Emerson Radio - Historical Products

Historical Products

In 1915, at the company's inception, Emerson's main product was the Universal Cut Records, capable of being played laterally or vertically. Music offered included a wide variety of popular, band, opera, classical, religious, and folk music. Also during their first years, Emerson offered one of the last of the external-horn phonographs, which sold for only $3.

The "peewee" radio was introduced December 1932. Measuring about 8½ inches long and 6¼ inches wide, approximately 60 percent of all radios sold between early December 1932 and late May 1933 were peewees, half of which were manufactured by Emerson. The Universal Compact line was priced from $17.95 to $32.50. Emerson led the production and sale of this class of radio until 1938, having by then sold more than a million.

In 1947 Emerson offered a television set with a 10-inch tube, which retailed for $375. It was among Emerson's first postwar products. They dropped the price to $269.50 by June 1948, when the newly developed television industry had sold 375,000 sets.

In 1953, Emerson Radio and Phonograph purchased Quiet Heet Corp., which entered the company into air conditioning.

Although radio represented only 15 percent of Emerson's revenue by 1954, the company credited itself as creating the first clock radio, self-powered radio, and transistorized pocket radio.

Production of tape recorders began in 1955.

When Emerson purchased Allen B. DuMont Laboratories, Inc. in 1958, a higher-priced line of television sets, phonographs and high-fidelity and stereo instruments, along with the DuMont trademark was added to Emerson's products.

In 1979, Emerson began selling Heart Aide, after purchasing a large portion of Cardiac Resuscitator Corp. The company spent heavily to develop and produce both an improved Implantable cardioverter-defibrillator and a pacemaker. In addition, the company took an 18 percent share in a developer of computerized axial tomographic (CAT) scanners. As this line of products never made money, Emerson disposed of its holdings in them between 1987-88.

Emerson manufactured the Arcadia 2001, the most well-known of the "Emerson Arcadia 2001" second-generation 8-bit game console variations. Although, considerably more powerful than the then-dominant Atari 2600, the Arcadia 2001 wasn't released until just before the more-advanced Atari 5200 and the ColecoVision, in mid-1982. It was successful in other countries, however, because Atari had exclusive rights to many games, it was nearly impossible for Emerson to market in the United States due to the lack of popular game titles.

In 1983, Emerson began selling re-branded Goldstar televisions at inflated prices for a substantial profit. The compact disc player and microwave oven were introduced in 1985 doubling sales. In 1986 Emerson began importing and marketing compact refrigerators. Camcorders, telephones, and answering machines were added to its product line in fiscal 1988. Personal computers and facsimile machines were added in 1990.

In 1995, Emerson Radio entered the home theater and car audio fields, and the $900-million-a-year home and personal security market with a carbon monoxide detector, however, they left this field in 1997. Also in 1995, Emerson announced it would license its name to more than 250 audio and video accessories made by Jasco Products Co., a firm selling cables, remote controls, and appliance cleaning devices.

Emerson began manufacturing and selling television and video products bearing the Emerson and G Clef trademark to U.S. retailers in 1999. They also had a licensing agreement with Telesound Electronics for telephones, answering machines, and caller ID products in the United States and Canada.