An RKO Radio Picture

[vakkotaur]

"RKO Radio Picture" caused me some bewilderment as a kid. I did not then know that this company, RKO Radio, had gone into the movie business. Instead I wondered a bit what RKO was and why a "Radio Picture" was a movie when pictures by radio were so obviously television.

Comments

[michaelmink]

Very simple explanation for that. RCA (Radio Corporation of America) was a major early investor when Joseph Kennedy (pop of JFK) consolidated the Keith-Orpheum theatre chain and the Film Booking Office (FBO) business to form Radio-Keith-Orpheum, or RKO.

RCA did this because they wanted an outlet for the sound equipment (e.g. microphones) and sound-on-film process they were producing.

There was a little bit of cross-promotion between NBC, owned by RCA at the time, and RKO. RKO released "Check and Double Check," a feature film featuring Amos 'n Andy, then at the peak of their popularity.

[vakkotaur]

And that certainly answers just who or what RKO was and how RKO got into movie production. Thanks.

[aedifica]

And I, a few years younger, only know the phrase from seeing the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Scene: Backdrop says ___ Radio Picture (I don't remember, it may be RKO)
Audience line: What the fuck's a radio picture?
Audience reply: It's a picture of a radio.

[taper]

For years, I would watch the screen avidly after flipping channels and seeing the RKO opener, hoping it would turn out to be King Kong. Never was.

(I did the same thing with that spinny "Special Presentation" bit on whichever network it was and Charlie Brown specials.)