MOST RECENT WORKS
ARE AT THE TOP
Peter J. Boyer. "Annals of Broadcasting: The People's Network." New Yorker (August 3, 1998), Pages 28-33. Boyer uses a discredited CNN special, "Valley of Death," as a springboard to provide an update on where CNN's leadership sees the network going. He explores the unique culture of CNN as a news and television operation.
Stephen Frantzich and John Sullivan. The C-SPAN Revolution. University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. Professors Frantzich and Sullivan built this engaging, detailed history of C-SPAN from more than 100 interviews and from documents and the network's own coverage. They argue that the network has enhanced if not revolutionized political debate in the United States.
Walter S. Mossberg. "TV or Not TV: Will Smart TVs Rule the Web, or Will PC's Morph Into Fancy TV's?" Smart Money (July 1997). Pages 135-136. Mossberg, a technology writer, examines the prospects for WebTV and PCTV on the basis of likely consumer acceptance.
Laurence Jarvik. PBS: Behind the Screen (Capitol Research Center, 1997). Jarvik, a conservative scholar, argues that the Public Broadcasting Service is over-funded and mired in inept bureaucratic management.
Charles Platt. "The Great HDTV Swindle." Wired (February 1997), Pages 57-60, 186-192. Platt blames the delay in introducing high-quality television pictures on the television industry, which he criticizes as self-serving and greedy.
Paul Schlatzkin. The Farnsworth Chronicles. National Online Music Alliance, 1996. This web site is as enthusiastic about Philo Farnsworth's invention of television as it is harsh on Vladimir Zworykin and David Sarnoff. Good reading. Great pictures. See The Farnsworth Chronicles
Connie Bruck. "The World of Business: Jerry's Deal." New Yorker (February 19, 1996), Pages 55-69. This critical psychoprofile on Gerald Levin, chief of Time Warner, focuses on the 1995 acquisition of Turner Broadcasting. Bruck draws on many inside sources to assess both the financial wisdom of the deal and what makes Levin tick.
Lewis L. Gould. "The TV Critic." Quill (December 1996), Pages 11-14. Professor Gould reflects on the influence of his father, New York Times television critic Jack Gould, from the late 1940s to his retirement in 1972. He touches the major debates on issues raised by television in American life, including its effect on children.
George Mannes. "The Birth of Cable TV." Invention & Technology (Fall 1996). Pages 42-50. Mannes drew on oral histories at the National Cable Television Center and Museum for this colorful account of cable's pioneers, including Ed Parsons of Astoria, Oregon, and the people behind various small-town Pennsylvania systems.
Patrick R. Parsons. "Two Tales of a City: John Walson Sr., Mahonoy City, and the 'Founding' of Cable TV." Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media (Summer 1996). Pages 354-365. Professor Parsons debunks the often-told story that Walson, of Mahonoy City, Pennsylvania, built the first cable television system. This is historical scholarship of the first order.
Cary O'Dell. Women Pioneers in Television: Biographies of Fifteen Industry Leaders (McFarland, 1996). O'Dell, curator of the Museum of Broadcast Communication at the Chicago Cultural Center, covers Milfred Freed Alberg, Lucille Ball, Gertrude Berg, Peggy Charren, Joan Ganz Cooney, Faye Emerson, Pauline Frederick, Dorothy Fuldheim., Betty Furness, Freida Hennock, Lucy Jarvis, Ida Lupino, Irna Phillips, Judith Walker and Betty White.
James Day. The Vanishing Vision: The Inside Story of Public Television. University of California Press, 1995. Professor Day, a veteran of public television, draws on his experience, documentary sources and interviews to trace the evolution of the noncommercial station patchwork into a coherent national broadcast system. In the end, though, Day is pessimistic over the floundering sense of mission that marks public television today.
Jeff Kisseloff. An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961. Viking, 1995.
Lynn Boyd Hinds. Broadcasting the Local News: The Early Years of Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995. This is an excellent case study on the evolution of local television news at a pioneer station.
Leland L. Johnson. Toward Competition in Cable Television. MIT Press, 1994. Johnson analyzes the growing competition that cable is facing from telephone, direct broadcast satellites, wireless cable, as well as the continuing competition with over-air stations.
Grant Tinker and Bud Rukeyser. Tinker in Television: From General Sarnoff to General Electric. Simon & Schuster, 1994. Tinker, who once headed NBC, offers a personal recap of his experience in television and the industry's future.
Chuck Barris. The Game Show King. Carroll & Graf, 1993. The creator of "The Gong Show," which caught audiences' fancy in the 1970s, is as tasteless in this autobiography as he was the show. Nonetheless, Barris offers insights into how game-show television works, including stories galore from "The Dating Game" and "The Newlywed Game," which he also created.
Mark Doyle. The Future of Television: A Global Overview of Programming, Advertising, Technology and Growth. NTC Business Books, 1991). Doyle, a television veteran, wrote this assessment of television's prospects for the future for the National Association of Television Program Executives. Although written in 1991, the book remains one of the few definitive, nation-by-nation looks at television throughout the globe.
Christopher H. Sterling and John M. Kittross. Stay Tuned: A Concise History of American Broadcasting. Wadsworth, 1990. The authors track the history of radio and television with special attentiuon to the impact of technology, programming innovation, and social effects.
Sig Mickelson. From Whistle Stop to Sound Bite: Four Decades of Politics and Television. Praeger, 1989. Sig Mickelson draws on personal eperience with television coverage of presidential campaigns, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, to discuss television's impact on politics.
Victoria Gits. "Parsons' Dream." CableVision (July 22-29, 1985). Pages 60-63. Gits offers some technical detail on Ed Parsons' pioneer Astoria, Oregon, cable system. Her sources include numerous people who knew and worked with Parsons.
David Halberstam. The Powers That Be. Knopf, 1979.
Gary Paul Gates. Air Time: The Inside Story of CBS News. Harper & Row 1978.
R. Franklin Smith. Edward R. Murrow: The War Years. New Issues Press, 1978.
Erik Barnouw. Tube of Plenty: The Development of American Television Oxford University Press, 1975. This third in Barnouw's classic history of broadcasting series focuses on television.
Mary Alice Mayer Phillips. CATV: A History of Community Antenna Television. Northwestern University Press, 1972.
Walter Cronkite. Challenges of Change. Public Affairs Press, 1971.
Alexander Kendrick. Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow. Little, Brown, 1969.
Edward R. Murrow. In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938-61. Knopf, 1967. The CBS newscaster chose his favorite scripts.
Fred W. Friendly. Due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control. Random House, 1967. Friendly, president of CBS news from 1964 to 1966, recalls the infancy of television news, including the Murrow years. |
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Broadcasting & Cable: This is broadcasting's major trade journal. Coverage of federal regulation, programming and ownership is consistently solid. Every issue includes a comprehensive table on prime-time Nielsens for the over-air networks.
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