Broadcasting Hollywood

The Struggle over Feature Films on Early TV

By Jennifer Porst

Rutgers University Press

Broadcasting Hollywood: The Struggle Over Feature Films on Early Television uses extensive archival research into the files of studios, networks, advertising agencies, unions and guilds, theatre associations, the FCC, and key legal cases to analyze the tensions and synergies between the film and television industries in the early years of television. This analysis of the case study of the struggle over Hollywood’s feature films appearing on television in the 1940s and 1950s illustrates that the notion of an industry misunderstands the complex array of stakeholders who work in and profit from a media sector, and models a variegated examination of the history of media industries. Ultimately, it draws a parallel to the contemporary period and the introduction of digital media to highlight the fact that history repeats itself and can therefore play a key role in helping media industry scholars and practitioners to understand and navigate contemporary industrial phenomena.

Broadcasting Hollywood unpacks a convoluted postwar industrial trail to presciently detail the complexities of Hollywood and TV's deep, awkward, but ultimately long-lasting affiliation. Dispensing with the idea of a studio-vs-network throw-down, Jennifer Porst shows how historical change is driven instead by the interactions of multiple stakeholders and intermediaries. This book shows why film histories must reckon with intermedia, and helps push reductive contemporary theories of convergence, transmedia, and disruption off their lazy perches as one-stop explanations for the digital era. A must-read for those interested in film history, digital media, and media industries. John T. Caldwell, Distinguished Research Professor, UCLA, author of Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television. (2008).

Drawing on a trove of unexplored archival sources, Jennifer Porst has written a brilliant new addition to the field of media industry studies. Focused on the past but with revealing insights about the present—and future—Broadcasting Hollywood should be required reading for media students and researchers across film, television, and digital media. Michele Hilmes, Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison

A compelling and incisive argument that to understand media convergence today we need to explore the past. Porst brings alive all that was at stake in the first real disruption of Hollywood. Part courtroom drama, part detective story, Broadcasting Hollywood brings to life current debates between studios, networks, creatives, the government. Want to prepare for the future of media? Read this book. Miranda Banks, author of The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild

Broadcasting Hollywood unpacks a convoluted postwar industrial trail to presciently detail the complexities of Hollywood and TV's deep, awkward, but ultimately long-lasting affiliation. Dispensing with the idea of a studio-vs-network throw-down, Jennifer Porst shows how historical change is driven instead by the interactions of multiple stakeholders and intermediaries. This book shows why film histories must reckon with intermedia, and helps push reductive contemporary theories of convergence, transmedia, and disruption off their lazy perches as one-stop explanations for the digital era. A must-read for those interested in film history, digital media, and media industries. John T. Caldwell, Distinguished Research Professor, UCLA, author of Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Cri

Drawing on a trove of unexplored archival sources, Jennifer Porst has written a brilliant new addition to the field of media industry studies. Focused on the past but with revealing insights about the present—and future—Broadcasting Hollywood should be required reading for media students and researchers across film, television, and digital media. Michele Hilmes, Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Madison

A compelling and incisive argument that to understand media convergence today we need to explore the past. Porst brings alive all that was at stake in the first real disruption of Hollywood. Part courtroom drama, part detective story, Broadcasting Hollywood brings to life current debates between studios, networks, creatives, the government. Want to prepare for the future of media? Read this book. Miranda Banks, author of The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild

JENNIFER PORST is an assistant professor of media arts at the University of North Texas in Denton. Her work has appeared in Film History, Television & New Media, Hollywood and the Law, and the Routledge Companion to Media Industries. Her co-edited collection, Very Special Episodes: Televising Industrial and Social Change, is forthcoming.

List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Media Disruption and Convergence
1 Systems of Authority and Evaluation
2 Exhibition, Audiences, and Media Consumption
3 Contracts, Rights, Residuals, and Labor
4 Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and the Intervention of the Courts
5 Antitrust, Market Dominance, and Emerging Media
6 Feature Films Make Their Way to Television
Conclusion: Disrupting a Big Market Can Be Bumpy
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations Used in Notes
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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