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#48
12-31-2014, 12:22 PM
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I think marketing must have played a role. Zenith's decline may have began earlier, but as someone who lived through the 1980s, I remember very well that the Trinitron had a "cool" factor, with its modern industrial design, Sony's embrace of digital technology, and plethora of cutting edge miniaturized personal electronics. I mean as a consumer, let's compare the options in the 80s:
RCA: Status quo brand... not too bad, not to great, and from a company who had not made any true status symbols or remarkable demonstrations of their technological "chops" in at least a generation. Standard choice for hotels, institutional users, and the "average joe" who wanted a TV, but would certainly not be the first choice for someone equipping their bachelor pad with the state of the art. Kind of like a rental car.. it works, you can use it, but you wouldn't really want to keep it given what else is out there. The CED was full of problems, it would skip, and the fact it couldn't record was a huge disadvantage which I can't believe they didn't foresee, given that the scene was set for the success of the videocassette already in the early 70s. The electronics equivalent of Chevrolet. The fact that RCA owned NBC, and NBC used Trinitrons as monitors speaks volumes. Zenith: Cruising on their past reputation for quality, making a lot of TV sets with outdated styling and technology based on the old late 70s system 3 chassis. I can only really see the appeal to the "Buy American" crowd and the old people who wanted to replace their old Zenith with a new one. Sure they did make computers, but this was sold off, and their decision to buy Heathkit also made no sense to me. Sony: This was where it was happening... the technically superior Trinitron, the co inventors of the CD, the Handycam, the Walkman. Sony was to the 80s what Apple is to this decade... an innovator and technical leader in their prime. The "it's a Sony" sticker meant something, and it was only when they succumbed to the higher value of the yen and moved manufacturing out of Japan that their own reputation as a premium high tech manufacture started to become diluted. Panasonic: Kind of like the Toyota of the electronics industry. Well designed products, pretty modern, and most importantly works reliably for many years. Bottom line: In the 80s, people who cared about having "the best", simply didn't find it in a US product. People who wanted "the cheapest" didn't find it in American products either. People who wanted "something to do the job" may have found it in a US product, but how long is it possible to sustain an industry based on products which don't win in terms of either performance or cost? I am pretty sure that what kept RCA and Zenith going as long as they did was the fact that they were well distributed and recognized as brand names, rather than anything to do with the products. I bet they would have died earlier if they had to compete on merit alone. 
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#49
12-31-2014, 12:24 PM
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You are quite correct that they didn't invest in new areas like home recording BECAUSE THE MONEY DIDN'T EXIST. There was no new investments investment in robotic soldering or process data recorder systems that improve reliability BECAUSE THE MONEY DIDN'T EXIST. There was no new investment in CRT manufacturing (and probably lots of deferred maintenance) BECAUSE THE MONEY DIDN'T EXIST. Admiral, Philco, Magnavox, etc. weren't doing any of this either BECAUSE THOSE COMPANIES DIDN'T EXIST. Could they have invested in more modern assembly techniques, styling updates and CRT line maintenance rather than HDTV or PCs? I suppose but that would have only delayed the inevitable... A steady loss of market share because they couldn't match the one thing consumers will not tolerate; higher prices for a commodity, which television became during the 1970s. That lower-price was artificial, borne by the Japanese consumer and tolerated by our government. You're simply listing the SYMPTOMS of a dying company, (innovation, quality control) not the root cause. The root causes began long before the symptoms. Zenith simply managed to outlast the others in a toxic market because it was the largest consumer electronics company by the 1970s. A hollow victory because the same problems that killed its competitors* eventually killed Zenith. *Exception being RCA which re-invented itself as a collector of royalties which just happened to make a few TV sets, and Motorola which saw the future and abandoned the segment.
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From Captain Video, 1/4/2007 "It seems that Italian people are very prone to preserve antique stuff." Last edited by Carmine; 12-31-2014 at 12:30 PM.
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#50
12-31-2014, 01:25 PM
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be ever..... Everything was well supported, each distributor, service center, you name it, they all were well funded.... There was money allocated to each, even warranty work was covered.... Even if they didn't improve on the set, a portion of profits covered everything so they could make new sets, and keep customers very happy.... A company under normal conditions sells a product, makes a profit. Part of that profit gets put into making new products, R&D (research and development) Now what dumping did was to place items on the US market that were made for a good amount of money.... The Trinatron for example should have sold for way-way over the cost of 2 Zeniths because of all the big hole Sony dug building the Chromatron, and then selling only about 15 of them.... But instead they sold their electronics here for much less than it cost them to make it.... And they still made money as a company because they sold their Trinatrons in Japan for 2 1/2 times the price of a Zenith..... The Japanese people who bought a Sony, paid for theirs, and part of each one sold here.... Kinda nice of them..... But they didn't know it, and were none to happy when the found out.... Noted above.. Up until now Zenith could say we add up a little money for each support department (and most tv makers had the same expenses) add in the cost of making the set, designing new stuff for next year, sales support, advertising, and all that is $349. for this 19" tv.... But then came dumping.... Sets sold for something where all costs do not add up.... But what did that do for Zenith..... Well, if they wanted to sell a set, they were faced with a new customer walking in the door and saying "well that new Sony is on sale for $199... And yer wanting me to pay $349. for the same size set... Zenith had to decide if they wanted to sell sets at a similar price to "make a sale" or hold out at the higher price and sell many less sets... Bad for a company when a good number of customers chose an item on price only.... Remember we're talking 19" tabletop set.... No furniture-long term investment. So they decided what they would cut to match a price in the end.... Use cheaper parts..... Cut back on updating manufacturing system (assembly line improvements)... Eliminate the feedback QC loop and not fix problems in new sets... (leading to the long lived picture tube problem) and many others.... Better looking sets.... Eliminate focus groups on design... No one getting the message big consoles were not in favor anymore.... Did they close that department.... Someone order more big cabinets... So they came close to meeting the new price, but profits decreased to the point where at one point they would not be innovating at all.... Customers would then surely leave because the sets were plainly outdated.... Dumping actually caused the company to become unable to fund product improvements.... PBS did a really good Frontline ( I think it was) on Matshusta several years ago and it outlined almost all of what Carmine wrote above.... There is a link to the text of the program above.... possibly a page or two back... Zenith's only real fault is that they did not see that the government did not work for them, and that they did not see the large letter ALL CAP writing on the wall.... every wall... If the activity of making and selling a tv costs more that I can sell it for, I'll soon be broke.... Of course after they go broke, the cost of a Sony can come up to what a normal retail product model would look like.... Maybe a little higher as now your competition is making crappy outdated products..... and no one really wants them.... The end... .
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Yes you can call me "Squirrel boy" Last edited by Username1; 12-31-2014 at 02:00 PM.
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#51
12-31-2014, 02:04 PM
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jr
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#52
12-31-2014, 02:07 PM
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Shoot, I thought Japenese manufacturers where correct... but it seems they acted like the Chinese.
Here is the link: http://www.bcit-broadcast.com/monash/matsushita.pbs
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#53
12-31-2014, 02:22 PM
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I'm pretty sure Sony's CV-2000 skip field VTR could work with normal TVs video signal wise. They scanned the same recorded field twice on playback to recreate an acceptable approximation of the original signal. The only modification I can see a TV needing to work with that deck is a video input, since some of the early VTRs lacked an internal RF modulator, and adding an input to the set was likely a cheaper route back then. Cartrivision was also a skip field (it recorded every third field) and could work with normal TVs....
Ampex did try to make consumer VTRs. In the late 60's they tried to market type C (IIRC) open reel decks as consumer gear putting them in wood cases for home use, and even offering a ginormous roundy color TV/stereo/VTR console, but their offerings were too expensive and complicated to be worth wile to many let alone average consumers. There was also the Quai(ar)-Moto(rola) Great Time Machine, though I don't know if that was made while they were an American brand... The quest for a high-sales volume consumer VTR was a tough one. No one wanted to be beat to market, but they all had a poor to total lack of concept of what the average consumer wanted. Thus to find it all interested firms basically threw crap at the wall until something stuck...Some firms went under on their first try (cartrivision *cough*) , others like Ampex who had patents, and a healthy client base in Broadcast simply gave up on the consumer market or were too intimidated with the upcoming copy right battles with the film unionistas to press on...Thus those left were the Japanese firms which had the capital to invest in designing more crap to throw at the wall, and could, by virtue of being overseas, in the event of legal defeat simply drop the product, and welch on paying the legal damages... Had our few tape companies gotten it right on their first shot or kept trying and beat the Japanese to coming up with the right product we might have had that victory, but it just did not happen...
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Tom C. Zenith: The quality stays in EVEN after the name falls off! What I want. --> http://www.videokarma.org/showpost.p...62&postcount=4
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#54
12-31-2014, 02:26 PM
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Well the Chinese are dumping in a way too.... In China there are many social costs they
went around, mostly they have for years had a slave labor rate... It still brings the cost of manufacture artificially low, with respect to the market the item is competing with otherwise.... Industrial safety, pollution control, yikes, China is like the US back in the 20's.... That is the big problem with globalization, labor rates lead in choice of production location. Second is social/environmental costs. A long time ago 60 minutes did a thing on some GM electronics plant that moved 20 miles from somewhere USA to some town Mexico, and a river ran across the border too. Well, GM got cheap labor, and they got to dump all their chemicals in that river that they could not do at their old address.... If I remember right, it made the news because the river with it's new color and smell ran into the US.... GM saved on labor, and possibly a bigger savings, they did not have to be clean anymore.... .
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Yes you can call me "Squirrel boy" Last edited by Username1; 12-31-2014 at 02:34 PM.
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#55
12-31-2014, 02:30 PM
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You know what, I think my blood sugar was low when I wrote that last reply. So I'll apologize for how it may have sounded. Let me try to phrase this better...
The success/failure of any business is often rooted in decisions made many years earlier. In the 1950s, Zenith's legal council was successful in breaking RCA's patent monopolies as well as trade barriers that were keeping them out of the Canadian market. Concurrent with this success was great success in the marketplace. There is no opinion to this, it's verifiable fact. Perhaps as a result of this success, they tried to expand into Japan and Europe... Thus becoming the multi-national company that virtually every large company must be in 2015 and a few decades before. They kept running into walls unable to find distributors because because of protectionist policies. So they turned to the legal remedies that had worked so well in the past. They won certain judgements, but if you've ever won a lawsuit, you'll know that doesn't mean you get paid. Now I'll divert into what I think PROBABLY happened. Obviously none of us were there. (If you were, quit lurking!) Understand how many things were happening at once. By the late 50s, a simple table radio was a money loser because of labor costs. They probably should have outsourced it, but they held out until 1968. That ate into the TV profit margins and by the late 60s, the same thing started happening to B&W TV sales that happened to radios a decade earlier. They're still pouring money into R&D. They launch a SS B&W set just in time to lose that market to cheap Japanese tube sets. So they continue the tube B&W sets because they're cheaper and never get the return on the SS B&W model (which I'm gad to have one of the rare examples). Withdrawing that model leads to the impression of no longer driving innovation among some customers. R&D Continues and you have the Chromacolor tube. SS Color is just around the corner. Somebody realizes that SS will no longer require those big heavy chassis that made the tube sets so superior, but they're already eaten the R&D budget, so a decision is made keep using the heavy steel chassis and P2P wiring. Probably nothing left in budget to retool the line circa 1972 because now you're really only making money on color sets. Maybe they should have dumped B&W (where does that leave the dealers?) and maybe they should have outsourced earlier, but that sort of harms the high moral ground of the ongoing legal battles. Speaking of legal battles circa early 70s, your man in the White House tells you "relief is just around the corner... We'll either open those foreign markets, or start leveling tariffs!" Based on that, Zeniths re-commits to building a new factory in IL. Then the White House pulls a 180 and stops taking your phone calls. (That last paragraph really did happen, it's documented in the book I mentioned.) The R&D department calls. "Hey, it's hurting sales that our portables weigh 200lbs because they use this battleship of a chassis!" So you authorize a new chassis that isn't so heavy. Let's call it a System 3. You invest heavily and there is still no relief in sight from the market erosion that's eating the bottom out of your 19" sales (the main growth market). You're manufacturing guys say "We need tooling dollars if we're going to all PC boards!" Tough... The budget is gone. We finally had to address labor costs and moved the tooling to Mexico. Oh yeah, the state of Illinois just called and said our unemployment insurance rate is up 40% because we just laid off a shitload of workers. But you finally won that dumping lawsuit to the tune of $50 Mil. So far you've been paid $100,000 (also not fiction). We're getting a lot of warranty problems on the System 3. R&D guys say "We need to become leaders in stereo TV sound, no one else is going there." So you do. You win an Emmy. Nobody cares. You're bleeding cash. R&D says "TV are a commodity now, let's go after a true flatscreen monitor and we'll own that market" So you do, but it's half-backed because you needed another $10 mil worth of development. Has that check from Japan cleared yet? No? Reagan says "get screwed, we need Japan as an ally to drive Russia out of business..." Crap. Sales says the market for consoles is dead. You have been losing money for years. Marketing says we need a new monitor style set with a 27" tube. You don't have the cash. Lucky Goldstar wants a US partner.. OK, we'll let them buy a little piece. Get that 27" tube line running! Manufacturing says "Our tooling is 30-years old, we can't keep the impurities out of the vacuum!" Tough, do the best you can! R&D says "let's work on a compatible HD system, that's the FCC requirement, spend what ever cash we have on that!" So you do. Then the FCC changes the requirement after being lobbied by a foreign company that owes you millions. LG says "We need your name because no one will buy our crap anymore after we screwed everyone with $200 VCRs that lasted a year". The check never came. You sell the name. Close the doors, lay everyone off. You're dead. 
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From Captain Video, 1/4/2007 "It seems that Italian people are very prone to preserve antique stuff."
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#56
12-31-2014, 02:38 PM
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not get a Sony because Sears sets were much cheaper, and he was not into keeping them once they made it 5 years and then began needing work.... But I do understand dumping..... I have watched this globalization thing muck up a few things..... .
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Yes you can call me "Squirrel boy"
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#57
12-31-2014, 02:39 PM
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Actually, the only flaw in Username's scenario was using Sony rather than virtually any other of the "Big 5" Japanese electronics companies. Sony did make a great leap forward with the Trinitron (although I've had CC2's that looked as good with better tube life). As I said earlier, Sony did occupy a premium market space and as such was never a part of the dumping lawsuits. I will say that their good name probably did a lot to grease the skids for a lot of 2nd tier Japanese companies to be seen as "premium" vs. "we make junk for Sears" just a few years earlier.
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From Captain Video, 1/4/2007 "It seems that Italian people are very prone to preserve antique stuff."
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#58
12-31-2014, 03:02 PM
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Correct, Sony was not in the dumping complaints, it was Matsushita, Panasonic's parent
company for the most part. And yes since it was pretty much a national effort, they all had a hand in it.... Any you are also correct, the Zenith CC did have a picture equal in quality to a Sony, with a longer lasting tube.... And Carmine, you have done a better job than most here in taking into account a greater number of factors than any one of us have.... Good Job... .
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Yes you can call me "Squirrel boy"
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#59
12-31-2014, 03:13 PM
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Carmine - Thank you for the posts. You added a lot of detail that I suspected happened, and did so in an entertaining read.
It really is sad that as a country we let this happen to not only the electronics industry, but a lot of other manufacturing in this country.
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#60
12-31-2014, 04:10 PM
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Thanks for the kind words. It helps to ease the typing carpal tunnel.
 I was going to also present this photo of the set in my house that probably sees the most use. It's pretty modern looking (IMHO) for 1978 (I think). Point is, I thought I had a pic of a Panasonic set in Doug's collection which is a visual knock-off and uses an unlicensed version of Zenith's Ultramatic tuner. This one has a more modern varactor tuner.  Also realize this issue isn't dead. The stories are out there, just reported on page 17J of the business section, or on the web below one of the Kardashian's butts. Here's the next industry under attack: http://www.whirlpoolcorp.com/facts/  Sadly, the Whirlpool "lawsuit timeline" looks just like what Zenith could have published in the 70s/80s. 
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From Captain Video, 1/4/2007 "It seems that Italian people are very prone to preserve antique stuff."
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