NBC

by Hilmes, Michele

• ISBN13: 9780520250819
• ISBN10: 0520250818
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-08-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

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.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Broadcasting Begins, 1919-38
	p. 3
NBC and the Network Idea: Defining the "American System"	p. 7
"Always in Friendly Competition": NBC and CBS in the First Decade of National Broadcasting	p. 25
Programming in the Public Interest: America's Town Meeting of the Air	p. 44
Regulating Class Conflict on the Air: NBC's Relationship with Business and Organized Labor	p. 61
Transitional Decades, 1938-60
	p. 81
Breaking Chains: NBC and the FCC Network Inquiry, 1938-43	p. 85
Why Sarnoff Slept: NBC and the Holocaust	p. 98
Employment and Blue Pencils: NBC, Race, and Representation, 1926-55	p. 117
NBC, J. Walter Thompson, and the Struggle for Control of Television Programming, 1946-58	p. 135
Talent Raids and Package Deals: NBC Loses Its Leadership in the 1950s	p. 153
NBC and the Classic Network System, 1960-85
	p. 171
NBC News Documentary: "Intelligent Interpretation" in a Cold War Context	p. 175
What Closes on Saturday Night: NBC and Satire	p. 192
The Little Program That Could: The Relationship between NBC and Star Trek	p. 209
Sex as a Weapon: Programming Sexuality in the 1970s	p. 224
Saturday Morning Children's Programs on NBC, 1975-2006: A Case Study of Self-Regulation	p. 240
NBC in the Digital Age, 1985 to the Present
	p. 259
Must-See TV: NBC's Dominant Decades	p. 261
Creating the Twenty-first-Century Television Network: NBC in the Age of Media Conglomerates	p. 275
Life without Friends: NBC's Programming Strategies in an Age of Media Clutter, Media Conglomeration, and TiVo	p. 291
Network Nation: Writing Broadcasting History as Cultural History	p. 308
NBC Time Line	p. 323
Bibliography	p. 331
Notes on Contributors	p. 343
Index	p. 347
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