New York City is the largest media market in the United States, and since September 11, 2001, nearly all of New York's commercial broadcast stations (both television and radio) have transmitted from the top of Empire. A few stations are located at the nearby Condé Nast Building, however.

Broadcasting began at Empire in the late 1930s, when RCA leased the 85th floor and built a laboratory there for Edwin Howard Armstrong. When Armstrong and RCA fell out, the 85th floor became the home of RCA's New York television operations, first as an experimental station and eventually as a commercial station WNBT, channel 4 (now WNBC-TV). Other television broadcasters would join RCA at Empire, on the 83rd, 82nd, and 81st floors, frequently bringing sister FM stations along for the ride. When the World Trade Center was being constructed, it caused serious problems for the television stations, most of which moved to the World Trade Center as soon as it was completed. This made it possible to renovate the antenna structure and the transmitter facilities for the benefit of the FM stations remaining there, which were soon joined by other FMs and UHF TVs moving in from elsewhere in the metropolitan area. The destruction of the World Trade Center necessitated a great deal of shuffling of antennas and transmitter rooms in order to accommodate the stations moving back uptown.

On April 27, 2006, daredevil Jeb Corliss, who was one of the stuntmen on the Discovery Channel series Stunt Junkies, was arrested after attempting to parachute off of the 86th floor observation balcony. He had passed internal security disguising as an old person with a fat suit, and was getting ready to make his jump wearing a parachute and video equipment when building security and the NYPD intercepted him trying to scale up the iron suicide fence and arrested him. He faces several felony charges, including endangerment of his own life and others around. Subsequently Discovery Networks denied it had given Corliss any permission to attempt the stunt, noting they require their production companies to obtain permits and permissions from local authorities before any filming. The network then fired him from Stunt Junkies and gave him a lifetime ban from appearing on any other Discovery Networks project.

Perhaps the most famous popular culture representation of the building is in the 1933 film King Kong, in which the title character, a giant ape, climbs to the top to escape his captors. In 1983, for the 50th anniversary of the film, an inflatable King Kong was placed on the real Empire State Building. However, a mouse chewed through it one day, partially deflating the ape. It also needed a constant supply of air, and was never fully inflated.

In James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl's much-loved children's story, orphan James Henry Trotter's flying peach finally docks in New York by setting down on the Empire State Building's spire. Published in 1961, the story was made into an Oscar-nominated Tim Burton-produced film, ''James and the Giant Peach'' (film), in 1996.

In the video game Super Monkey Ball 2, the ESB can be seen in the background of World 4 (Inside The Whale).

In the season 2 (1988) episode The Incredible Shrinking Turtles of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, Shredder uses an alien crystal, which fell down as an alien spaceship crashed on the Earth, to shrink down the Empire State Building into the size of a dollhouse. The people inside it are not affected by the shrinking, and have to escape to avoid being crushed as the building shrinks down.

In 2005, a new version of King Kong was released, set in a re-creation of 1930's New York City, including a final showdown between Kong and the bi-planes atop a greatly detailed Empire State Building. (The retro-dating of this remake stands in contrast to the 1976 remake of King Kong, which was set in then-modern times and held its climactic scene on both towers of the (now-destroyed) World Trade Center instead of the Empire State Building.)

The observation deck was the designated site for romantic rendezvous in the films Love Affair, An Affair to Remember, and Sleepless In Seattle. It was also the location of a phony Martian invasion in an episode of I Love Lucy.

The film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow opens with a zeppelin docking at the building's mooring mast. Additionally, the building can be seen with King Kong scaling it in the background of one of the shots.

"Terror in New York City", an episode of the Supermarionation series Thunderbirds involves an attempt in 2026 to move the Empire State Building to a new location on tracks to allow for the redevelopment of midtown Manhattan. Ground subsidence beneath the tracks results in the building's collapse.

In the 300th issue of Superman magazine, the Empire State building is refurbished during the early 1980s to reclaim the title of world's tallest building; rising 1000 stories.

In the movie Independence Day, the building is ground zero when an alien spaceship destroys New York City. This depiction was a homage to a similar SF invasion movie scene described in the science fiction short story "Publicity Campaign" by Arthur C. Clarke.

Andy Warhol's 1964 silent film Empire is one continuous, eight-hour shot of the Empire State Building at night, shot in black-and-white. In 2004, the National Film Registry deemed its cultural significance worthy of preservation in the Library of Congress.

In The Chase, a 1965 serial from the William Hartnell-era of Doctor Who, the Doctor, Barbara Wright, Ian Chesterton and Vicki, fleeing through time and space with a group of Daleks in hot pursuit, arrive in their TARDIS time machine on the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building (thus avoiding the long lines). They leave shortly after arriving and shortly before the pursuing Daleks' time machine materializes. The Daleks, ignoring the view, also leave almost immediately.

The building has a cameo role in the 1946 cartoon Baseball Bugs. Fitting the cartoon's theme, the skyscraper is labeled the "Umpire State Building".

In . the pterosaur Rodan flies over the Empire State Building then perches atop a nearby skyscraper with The Empire State Building in the background, then and howls at the moon before continuing his rampage on New York City eventually destroying the Statue of Liberty.

In Unbuilding, by David Macaulay, the building is bought and disassembled, to be reassembled halfway across the world as a corporate headquarters.

In the 2003 Christmas-themed film Elf, Will Ferrell's father, played by James Caan, works in a publishing company in the building.

In Star Trek: Enterprise, "Storm Front", a two-part season 4 episode, had an alternate timeline in which the eastern side of the United States is being conquered by the Germans, with the aid of aliens. The opening teaser of part 2 shows a propaganda news reel with footage of Adolf Hitler visiting New York and the Empire State Building. The ESB is seen again in a CGI sequence near the end of the episode.

In Futurama the setting takes place in the year 3000 in New New York City. Old New York is now underground and in ruins. The Empire State Building is never seen in the underground ruins, but it is seen on the Surface land of New New York. This implies that either the building was rebuilt or was simply taken from the ruins and was restored. The longest time the building was shown was in the episode "Anthology of Interest I", huge Bender falls on the Empire State Building which pierces through the robot while his two arms destroy two fantasy neighboring buildings, the Empire State Building comes out undamaged. He says before dying: "Oooh... who put this in here?"

In the video games Spider-Man 2 and Ultimate Spider-Man, players can explore, swing from and climb Manhattan skyscrapers, including the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building in Spider-Man 2 is the tallest structure you can find.

The pulp hero Doc Savage had his headquarters on the 86th floor of a 'New York City skyscraper.' It was repeatedly implied that this was the Empire State Building, though in real life, the 86th floor is the observation deck.

In the animated series Transformers, the Empire State Building is stolen by the Decepticons and modified to resemble a building similar on the Transformers homeworld as part of Megatron's plan in City of Steel. It is eventually restored back to its former self at the end of the episode.

In the 2002 movie The Time Machine Alexander Hartdegen a scientist and time traveler uses his time machine and travels to the year 2030.Upon arrival to the futuristic New York you could see many noticeable structures like the New York Public Library and the Empire State Building.

In the 2004 movie "The Day After Tomorrow" New York was going through a series of devastating storms including heavy rain, snow storms, and a storm surge. When the city encountered a deep freeze many buildings including the Empire State Building were turning pale white as the cold settled to the ground shattering windows as it descended.

The building can be built as a landmark in both Sim City 4 and Sim City 3000.

In rapper Lloyd Banks' first video "On Fire", the party shown is in the Empire State Building.

To view the panoromic pictures below, scroll the slidebar at the bottom of the picture with the mouse.

360° panorama of New York City from the Empire State Building (Spring 2005)