Zenith's Decline

[AUdubon5425]

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.

[Jeffhs]

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)?

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?

[old_tv_nut]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

but Evansville?

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.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

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?

[andy]

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[radiotvnut]

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.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

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

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.

[jr_tech]

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.

jr

[Sandy G]

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.

[AUdubon5425]

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.

[Sandy G]

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...

[AUdubon5425]

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.

[jr_tech]

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

[DaveWM]

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.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by DaveWM

I dont have a lot of experience with Japanese sets of the same era, I wonder if they are still holding up.

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