Written by Steve Allen
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Television in the United States

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Written by Steve Allen
Last Updated

General overviews of the programming, technology, regulation, audiences, and industrial history of American television can be found in Erik Barnouw, Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television, 2nd rev. ed. (1990); Gary R. Edgerton, The Columbia History of American Television (2007); Michele Hilmes, Only Connect: A Cultural History of Broadcasting in the United States, 2nd ed. (2007); J. Fred MacDonald, One Nation Under Television: The Rise and Decline of Network TV, updated and enlarged ed. (1994); and Christopher H. Sterling and John M. Kittross, Stay Tuned: A Concise History of American Broadcasting, 3rd ed. (2002). The two standard encyclopaedias of American TV series are Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows: 1946–Present, 9th rev. ed. (2007); and Alex McNeil, Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present, 4th ed., completely updated (1997), which provides data on all series, not just those that aired in prime time. General surveys of American TV programming are provided by Mary Ann Watson, Defining Visions: Television and the American Experience in the 20th Century, 2nd ed. (2008); and Harry Castleman and Walter J. Podrazik, Watching TV: Six Decades of American Television, 2nd ed. (2003). Christopher Anderson, Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties (1994), provides critical and historical analyses of the movie studios’ relationship to television. William Boddy, Fifties Television: The Industry and Its Critics (1990), is a comprehensive examination of network programming in a transitional decade. Detailed studies of individual eras in television programming history are available in Mary Ann Watson, The Expanding Vista: American Television in the Kennedy Years (1990); Jane Feuer, Seeing Through the Eighties: Television and Reaganism (1995); Jostein Gripsrud, The Dynasty Years: Hollywood Television and Critical Media Studies (1995); and Robert J. Thompson, Television’s Second Golden Age: From Hill Street Blues to ER (1996). David Marc, Demographic Vistas: Television in American Culture, rev. ed. (1996), and Comic Visions: Television Comedy and American Culture; 2nd ed. (1997), provide critical examinations of TV programming from a humanisitic perspective. David Marc and Robert J. Thompson, Prime Time, Prime Movers: From I Love Lucy to L.A. Law (1992), profiles two dozen television creator-producers. Interviews with television creator-producers with accompanying analysis are collected in Horace Newcomb and Robert S. Alley (eds.), The Producer’s Medium: Conversations with Creators of American TV (1983); and Richard Levinson and William Link, Off Camera: Conversations with the Makers of Prime-Time Television (1986). Sydney W. Head, Christopher H. Sterling, and Lemuel B. Schofield, Broadcasting in America: A Survey of Electronic Media, 8th ed. (1998), summarizes regulatory policy. Extensive studies of television business practices can be found in Les Brown, Television: The Business Behind the Box (1971); Todd Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, rev. ed. (1994); and Ken Auletta, Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way (1991). Lynn Spigel and Jan Olsson (eds.), Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition (2004); and Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2006), provide an early look at television in the age of the Internet.

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