This is exactly as it appears on the web page (i.e., no editing). This originally appeared in High Fidelity in the early 1970s.
from:
http://www.musicinthemail.com/audiohistoryLP.html
The following narrative was told by Edward Wallerstein (1891-1970) about the development of the LP record in 1948.
[excerpt]
In April 1948, two months beforc the LP's first public showing, Paley called David Sarnoff` of RCA and told him that we had a new development in the record field that we would like very much for him to see. A meeting was arranged in the board room of CBS, and I demonstrated the LP. Not much was said, but I did have the impression that General Sarnoff was pretty upset. In the silence that followed, Paley said he'd be glad to discuss an arrangement for licensing. Probably, when they left, Sarnoff's men told him that there was nothing patentable about the dovice. In fact there are no basic patents on the LP, so RCA was forced to do its own research.They came back to us in a few days and said they weren't intersted and I think it was a bit of a blow to Paley that he wasn't going to make a lot of money in licensing.
Within a fcw weeks RCA in turn invited us to view what their developments were. They laid partcular emphasis on tape on a consumer level. Well, we had been working with tape longer than they had, and we saw no prospects for revolutionizing the record industry with tape, This was just a buff as they had nothing to show. As a matter of fact they didn't even demonstrate a tape recorder to us- only talked about it. The 45 wasn't even mentioned and prohably wasn't on their minds at the time. Apparently it wasn't idea they had come up with earlicr, discardcd, and then resurrected as some sort of answer to Columbia.
I was glad it wcnt the way it did. Actually , I think that Paley was badly advised on the possibility of a licensing arrangement twhich was the only rcason he showed it to RCA. The only protection that Columbia had for its new development was the term "LP" itself. which I had originated and which we, had then copyrighted. As a consequence., although many other firms could make long-playing records only Columlia could make an LP. However, because of its constant usage the term has since passed into the vocabulary along with nylon and aspirin.