During the "golden age" of live radio and television, writers, performers, and producers created their programs in an environment far different from the studios of today. With live programming, anything could happen, and often did. Robert L. Mott, a veteran writer and Emmy-nominated sound effects creator of the live era, recreates the days when television and radio programs were performed live. He includes personal reminiscences as well as a forthright look behind the microphones: horses' hooves were played by coconuts, African-American women were played by white males, and television actors might ad lib an entire program that didn't go as planned. Celebrities like Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason, as well as the unsung heroes in the sound booth and backstage, step up to the mike here. Behind-the-scenes photographs are also included in this account of the exciting--but not always glamorous--world that was "live on the air."

"The study of television, still the most powerful of modern media, has long been fascinated by its capacity for ′liveness′. Marriott offers an insightful analysis of the complexities of this phenomenon, particularly its increasingly vital connection with the use of new media. A timely contribution to our understanding of media events, 24 hour news and the phenomenology of mediated experience." - Andrew Tolson, De Montfort University "In the steps of Marshall McLuhan and Alfred Schutz, Stephanie Marriott offers us a timely and sustained reflection upon the nature of mediation and the changing qualities of the live experience made possible by television. Elegant, lucid, witty and thought-provoking, her account will become a canonical text in television studies." - Martin Montgomery, University of Strathclyde In a fragmenting multichannel and multiplatform global broadcasting environment live television continues to attract huge audiences, bucking the trend towards narrowcasting and niche markets, yet little of a comprehensive nature has been written about the live television event. In this fascinating book, Stephanie Marriott engages in a close and detailed analysis of the nature of live television. She examines the transformations in our experience of time and space which are brought about by the capacity of broadcasting to bring us the world in the moment in which it is unfolding, situating the live television event in the context of an expanding and increasingly complex global communicative framework. Building her argument by means of a series of case studies of events as diverse as the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, the 2005 London bombings, election night coverage and live sports coverage, Marriott provides a meticulous and articulate account of the way in which live television mediates the event for its audience. This book will be essential reading for students and academics working in media, cultural studies, cultural sociology, and linguistics, and is an exciting new contribution to the field of broadcast talk and media discourse.

The "live era" or "golden age"of television drama originating from New York, 1946 through 1951, was an exciting time of creative and commercial accomplishment. This is a complete history and reference guide to the live dramas that aired during those six years. Extensive coverage is given to the NBC anthologies Kraft Television Theatre and Philco Television Playhouse, and the CBS anthologies Ford Theater and Studio One, as well as to "he competitors"--the 28 new anthologies that appeared in the prime time schedule during 1950 and 1951. Appendices comprehensively list the day-by-day program logs for BBC, CBS and NBC dramas from 1946 through 1951.

This book is about the question of existence, the meaning of ‘life’. It is an enquiry into the contemporary human situation as disclosed by television. The elementary components of any real-world situation are place, people and time. These are first examined as basic existential phenomena drawing on Heidegger’s fundamental enquiry into the human situation in Being and Time. They are then explored through the technological and production care-structures of broadcast television which, routinely and exceptionally, display the situated experience of being alive and living in the world today. It shows routinely in the live self-enactments of persons being themselves and the liveness of their ordinary talk on television. It shows exceptionally in television coverage of great occasions and catastrophes as they unfold live and in real time. Case studies reveal the existential role of television in salvaging the possibility of genuine experience, and in revealing the world-historical character of life today. To explore these questions, the agenda of sociology - its concern with economic, political and cultural life - is set aside. Being in the world is not, in the first (or last) instance, a social but an existential question, as an existential enquiry into television today discovers. Passionate and sweeping in scale, this new book from a leading media scholar is a major contribution to our understanding of the media today.

This book analyzes the narratives and news coverage of 9/11 across ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox News, arguing that television coverage shaped the cultural meaning, collective memory, and language of 9/11 in ways that continue to resonate throughout American culture.

A discussion of a truly international range of television programs, this title covers alternative modes of television such as digital and satellite.

Thought-provoking and “undeniably interesting” essays on this cultural institution of comedy and what it says about our society (Booklist). Since 1975, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” has greeted late night–TV viewers looking for the best in sketch comedy and popular music. SNL is the variety show that launched the careers of countless comedians, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Adam Sandler. Week after week, SNL has produced everything from unforgettable parodies to provocative political satire—adapting to changing times decade after decade while staying true to its original vision of performing timely topical humor. With essays that address issues ranging from race and gender to authorship and comedic performance, Saturday Night Live and American TV follows the history of this iconic show, and its place in the shifting social and media landscape of American television.