by Chuck Schwark

In July of 1933, after five years of manufacturing radio sets, Philco made a decision to organize the thousands of radio dealerships and independent repairmen across the country. This unprecedented action has only been matched by the service organization that RCA Corporation developed later in radio and television history.

This new organization was called the Radio Manufacturers Service, or the RMS. Prior to July, 1933 Philco was issuing service information and bulletins to dealers and servicemen like any other manufacturer of the time, but recognized the need for a more comprehensive support for the service of their radios and eventually all makes as the RMS matured.

All of Philco’s distributors were the local hubs for the dealers and servicemen for the RMS. Training classes were organized through these distributorships as well. As can be seen in some of the RMS literature in the following pages, the scope of the RMS organization included standardized labor charges, advertising campaigns and ad supplies, a built-in referral service, Philco’s merchandising expertise, timely service information updates, engineering bulletins, and discounted repair parts and test equipment. The RMS also published The Philco Serviceman, a monthly newsletter mailed to dealerships and individuals.

In order to propagate the RMS and its services to the public, on September 18, 1933, Philco used a well known radio broadcaster, Boake Carter on station WCAU (Philadelphia. PA) to announce the Radio Manufacturers Service and its service schools. Through the 30s and up to 1942, the RMS grew into a formidable organization across the country. The Radio Manufacturers Service, I’m sure, played a great part in making Philco the largest radio manufacturer at that time.

When the U.S. entered World War II, Philco turned to war-time production and ceased all home radio manufacturing. Many servicemen entered the Signal Corps as well as regular service units due to their pre-war training. After the war, however, the country’s economy was converting back to peace-time and radios were not a priority because of the materiel shortages still prevalent in 1945/46. The RMS does not seem to have survived the war due to dissolution of the repairmen going to war and changing jobs after the war. Philco had maintained its relative strength and the RMS evolved into “Factory-Supervised” Service. The Philco Serviceman did survive, but now published by the Philco Factory-Supervised Service department.

Eventually, up to the time Philco was bought by Ford Motor Company in 1961, The Philco Serviceman had its name changed to the Philco Electronic Supervisor, reflecting the diversification of electronic products and home appliances Philco manufactured. Philco-Ford survived weakly until 1974 when GTE-Sylvania bought Philco. Sylvania and Philco eventually became part of Philips Consumer Electronics Corporation which today markets the Philips Magnavox line of products.

© 2006 Chuck Schwark. All rights reserved. Used by permission.