The NBC Orange Network, also known as the NBC Pacific Coast network was a

National Broadcasting Company The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

radio network There are two types of radio network currently in use around the world: the one-to-many (simplex communication) broadcast network commonly used for public information and mass-media entertainment, and the two-way radio ( duplex communication) type ...

in the

western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

from 1927 to 1936, before two-way broadcast-quality communications circuits reached the West to relay the larger

NBC Red Network The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first t ...

and NBC Blue Network. The Orange Network had its own production and performance staffs on the West Coast. In addition to producing original West Coast works, the Orange Network also had duplicate productions of many eastern shows until the end of 1928. In December 1928, a single broadcast-quality line was completed to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, and the Orange Network could then carry eastern programming directly, but only one program at a time; from then until 1936, Orange Network fed some programs from Red and some from Blue. In 1936, a second broadcast-quality circuit was completed, this time to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. This circuit also allowed the direction of amplification to be reversed in under 15 seconds, allowing Los Angeles, with its easy access to talent during the Golden Age of Hollywood, to feed broadcast-quality sound to the eastern networks as well. With the opening of the second circuit, the need for the Orange Network disappeared, and the stations on the old Orange Network became the Pacific Coast Red Network, fed by KPO (AM), except

KGO (AM) KGO (810 Hertz, kHz) is a commercial AM radio, AM Radio broadcasting, radio station licensed to San Francisco, San Francisco, California, and owned by Cumulus Media. KGO operates with 50,000 watts, the highest power permitted AM radio stations b ...

, which itself fed a new Western Blue Network made up of stations on the short-lived former NBC Gold Network.

References

Radio stations established in 1927 Radio stations disestablished in 1936 1927 establishments in the United States 1936 disestablishments in the United States Defunct radio networks in the United States History of the American West History of Hollywood, Los Angeles Orange Network {{US-bcast-stub