NBC : America's network / Michele Hilmes, editor ; Michael Henry, photo editor.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Henry, Michael (Michael Lowell)

Hilmes, Michele, 1953-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National Broadcasting Company.

Television.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (375 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

National Broadcasting Company

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Spanning eight decades from the beginnings of commercial radio to the current era of international consolidation and emerging digital platforms, this pioneering volume illuminates the entire course of American broadcasting by offering the first comprehensive history of a major network. Bringing together wide-ranging original articles by leading scholars and industry insiders, it offers a comprehensive view of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) that brings into focus the development of this key American institution and the ways that it has intersected with, and influenced, the central events of our times. Programs, policy, industry practices and personnel, politics, audiences, marketing, and global influence all come into play. The story the book tells is not just about broadcasting but about a nation's attempt to construct itself as a culture-with all the underlying concerns, divisions, opportunities, and pleasures. Based on unprecedented research in the extensive NBC archives, NBC: America's Network includes a timeline of NBC's and broadcasting's development, making it a valuable resource for students and scholars as well as for anyone interested the history of media in the United States.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction to Part One: Broadcasting Begins, 1919-38

1. NBC and the Network Idea: Defining the "American System"

2. "Always in Friendly Competition": NBC and CBS in the First Decade of National Broadcasting

3. Programming in the Public Interest: America's Town Meeting of the Air

4. Regulating Class Conflict on the Air: NBC's Relationship with Business and Organized Labor

Introduction to Part Two: Transitional Decades, 1938-60

5. Breaking Chains: NBC and the FCC Network Inquiry, 1938-43

6. Why Sarnoff Slept: NBC and the Holocaust

7. Employment and Blue Pencils: NBC, Race, and Representation, 1926-55

8. NBC, J. Walter Thompson, and the Struggle for Control of Television Programming, 1946-58

9. Talent Raids and Package Deals: NBC Loses Its Leadership in the 1950's

Introduction to Part Three: NBC and the Classic Network System, 1960-85

10. NBC News Documentary: "Intelligent Interpretation" in a Cold War Context

11. What Closes on Saturday Night: NBC and Satire

12. The Little Program That Could: The Relationship between NBC and Star Trek

13. Sex as a Weapon: Programming Sexuality in the 1970's

14. Saturday Morning Children's Programs on NBC, 1975-2006: A Case Study of Self-Regulation

Introduction to Part Four: NBC in the Digital Age, 1985 to the Present

15. Must-See TV: NBC's Dominant Decades

16. Creating the Twenty-first-Century Television Network: NBC in the Age of Media Conglomerates

17. Life without Friends: NBC's Programming Strategies in an Age of Media Clutter, Media Conglomeration, and TiVo

18. Network Nation: Writing Broadcasting History as Cultural History

NBC Time Line

Bibliography

Notes on Contributors

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786611385613

9780520940604

0520940601

9781281385611

1281385611

9781435682900

1435682904

OCLC:

476162408