pliable vinyl-based material called Victrolac, which wore out rapidly under the heavy tonearms then in use. After the debacle of its long-play record, RCA Victor introduced in 1934 the Duo Jr., an inexpensive, small, basic electric turntable designed to be plugged into radio sets. The Duo Jr. was sold at cost, but was practically given away with the purchase of a certain number of Victor records. The Duo Jr.'s rock-bottom price helped to overcome the national apathy to phonographs, and record sales gradually began to recover. Around 1935, RCA began marketing the modernistic RCA Victor M Special, a polished aluminum portable record player designed by John Vassos that has become an icon of 1930s American industrial design. In 1949, RCA Victor released the first 45 rpm "single" records, as a response to Columbia Records successful introduction of its microgroove 33 rpm "LP" format in 1948. RCA Victor adopted Columbia's 33 rpm LP records in 1950, and in 1951, Columbia adopted RCA Victor's 45 rpm records. Motion pictures RCA also made investments in the movie industry, but they performed poorly. In April 1928, RCA Photophone, Inc., was organized by a group of companies including RCA to develop sound-movie technology. In the fall of 1927, RCA had purchased stock in Film Booking Office (FBO), and on October 25, 1928, with the help of Joseph P. Kennedy, the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation (RKO) studio was formed by merging FBO with Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation (KAO), a company whose holdings included motion picture theaters. The theaters in which RKO had an interest provided a potential market for the RCA Photophone sound systems. RCA ownership of RKO stock expanded from about one quarter in 1930 to about 61% in 1932. However, the RKO studio encountered severe financial problems, going into receivership from early 1933 to 1940. RCA sold its holdings to raise funds for its basic operations. Separation from General Electric After years of industry complaints that the cross-licensing agreements between RCA, GE, and Westinghouse had in effect created illegal monopolies, the U.S. Department of Justice brought antitrust charges against the three companies in May 1930. After much negotiation, in 1932 the Justice Department accepted a consent agreement that removed the restrictions established by the cross-licensing agreements, and also provided that RCA would become a fully independent company. As a result, GE and Westinghouse gave up their ownership interests in RCA, while RCA was allowed to keep its factories.