Television in the Antenna Age: A Concise History

Foreword ix

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xiii

1 No Small Potatoes 1

Communication and Transportation: The Divorce 1

Water, Water Everywhere 6

Electrical Bananas 9

Here Comes the Judge 10

Say What? 11

2 A Downstream Medium 21

The Show Business 22

Radical Consumerism Occupies the Middle 27

Networking 31

Quality Control 34

3 A Burning Bush? 37

Broadcasting: Love It or Need It? 38

A Vertical System of Culture 44

Compatible Software 46

4 Staging and Screening 53

Sets 53

Getting with the Program 55

The Origins of ABC 58

5 Corruption and Plateau 66

Technology 66

Industry 67

Art 67

Scandals and Shake-Outs 70

6 Dull as Paint and Just as Colorful 76

TV Rules 76

Just Plain Folks 84

Television Gothic 86

7 A Myth is as Good as a Smile 89

When No News Was Good News . . . in Prime Time 91

Shows Without Trees 94

As Real As It Got 98

Regulation and Social Effects 103

Programming and the Television Industry 108

8 Oligopoly Lost and Found 111

The Train and the Station 114

The Shock of the News 121

The Third Mask of Janus 126

Index 131