I'd enjoy the set for what it is.

I've posted this link before, EVERY U.S. member should read this (and weep).

http://www.bcit-broadcast.com/monash/matsushita.pbs

And natural progression of things say the following: Japan can't produce items economically, so they outsource to China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. Matsushita's last TV's were made by Cheng-Hua.

How the mighty have fallen:

-Sony went to Mexico, China and oh how their products have slipped: remember the mini-disc? If I remember correctly, the new president of Sony apologized for making bad products. Google "sony timer"

-Panasonic started to lay off its labour force based on "retirement". Dirty Secret: Panasonic was using RCA tubes in their 26" tv's in the early 80's.

This also partially happened in Italy in the late 60s, when the Japanese started dumping their cheap POS electronics on our market... during the 70s they pushed many of our audio-only manufacturers like Wilson and Lesa out of the market, even though they made quality products, built much like American stuff, far better than the flimsy plastic junk from Japan anyway.

BUT for some reason they were unable to make a dent on our TV industry, they actually only managed to kill our audio industry but they were unable to sell any serious quantity of TV sets on the Italian market at least until the mid 90s, and even then most Japanese brand sets we got here were actually built using European technology and some sets like Hitachis and Pioneers were rebranded British, German or Scandinavian sets.

The Italian TV industry (along with Grundig and many other Euro companies) eventually met its fate in the early-mid noughties because they were stuck with well made but outdated CRT sets and were unable to shift to FP set production...

I also have this same exact television. Zenith Sentry 2 19" manufactured in April 1995. I bought it new on July 23, 1995. Never have had a problem with it. Everything is original. Still my main TV set.

On the other hand, it's simple: people want cheaper goods, but the don't think of the consequences of the deindustralization.
But I think it was the folt of the American industry too. They thought they where in a glass cage. Just like the Birtish with they automobile industry. Or the Romanians, which had the mentality of "lasă că merge şi aşa" (something like "it'll work anyway") - meaning that the product was below the standars or was unreaible, they are manufacturing something...

One thing else - the US Government's regulations (via the FTC) that required many years of support for consumer goods. We're talking inventories of parts for sets that were essentially loss-leaders for Zenith (and others), and they had to carry them on their balance sheet. It's kinda tough to be innovative with a ball and chain around your neck.

That, with the dumping of Japanese sets sold at way below "real" manufacture cost hit the US manufacturers with essentially a knock-out blow. Read he book "The Japanese Television Cartel" and you'll look with awe at how the US manufacturers dealt with illegal trade practices, patent infringement, and outright lies by the Japanese. Oh sure, the court cases proved it, but by then, the US manufacturers had moved on, mostly to their deaths or sale.

ALL I will add here is:

Around 1998, I started replacing Zenith CRTS on the newest sets under warranty with Zenith replacements that came from Chicago in Zenith boxes.

Often, these replacement tubes would die within a few weeks or months.

The WORST was the sets that would kill the chassis when the CRT shorted out. For a while, Zenith replaced the modules, but after that, they started requiring component level repairs, which did me no good, as I was a one-man shop, and couldn't spend a bunch of time on them. Sometimes it was fun to try and figure out what had died on the chassis... it was never the same problem more than once or twice.

At one point, I had 20 Zenith sets with bad CRT's sitting in the shop waiting for the warranties to be approved for repair by the Company. Sometimes, it took weeks for this to happen. I really got tired of being growled at by the set owners as to why it was taking so long.... THEN, when UPS would come by with a load of CRT's in boxes for me, I had no place to put them. Talk about no extra space! I stacked new CRT boxes in my office for several months.

I'm so glad I dropped Zenith for warranty work. The Philips and NAP sets were more than enough at the time, along with those wonderful RCA sets with the integral tuner on the chassis (CTC175 and up)

The bad CRTs the company produced '93-'96 had nothing to do with the decline of the company, it started back in the late 70's when the US did nothing to protect American companies and manufacturing from dumping and outsourcing. Zenith started losing hundreds of millions each year starting in '84, and tried many things unsuccessfully to stay alive. Personally I think they should have dumped the TV business and focused on PCs, but hindsight is 20/20.

The only year after '84 that they posted a profit was the year they sold the PC business.

And I do agree... the System 3 sets were awful. Profitable for the repairman, but awful. I used to stock multiple modules for these sets.

Dishdude got it right. The CRT problem didnt cause the
loss of many customers. Loss of dealers yes. But that
really didnt either. The old way of selling TV's was at an
end for everyone. TV's were becoming a commodity almost
blister wrapped & hanging on a peg board. Most were not
made to be fixed easily & any support was going away.
Zenith was also loosing there biggest base, old people.
The best customers were dieing off fast :tears:
No matter what nobody could build sets here anymore. It
all went to China for the smallest bowl of rice. China is
doing it for 3 reasons. Cash flow, jobs to keep the reds in power,
and modern tech with military applications.

73 Zeno:smoke:

...

You're nuts.

Zeno and Dishdude are spot-on.

Here is a small sampling of the 18-page (and counting) book chapter I've written on the subject. If anyone here hasn't read “The Fall of the U.S. Consumer Electronics Industry, an American Trade Tragedy”, a little-known book written by Phillip J. Curtis in 1994; you should.

Later:

...and then a lot more stuff happened in the 60s, 70s and 80s. But you'll have to buy the book (when finished) to get the rest. :D

I think there were many things that all added up at the wrong time to spell disaster for Zenith.

I was a Zenith dealer until 1998. At that time, Zenith was the last major manufacturer still tied to a network of wholesale distributors for their small and mid-sized dealers. Prices from the factory had to allow room not only for the dealer to turn a profit, but also the wholesale distributor. RCA, Magnavox, and the other big players cut out the middle-man early on while Zenith stubbornly hung on.

Plus, every other manufacturer got away from building "modular" sets except Zenith. While every other manufacturer paid about $40 labor and the cost of a few parts to repair an in-warranty TV set in the 1990's, Zenith was paying the same $40 and providing an entirely new chassis. While it was nice and easy for those of us doing warranty work, it was an expensive proposition for Zenith. Plus, the distributor was making money on every one of these modules for his part in the warranty process.

In their last 10 years, Zenith had a product line that (when compared to other brands) was bloated with poor selling models. For years, Zenith had many slow-selling console's that were continued year after year. When other manufacturers started shaving off the huge selection of consoles, Zenith insisted on keeping in the game by enlarging their offerings, even offering some models in your choice of faux finish.

Like most brands, Zenith enforced a MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) policy on their dealer network. In other words, every model had a MAP price and if a dealer advertised that set for less than the MAP price, they would be ineligible for advertising co-op dollars. In the early 1990's, they started allowing some of the big-box stores to ignore the MAP price, which further depressed the selling price of Zenith sets. In the eyes of the public, when a Zenith 19" portable was selling for the same $199 price as RCA and GE, the game was over. Zenith had developed a reputation over the years for above average prices and quality, and when their prices came down to match the other brands, the quality image suffered. It also really pissed off their independent dealer network, who saw Zenith TV sets advertised in the Sunday newspaper at Circuit City for less than it cost them wholesale.

The well known CRT issues at Zenith was also quite a problem. I remember those days well, and any Zenith dealer can tell you that in the mid-1990's, Zenith was paying out a fortune for in-warranty CRT replacements. Another side effect was the damage bad CRT's done to Zenith's image and reputation in the market. Anyone who bought a Zenith only to have the picture tube crap out shortly after the warranty expired was sure to replace it with any brand other than Zenith.

Like all American Television manufacturers, Zenith was under attack from the flood of cheap imports. Combine this with all the other little problems, and you have a perfect storm that helped spell the end of a once iconic brand.

I will admit I am not up on much of the dumping stuff as it helped the US tv industry
go bye-bye.... I have seen poor quality control help the auto industry shrink....

I'm sure printed circuit boards did not help or hurt the companies that used, or did not
use them.... Partly because efficiencies in other areas would make up for any shortfalls
because of the time and effort required to hand wire a tv. I'm sure it was not a factor.

Bad picture tubes..... Well QC.

As far as politics..... GM did the most to steer build quality industry wide, and from what
I have read, did the most although not by much to defeat any meaningful advancement
in auto technology, as in gas mileage, safety, and smog control, as a result they and
their buddies suffered the most when the us buying public got a look as something
better....

By time the tv industry changed, the American mindset was changing as well.
Few people seemed to take pride in a job well done in any industry. Individuals
put more value in having something new and shiny even when the old one
still worked well.... We see it even more today as the word "upgrade" is used
to convince almost everyone to regularly replace items that still have a useful
life left in it.


I look forward to seeing this book..... You let us know when it's done Carmine....

.

...

I think what you're not taking into account is that decisions like not switching to printed circuits, or a failure to build tubes larger than 27" do not occur in a vacuum (no pun intended). The dominos which started eating the profit from Zenith's bottom line started falling in the very late 1950s. For at least a decade the effects were small... First they ceded the market on low-profit items like portable radios. But eventually even their high-margin items were under attack. Smaller companies like Admiral simply faded away. Larger parent companies like Motorola sold off their consumer divisions.

Zenith's strategy was to seek remedy in the court system. Often, they would win damages (which might have paid for new capital investment) but what happens when a foreign company simply fails to pay the US government or a US company? A shooting war? Not so much. US trade legislation is largely an executive branch power and that means no one has a career that lasts longer than 8-years (sometimes 4). How many of the FTC or Commerce Department lawyers who had the responsibility of writing/enforcing/collecting trade legislation/duties ended up with a lucrative career at a law firm representing a Japanese manufacturer... Or sometimes directly employed by same? Do you think the real Elliot Ness-style hardasses got those job offers? In at least one case a guy got busted back to processing FOIA requests for being "too agressive".

Meanwhile its very easy to say "well they never got into xyz market", but when capital is limited, what eventually suffers? R&D. Those new areas where they did choose to invest, FTM, HDTV and even laser projection systems ended up as dead ends.

As further proof, Sony was never named in any of these lawsuits or found guilty of any dumping charges. They'd chosen a premium space in the market, not the $199 19" area that was eating the bottom out of a $329 Zenith set. If they faced only Sony at a similar price point, I imagine the outcome would have been different. Perhaps that's the reason Zenith eventually did much business with Sony in areas where they could no longer afford new captial investment.

Consider that it took the Japanese much longer to penetrate Europe (and American companies never did) why do you suppose that was? Perhaps their heavily protected markets vs. our wide open borders? Ya think?

To say that defective CRTs or multiple cabinets finishes killed Zenith is like saying heart failure is the cause of death for a guy with lung cancer. Yes, when the heart stops beating we declare someone dead, but if the heart is damaged after years being deprived of oxygen, do you still blame the heart? If you never consider cause and effect, you'll never cut the number of deaths.

In Europe, the Japanese tv sets reduced the number of sets produced in Italy, France (throu "Thomson" made good tv sets up untill the '80's - or even the early '90's) and U.K. (the U.K. tv manufacturing industry declined faster then other Europeanen ones... not only because the Asia imports, but because it wasn't very inovative). But the West-Germans and the Dutch still made tv's up untill the '80's... in the '90's, those companies still exsited, but I don't think the tvs where any longer Made in Germany or Made in Holland.
In Eastern-Europe things where somehow better, since almost every country had unleass one tv manufacturer. In Romania we made some tube sets using Japanese components! (the C.R.T. wasn't always Japanese) Those tv sets where among the most realible ever to be made around here! Some other sets had japanese C.R.T.'s (my <<Telecolor>> 3007 haves an "Toshiba" one - other made have Europenanen C.R.T.'s - depends on what they could get in theyr hands in a certain moment of time); some portable sets (during communism we made only b & w portable sets) had 3rd qualty "N.E.C." C.R.T.'s.
After Communism... some still made sets after 1989. In Romania the things worked up untill around 1997-1998, when because of the bad management *, cheap Chinese and Turkish sets things went dowmn. For the Romaninas, the tv sest made by Japanes brands where expensive... but "GoldStar" and "Samsung" where more affordable and those early to mid '90's "Samungs"s worked for yeras!

* I'm talking about the main company, "N.E.I." ("Network Electronica International"), 'cause during the '90's there where 4 companyes that assambled tv sets: "N.E.I.", "Thomas" (the old tv manufacturerer, "Electronica" was splited betwen these 2 companies), "Hermes" and "Royal" (I think they asambled the "Freedom" tv sets too...). Around 1991 "Tehnoton" of Iaşi (Jassy) asaambled b & w tv sets.

The Japanese had one thing that put them on the front: they improved everything they copyed. Who inveted the audio cassette and the cassette deck and who ended up making the best of them?
Nowdays the Korean company "Samsung" does it...