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.
Author(s): Michele Hilmes
Edition: 1
Publisher: University of California Press
Year: 2007
Language: English
Pages: 376
Contents......Page 6
List of Illustrations......Page 10
Acknowledgments......Page 12
PART ONE • Broadcasting Begins, 1919–38......Page 14
Introduction to Part One......Page 16
1 NBC and the Network Idea: Defining the “American System”......Page 20
2 “Always in Friendly Competition”: NBC and CBS in the First Decade of National Broadcasting......Page 38
3 Programming in the Public Interest: America’s Town Meeting of the Air......Page 57
4 Regulating Class Conflict on the Air: NBC’s Relationship with Business and Organized Labor......Page 74
PART TWO • Transitional Decades, 1938–60......Page 92
Introduction to Part Two......Page 94
5 Breaking Chains: NBC and the FCC Network Inquiry, 1938–43 Christopher H. Sterling......Page 98
6 Why Sarnoª Slept: NBC and the Holocaust......Page 111
7 Employment and Blue Pencils: NBC, Race, and Representation,1926–55......Page 130
8 NBC, J. Walter Thompson, and the Struggle for Control of Television Programming, 1946–58......Page 148
9 Talent Raids and Package Deals: NBC Loses Its Leadership in the 1950s......Page 166
PART THREE • NBC and the Classic Network System, 1960–85......Page 182
Introduction to Part Three......Page 184
10 NBC News Documentary: “Intelligent Interpretation”in a Cold War Context......Page 188
11 What Closes on Saturday Night: NBC and Satire......Page 205
12 The Little Program That Could: The Relationship between NBC and Star Trek......Page 222
13 Sex as a Weapon: Programming Sexuality in the 1970s......Page 237
14 Saturday Morning Children’s Programs on NBC, 1975–2006:A Case Study of Self-Regulation......Page 253
PART FOUR • NBC in the Digital Age, 1985 to the Present......Page 270
Introduction to Part Four......Page 272
15 Must-See TV: NBC’s Dominant Decades......Page 274
16 Creating the Twenty-first-Century Television Network:NBC in the Age of Media Conglomerates......Page 288
17 Life without Friends: NBC’s Programming Strategies in an Age of Media Clutter, Media Conglomeration, and TiVo......Page 304
18 Network Nation: Writing Broadcasting History as Cultural History......Page 321
NBC Time Line......Page 336
Bibliography......Page 344
Notes on Contributors......Page 356
Index......Page 360
