Pye (electronics company)
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Pye Ltd was an electronics company founded in 1896 in Cambridge, England, as a manufacturer of scientific instruments. The company merged with EKCO in 1960. Philips of the Netherlands acquired a majority shareholding in 1967, and later gained full ownership.
Early growth
W. G. Pye & Co. Ltd was founded in 1896 in Cambridge by
A series of receivers made at Church Path were given positive reviews by Popular Wireless magazine. In 1924, Harold Pye, the son of the founder, and Edward Appleton, his former tutor at St John's College, Cambridge, designed a new series of receivers which proved even more saleable. In 1928 William Pye sold the company, now renamed Pye Radio Limited, to C. O. Stanley, who established a chain of small component-manufacturing factories across East Anglia.
When the BBC started to explore television broadcasting, Pye found that the closest of their East Anglian offices was 25 miles outside the estimated effective 25-mile radius of the
The new
In February 1944, Pye formed a subsidiary called Pye Telecommunications Ltd, which it intended would design and produce radio communications equipment when the war ended.[3] This company grew to become the leading UK producer of mobile radio equipment for commercial, business, industrial, police and government purposes. Popular products included the Reporter, Cambridge, and Westminster series of VHF radio transceivers. The company also produced the PF8 UHF hand-held radios featured in episodes of The Professionals television series.
After the war, Pye's B16T nine-inch table television was designed around the 12-year-old EF50 valve. It was soon superseded by the B18T, which used an extra
In 1955, the company diversified into music production with Pye Records. The Independent Television Authority (ITA) started public transmissions in the same year, so Pye produced new televisions that could receive ITV, and the availability of a second channel introduced the need for tuners. Pye's VT4 tunable television was launched in March 1954 and was followed by the V14. The V14 proved to be technically unreliable and so tarnished the Pye name that many dealers transferred their allegiance to other manufacturers. This failure so damaged corporate confidence that Pye avoided being first-to-market thereafter, although they developed the first British transistor in 1956.
Pye TVT Ltd was formed to produce broadcast television equipment, including cameras, which were popular with British broadcasters including the BBC as well as achieving international sales. The early cameras were called "Photicon" and the later models by their
The ITV companies purchased the Pye Mk3s, and to a lesser extent the Mk4s and Mk7s. Pye TVT never produced a colour broadcast television camera, but there was an abortive colour telecine camera; few if any were sold. The reason for this was probably the financial difficulties the company was in.
In 1960, Pye acquired the Telephone Manufacturing Company.[5][6]
Company trouble and sell-off
Not wishing to risk further damage to their fragile brand, Pye first used transistors in a product sold as a subsidiary brand: the Pam 710 radio (1956), with the transistors themselves labelled Newmarket Transistors (another subsidiary).[7] When this proved acceptable the company launched the Pye 123 radio (1957, still with the Newmarket label on the novel internal components).[8] Products such as these reversed the decline but the arrival of Japanese competition reduced demand to a level that threatened the viability of the manufacturing plants. In 1960, Pye merged with its rival EKCO to form British Electronic Industries Ltd,[9] with C. O. Stanley as Chairman and E. K. Cole as Vice-Chairman.
The company, like most of its domestic competitors, attempted to restore demand with price competition and, where viable production exceeded demand, sold excess stock at loss-making clearance prices. By 1966 Pye was in such difficulties that they started to reduce their manufacturing capacity with closure of the EKCO factory in Southend-on-Sea.
Philips attempted to buy out the ailing Pye in 1966. The Minister of Technology Tony Benn determined that a complete sale would create a de facto monopoly so he permitted the transfer of only a 60% shareholding, with an undertaking that the Lowestoft factory would continue to manufacture televisions.
On 20 April 1964,
In the early 1970s,
In 1979 Pye were implicated in an episode of Granada's World in Action in relation to the sale of UHF and VHF radios as well as telephone intercept equipment which was used by the Ugandan Public Safety Unit, the secret police of Idi Amin's rule responsible for killing perhaps several hundred thousand Ugandans.[10] Pye had been supplying Uganda through Wilken Telecommunications, its East Africa distributor.[11]
The Pye brand enjoyed a short-lived renaissance in audio equipment (known as
In recent years the Pye brand has enjoyed a resurgence on the UK market,[citation needed] with domestic products including DVD recorders. The Pye brand is one of a handful surviving today from the early domestic electronics era that dates to before World War II.
In 2022 it appears that the Pye brand and symbol has been purchased by broadcast audio manufacturer Alice Ltd. [12]
References
- ^ "A Brief History of the Cavendish Laboratory" (PDF). Department of Physics, University of Cambridge. February 2013. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
- ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
- ^ "Radio Communications and Broadcasting Division". The Pye Museum. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
- .
- ^ "Telephone Manufacturing Co". Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
- ^ "History of Telephone Rentals (including TMC Ltd)". britishtelephones.com. Retrieved 1 April 2018.
- ^ "710". www.pamphonic.co.uk. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
- ^ Craven, Howard. "P123BQ Radio". www.radiomuseum.org. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
- ^ "Full Company Directory". The Pye Museum. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
- ^ World in Action: Inside Idi Amin's Terror Machine, first broadcast 13 June 1979
- ^ Ed Harriman (7 June 1979). "Electronic Company's Ugandan Affairs". New Scientist. Reed Business Information. p. 796.
- ^ "PYE 4061S Stereo Compression Amplifier".
Further reading
- Discussion and demonstration of the Pye PC60 camera by former BBC Outside Broadcast camera operator
- Discussion and comparison of Pye PC60 and EMI 2001 cameras
- 'Pye', East Anglia Network (1997) Retrieved 15 May 2005
- Pye Telecom History
- G8EPR Pye Museum
- Photographs of a demo of Pye TV in Mons (Belgium) in 1947 can be seen here
- The Pye 1005 'Achiphon' stereo record player held at the British Library
- Pye Story – Waihi, New Zealand
- The Museum of the Broadcast Television Camera, Pye pages
- The Pye Museum