Although a failure as a [G 06 / dirigible] landing site, the top of the Empire State Building, with its commanding view of the countryside, was a smashing success as far as broadcasters were concerned. The opening day ceremonies were transmitted by radio. Soon, more than a dozen stations were paying fees to transmit signals from the site.
In December 1931, NBC experimented with the fledgling technology of television by broadcasting images of Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat.
A 222-foot [L3 211 / television tower] was installed in 1950, raising the building's height to 1,472 feet (a later tower shorted it again to 1,454 feet, its present height).
In 1965 workers erected the first master FM [L3 221 / antenna] in the world, designed to allow individual FM stations to broadcast simultaneously from one source.
Today the Empire State Building serves [L3 222 / many different types of communications networks], including microwave and telephone paging services.
