American television was all set to launch in the late 1930s, but its progress was interrupted by the start of World War II. Finally, by the end of the 1940s, NBC and CBS began broadcasting to their east coast affiliates. They offered viewers a wide variety of...
For more than seven decades, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks made America laugh—either through their remarkable solo careers or their legendary partnership. Whether together or apart, they were giants of American comedy, who basically conquered every field they entered,...
When television began in the late 1940s, advertising was already a vital part of the picture. TV’s first big hit, Milton Berle, appeared on The Texaco Star Theater; Frank Sinatra hosted Bulova Watch Time. Throughout the 1950s, advertisers were fully in charge,...
Beginning in the mid-1950s, rock music found a surprising home on mainstream television. Programs hosted by Milton Berle, Steve Allen, and especially Ed Sullivan featured a wide variety of musicians including Bill Haley & the Comets, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, and...
From the earliest days of television, making people laugh was one the central goals of TV programmers. Successful radio formats like the sitcom and the comedy/variety show moved to television in the late 1940s, joined a few years later by the medium’s own innovation,...
From its start in the early 1950s, the talk show has been one of television’s most versatile and durable formats. Pioneering programs like Today, Person-to-Person, and Tonight established the basic features that have guided the format ever since, particularly the...
Television news has undergone remarkable transformations in the last seven decades. Beginning with the Camel News Caravan with John Cameron Swayze in 1948, evening newscasts drew tens of millions of viewers nightly, and expanded from 15-minutes to 30-minutes when...
Watching television used to be a fairly simple enterprise—you turned on the set, selected one of 500 channels, and enjoyed your program. Now, television is changing in front of our eyes. More and more viewers are cancelling cable television, preferring to watch new...
From its start as a DVD-by-mail rental service, Netflix has systematically changed the rules of the media business. Its introduction of streaming in 2007 led to the decline of the video rental store and dramatically increased the use of broadband internet. Starting in...
This illustrated lecture will examine the many ways the internet has radically transformed the “old” media of newspapers, magazines, the recording industry, film, radio, and television. It will trace how this digital revolution took place in such a short period of...
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