But, when he left for NBC he had good reason to believe it would not only be a challenge, but that it would be the chance to put his plans into action. He told Bobby Sarnoff, "I won't come to NBC just to sell time to ad agencies. I'll come only if we can create our own shows and own them, and if we can sell every kind of advertising to support the program service" (p. 168). The junior Sarnoff agreed and, in 1949, Weaver became NBC's vice president in charge of television and director of its infant television network.

When Weaver took the position at NBC, CBS was the only other significant network threat. Two other networks, Dumont and the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), were not big enough yet to cause much trouble. But, while a lot of competition didn't exist yet, Weaver had reason to believe that it would likely soon come; there were now almost two million television sets in the United States (p. 178). Furthermore, the costs of producing a television show had seen their share of increases: a major show now cost about a million dollars to produce.

Weaver worried about how to keep up with the cycle of growth - more television sets meant more demand for shows but more demand for shows meant more demand for sponsors who could spend anywhere from half a million to a million to produce a show. He quickly found himself entertaining the idea of his 'participation' concept once again (this was referred to by others as the 'magazine' concept because the idea was to simply sell space to advertisers without giving them the power to dominate content in much the same way advertising space is sold by magazines with the caveat that it will not affect editorial content).

Money for producing television shows at NBC was a constant problem. The network's auditors tried to constrain Weaver's department to the budgets of radio shows. He found himself in a constant state of disagreement with NBC's auditors and he writes, "while I could disagree with the auditors, I couldn't beat them" (p. 179). According to Weaver, he could see the time coming, and soon it would be, when "no corporation would be able to afford a whole hour, or even a half hour, in prime time week after week" (p. 179). Affordability would never be on the horizon until the networks owned their own shows and could sell time slots to multiple sponsors.

Meanwhile, on October 8, 1949, Liz had given birth to their second child, a girl. They named her Susan Alexandra. In college Susan changed her name to Sigourney after a character in one F. Scott Fitzgerald's stories. She is still known as Sigourney Weaver, the actress and star of the well-known blockbuster Alien (among many other movies).

Weaver's family wasn't the only thing growing. Television was too and it needed good programming. Since Weaver's contract with NBC gave him the freedom to sell advertising as he saw fit, he decided the time was ripe to put his magazine concept to the test. His early idea was to give each sponsor three minutes and to rotate the order in which that sponsor's message appeared each week. This would mean that sponsors would have their messages heard at a different time during the program each week.

Opposition to this idea came primarily from ad agencies. Agencies had become used to their roles as programmers and the power it afforded them. But, sponsors were also afraid that if they shared a show with other advertisers the result would be ineffective sales messages. Both agencies and sponsors believed that what made the message effective was a show's stars and that the stars represented the products. How, they asked, could the stars represent more than one product?

Weaver also found opposition from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The year was 1950 and television stations were still not in great abundance in the United States. Even in major cities there were usually only two stations and these stations would choose the programming they wanted to show regardless of the network in which the shows were created. For example, a station could broadcast television shows from CBS, Dumont, NBC and ABC all on the same day. In addition, it was not unusual for a station to show part of one show when they had open airtime then switch to a more popular show when it came time for its airing.

The FCC took one look at Weaver's magazine concept and the way stations mixed programs and said that the sponsors would be getting a raw deal. The FCC's logic was that if a sponsor paid for its advertising to be shown on a particular show there was no guarantee that the advertising would get to be seen by the viewers. Thus, to be fair, if Weaver's participation advertising idea was implemented, individual television stations would be forced to broadcast a whole show. They would lose their freedom to broadcast what they wanted when they wanted. It was this type of freedom, in part, that the FCC claimed it had been created to protect.

Weaver complained that, at that time, the FCC was made up of radio people who didn't understand the exigencies of television. They refused to allow Weaver to initiate his idea completely. Instead, they allowed for two sponsors per one-hour show, or, in other words, one sponsor per half hour of program time. He decided that Your Show of Shows starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Cocoa was a good show upon which to implement this new concept of multiple sponsors.

Your Show of Shows was, to Weaver's great relief, quite a hit. The popularity incited quite a desire to advertise on the show. Thus, through Weaver's genius at programming and his love of a challenge, the first level of agency and client opposition to multiple sponsorship was overcome. But, Weaver knew he wasn't out the woods just yet. He was still in need of the funds that even more sponsors could bring to the network so that even more shows could be made.

Weaver writes on page 205 in The Best Seat in the House:

"With our production expanding, we were feeling an acute need for studios or theaters from which to televise programs [in New York]…but the real problem was not in New York. Most of the major radio stars we were hoping to lure into television lived in California, which meant that we would need stage facilities in Los Angeles…. unfortunately, there weren't many legitimate theaters in L.A., so we had to build such facilities or buy them, perhaps from the movie studios. We were eager to get this problem solved before January 1952, when the coaxial cable, permitting coast-to-coast transmission, was scheduled for completion. We weren't likely to attract the stars we wanted if they would have to fly to New York to work for us, especially if by that time they could stay at home and work for CBS. In addition, Hollywood had the greatest pool of film technicians - the very people we would soon need for television."

Thus, Weaver saw that, in order for television to proceed, and in order for NBC to gain ground on CBS, more funds would have to be found to secure West Coast facilities. To further complicate the situation, movie studios were none too pleased to see television come along. They felt threatened by the free entertainment being offered to audiences. The irony is that while movie studios weren't making films the studios were unused and the networks, perpetually short on studio space, had a great use for them.

The urgency to provide more programming made Weaver continue to urgently push his magazine advertising concept of multiple sponsors. By the middle of 1950 television was within reach of three-fifths of all U.S. households. Already, television was outstripping all other previous forms of media and even those who did not own a television set found ways to watch television.

As television began to gain ground with the help of popular shows like Your Show of Shows, NBC's profits from the radio part of the network began falling. Thus, in 1951 Weaver was put in charge of the NBC Radio division to try to reverse this trend. One of the first things he did was to restructure radio advertising to fit his magazine concept of multiple sponsors. In order to really accomplish this, he first had to create a show that was free of existing sponsorship contracts. Thus the weekend radio show Monitor was born. Monitor would be on the air for nearly two decades (Hart, 2000).

By the autumn of 1951, Weaver was beginning to feel the satisfaction that came from the increasing acceptance of his idea. Only two years after Weaver came to NBC, the programs upon which the network depended for its ratings were all securely under network control. Some of the less significant shows were still agency-produced, but these shows were considered easily replaceable by other network created shows.

It became evident to all that radio was no longer going to be the money maker for networks that it had been during its golden age. Television was fast becoming the medium of choice for advertisers, especially since they could afford television advertising thanks to Weaver's participation concept. But, radio still played a role in people's lives that television did not. Television was king of prime time and evening family hours. Radio still owned the morning.

So, when Weaver proposed his idea for a morning television news/talk/variety show folks thought he was crazy. Weaver notes in The Best Seat in the House, that in 75% of all homes in 1951 the radio was on between the hours of 7:00 and 9:00 a.m.. His goal was to be the first network to pick up that audience as television viewers. He wanted to create a program that sounded and acted very much like a radio program so that people could continue to get ready for work without having to sit down and watch television. But, for those who had a moment to sit and watch there would be visuals.

At 7:00 a.m. on January 14, 1952 the Today show, hosted by the offbeat humor of Dave Garroway, was unveiled. Weaver had been warned that no one would watch television at that time of day and, on that day, they were right. What had been a difficult show to sell to advertisers became an impossible show to sell to advertisers. By April of that year, Weaver was still having difficulty selling airtime. His critics had great fun at his expense, but, ultimately, when after the show's first full season Billboard ran an article with this headline: "Today is the biggest one-year grosser in Show Business" (p. 237), Weaver had the last laugh. And, while no longer the biggest grosser, as of the date of this paper (2001) the Today show has been on the air almost fifty years! It's moved from the realm of biggest grosser to longest grosser.

Today helped prove that television could take the place of radio in people's lives. It also helped to cement the future of Weaver's magazine concept of advertising. There was no turning back now; multiple sponsors were here to stay. Other networks had already begun following in NBC's footsteps and by the 1960's 'commercials' had become the industry standard (Kepley, 1990).

Late in 1952, Weaver thought he was next in line to fill the spot as president of the entire NBC network. Though he'd never had a good relationship with David 'General' Sarnoff, he thought that his performance would allow that their dislike for one another would be overlooked. But, it was not at first to be; the General overlooked him and instead gave him a new position as vice chairman of NBC. Weaver was none too pleased with this for it meant that he no longer would control the television and radio programming of NBC. [In his book, Weaver writes of an early feud with Albert Lasker. Apparently, Weaver did not think much of how Lasker's agency, Lord and Thomas, was handling the Lucky Strikes' campaign; he felt he was letting the client overspend. Lasker and Sarnoff were friends and, according to Sarnoff he promised Lasker on Lasker's deathbed that he would never appoint Weaver as president of the network].

As vice chairman, Weaver's role became that of champion of RCA's color system [RCA owned NBC]. During the early 1950's it was obvious that color television was just around the corner. The question was, which color system would it be? Both RCA and CBS were campaigning the FCC to have their system approved as the system that would be adopted in the U.S.. Once again Weaver was being called upon to exercise his powers of persuasion. Ultimately, the FCC chose RCA's system [Author's note: Many still feel that CBS's color wheel system was the superior system. But, apparently, RCA had the better 'ad' campaign (Boddy, 1990)].

Eight months later the newly appointed network president, Frank White, became quite ill and was forced to resign. Sarnoff was again in need of a network president. So, in September of 1953 Pat Weaver became the new president of NBC. [Weaver writes on p. 248: "So much for Sarnoff's solemn promise to Albert Lasker."]

He remained president of NBC until 1956 when he resigned. During his last three years at NBC he continued to put innovative programming on the air. One such show was the Home show. Weaver felt that soap operas were not satisfying all groups of women who could be watching daytime television. He wanted women to whom the soap operas did not appeal to have another reason to turn on the television before prime time. There was a long list of products that weren't being advertised on television, such as furniture, cosmetics, clothing and kitchen appliances. Weaver's concept for the Home show created an advertising space that hadn't existed before for advertisers of those types of products. In March of 1954 the show was launched and by the time Weaver left NBC it was generating $10 million in advertising dollars, most of which came from commercials for products which had not previously been advertised on a broadcast medium.

Another of Weaver's innovations had been in the works for a long time; it was during the late forties that Weaver began formulating ideas for what would become the Tonight Show. He'd always been dedicated to nightly comedy and in the past NBC had broadcast comedy almost every weeknight. Weaver's idea was to not only offer weeknight comedy but to do it later than most audiences were in the habit of watching television (Rohan, 1999). So, on September 27, 1954, with Steve Allen as its host, the Tonight Show made its debut.