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[QUOTE=Telecolor 3007Maybe "R.C.A." would be in a better situation today if it had manufactured P.A.L. tv sets or other stuff for the Europeanen market.
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European manufacturers always managed to maintain a protectionist position that prevented American manufacturers from getting into the market. The adoption of PAL and SECAM was as much about that as about technical improvement. This kept prices high and also led European consumers to look for expensive degrees of quality in TVs. For example, I was told by my boss at Motorola (who had come over from Germany) that some buyers in Europe would measure the horizontal linearity in the store with a test pattern and a ruler before buying a set, while U.S. sets were much looser (and hence cheaper) in their specifications. Not sure how the European manufacturers fared when the Japanese started producing sets. In the U.S., dumping was claimed, but the U.S. Gov. made it a long and difficult process to prove it, so by the time some claims were granted, it was far too late. (The best way to prove harm from dumping is to have the factory shut down and jobs lost.) My personal opinion is that the U.S. government deliberately did this in the 70's for political reasons of keeping good international relations with our major ally in Asia, and thus sold out the U.S. industry in a calculated way. Not to say this was the only reason for decline of the U.S. TV industry, but it was certainly a factor.
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