The Kate Smith hour and the struggle for control of television programming in the early 1950s

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television

Volumn 20, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 549-564

  Stole, Inger L ^a,b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN   (United States)

^b University of Illinois ^*  (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149461784     PISSN: 01439685     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/713669736     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. Between 1948 and 1952, the percentage of television homes increased from 0.4 to 32.5%. By 1965, close to two-thirds of all American homes owned one or two TV receivers. See James L. Baughman, The Republic of Mass Culture: journalism, filmmaking and broadcasting in America since 1945 (Baltimore, 1992), pp. 41-42
2. James Baughman also debunks the common assumption that television ownership reflected an upper-class bias. Middle-class people were far more eager to buy TV sets than the well-to-do. See James L. Baughman, Television in the 'Golden Age': an entrepeneurical experiment, The Historian, XLVIII (2), (1985), pp. 175-195
3. For more statistics, see Growing up with TV: in video town, U.S.A., Broadcasting, 5 October 1953, pp. 88-89
4. For a discussion of the early radio industry and its critics, see Robert W. McChesney, Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy (New York, 1993)
5. For advertisers' attitude towards the early radio industry, see Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream (Berkeley, 1985), pp. 88-94
6. US House of Representatives, 85th Congress, 2nd Session, Network Broadcasting - Report on the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce (Washington, DC, 1958), p. 29
7. Arthur Schofield, Selling advertisers on video, Televiser, February 1950, p. 105
8. William Boddy, Operation frontal lobes versus the living room toy: the battle over programme control in early television, Media, Culture and Society, 9 (1987), p. 361
9. TV's seismic shift, Advertising Age, Special Issue: 50 Years of TV Advertising, Spring 1995, p. 4
10. See, for example, James L. Baughman, Television in the 'Golden Age'; William Boddy, Operation frontal lobes
11. Michael R. Pitts, Kate Smith: a bio-bibliography (Westport, CT, 1982), pp. 8-10
12. See also Robert K. Merton, Mass Persuasion. The social psychology of a war bond drive (New York, 1946)
13. Daytime TV: spot programming, Sponsor, 29 January 1951, p. 43
14. Department Store TV, Sponsor, 24 April 1950, p. 31
15. The network's view of homemaker shows, Journal of Practical Home Economics, October 1952, p. 15
16. See, for example, advertisement for CBS daytime television, Advertising Age, 19 October 1953, pp. 26-27
17. Edward Stasheff and Rudy Bretz, The Television Program (New York, 1956), p. 47
18. Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV: television and the family ideal in postwar America (Chicago, 1992), Chapter 3
19. William Boddy, Fifties Television: the industry and its critics (Urbana, IL, 1990), p. 21
20. Lynn Spigel, The domestic economy of television viewing in postwar America, Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 6 (9), (1989)
21. Alfred J. Jaffee, What are your 'rights' to a timeslot? Sponsor, 5 April 1954, p. 110
22. See also, Boddy, Operation frontal lobes, p. 361
23. For an excellent discussion of Weaver's programming philosophy, see Pamela Wilson, NBC Television's 'Operation Frontal Lobes': cultural hegemony and fifties' programming, Historical Journal of Film and Television, 15 (1) (1995), pp. 83-104
24. Jaffee, What are your 'rights', p. 110
25. All day long, Newsweek, 24 September 1951, p. 57
26. Pitts, Kate Smith: a bio-bibliography, pp. 3-12. Kate Smith and Ted Collins also owned a talent agency called Kated Inc
27. Alex McNeil, Total Television (New York, 1991), p. 408
28. Jack Gould, Radio and TV in review, The New York Times, 25 September 1950, p. 62
29. The Kate Smith Show [sic], Variety, 27 September 1950, p. 30
30. Kate Smith does it ..., NBC Advertisement, Variety, 15 November 1950, pp. 36-37
31. The Kate Smith Hour, Variety, 12 September 1951, p. 26
32. see also, Kate Smith hits $29,000,000 gross jackpot on 20th anni in B'casting, Variety, 2 May 1951, p. 1
33. Television basics, Sponsor, 13 July 1953, p. 222
34. Growing up with TV; for a discussion of Today, see Inger L. Stole McChesney Capturing the 'ideal' audience; the emergence of network daytime television, 1948-1954 (masters thesis, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1992), pp. 68-73
35. Inger L. Stole, There is no place like Home: NBC's search for a daytime audience, 1954-1957, The Communication Review, 2 (2) (1997), pp. 135-161
36. Social research issues first of six TV reports, Advertising Age, 15 January 1951, p. 66
37. Psychologists study TV advertising, Broadcasting, 1 January 1951, p. 56
38. See also Merton, Mass Persuasion, pp. 149-150
39. Gerber gets through to the young mother, Sponsor, 20 December 1952, p. 24
40. Highest rated daytime TV show you can buy, NBC advertisement, Variety, 19 November 1952, p. 35
41. See also, A. C. Nielsen Company, Nielsen Television Index: TV multi-network area ratings, September-December 1953, Box 24, Folder 9, NBC papers
42. Baughman, Television in the 'Golden Age', p. 180
43. Stole, There is no place like Home, pp. 145-146
44. Jaffee, What are your 'rights?', p. 110
45. Kate won't sell, p. 25
46. Baughman, Television's 'Golden Age', p. 181
47. Laurence Berggren, See Now, Pay Later (Garden City NY, 1980), p. 173
48. See also Baughman, Television in the 'Golden Age'; Boddy, Operation frontal lobes, p. 366
49. Boddy, Operation frontal lobes; Baughman, Television in the 'Golden Age'