Dozens of books currently available address some aspect of digital television, yet almost all of these texts deal exclusively with engineering and production issues associated with implementing new hardware and software. "Digital Television: DTV and the Consumer" offers a pragmatic, more socially oriented basis for understanding digital television. Beginning with a basic summary of how digital television works and how it evolved into its present state in the different television viewing environments (over-the-air, cable and satellite), author and researcher Book then offers the reader a more practical understanding of how digital television is currently being consumed in the household. Additionally, the text presents a summary of what consumers are saying regarding their digital television experience and what this data suggests for the future development of digital television business models.

Unique to this volume are numerous "Innovator Essays" by some of the industry's digital television pioneers. These insightful essays - from significant DTV innovators such as Jim Goodmon, president and CEO of Capitol Broadcasting, home of the first commercial digital television broadcast - give brief snapshots of critical moments in the transition and rollout of DTV, while focusing on what the future holds for consumers and the broadcast and electronics industries.

The latest entry in Blackwell Publishing's "Media and Technology" series, "Digital Television: DTV and the Consumer" provides media students, scholars, and professionals a compelling perspective of the social and cultural presence of this emerging technological phenomenon.

This is a practical, how-to guide to producing and presenting radio to a professional standard. Packed with day-to-day advice that captures the essence and buzz of live broadcasting; from preparing your show before it goes out, last minute changes to running orders, deciding what to drop in over a track, how to sell a feature or promote a programme, setting up competitions, thinking fast in a phone in- this book will help you do all that and more. It covers network and commercial, music and talk radio skills. It will particularly suit the independent local or community radio sector, where people often start out. It features advice from industry professionals, covers industry-wide best practice with enough 'need-to-know' technical information to get you up and running, and distills tried and tested practical tips from a specialist BBC radio trainer, and award-winning radio broadcaster with over 15 years of experience. A handbook you wouldn't want to be without before you go on air.

Ted Turner revolutionized television. Foreseeing cable's potential in its infancy, he parlayed a tiny UHF station in Atlanta into a national superstation, invented CNN, and transformed sports teams and the MGM film library into lucrative programming. Ken Auletta, the most respected media journalist in America, enjoyed unparalleled access to the outspoken and defiant Turner in writing this book (named one of BusinessWeek's Top Ten Books of 2004), capturing the visionary businessman as he built and lost his improbable empire."

The federal government's approach to regulating the spectrum remains largely administrative, causing major inefficiency and waste. Ironically, just as the FCC has begun to use market mechanisms, some people are pushing to treat spectrum as a common resource open to all entrants. Commons proponents maintain that with new, interference-avoiding technology, licensing is becoming unnecessary and impractical. In this brief study, noted economist William J. Baumol evaluates two options for spectrum governance -a tradable license (market) approach and a commons approach. He compares the practicality of each in terms of six key issues: interference, adequacy of investment in innovation, monopoly power, preservation of diversity, service to rural areas, and the tension between vested interests and the need for adaptable arrangements. Baumol demonstrates that, while neither approach is ideal, a commons regime has severe shortcomings. Above all, he emphasizes the importance of impermanence in the granting of licenses to preserve the flexibility to adapt to unforeseen technological and other developments.

Although there are different opinions about where cable television actually began, a great deal of the ingenuity that developed cable into today's multibillion dollar industry came from Pennsylvania. In this state, with its mountainous geography, the need for an unusual means of obtaining a television signal gave birth to the community antenna television system that was the forerunner of the cable we know today. This volume traces the history of cable television through biographical sketches of those who were instrumental in bringing this technology to rural Pennsylvania. Enumerating technical as well as financial obstacles, each chapter focuses on the life of a cable pioneer. The contributions of such men as John Walson, Bob Tarleton, George Gardner and Ralph Roberts are discussed and their relationships to each other examined. Information drawn from interviews with these men or people who knew them brings history to life. Topics include the roots of cable television, problems of early cable systems and the advent of HBO and its consequences. An appendix offers a commemorative history of the Pennsylvania Cable Network, a joint project of several men discussed herein.

Blackness has always played a central role in the American imagination. Therefore, it should not be surprising that popular television--a medium that grew up with the Civil Rights Movement--has featured blackness as both a foil and a key narrative theme throughout its sixty-year existence. Ironically, in modern "colorblind" times, we are faced with a unique turn of events--blackness is actually overrepresented in television sitcoms and dramas.
Channeling Blackness: Studies on Television and Race in America presents fifteen classic and contemporary studies of the shifting, complex relationship between popular television and blackness. Using a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches, these essays examine four key issues that have framed popular and scholarly inquiries into the nature of race on television:
* The black-white binary * The power of media * Distinguishing between "negative" and "positive" images * The relative importance of markets versus racial motives in television
Firmly establishing popular television as a central cultural forum in our society, Channeling Blackness looks at how television has profoundly shaped and been shaped by America's ambivalent relationship with blackness. It provides numerous examples of how our current interaction with television distinguishes the lived experiences of today from those of the past. The book also shows how the entertainment function of television often masks its ideological purpose, particularly its role in reflecting and reproducing America's racial order. A useful supplement in any number of courses on race and society, Channeling Blackness is an ideal text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courseson race and media, media and society, television studies, television criticism, communication studies, and African American and ethnic studies.

Public radio stands as a valued national institution, one whose fans and listeners actively support it with their time and their money. In this new history of this important aspect of American culture, author Jack W. Mitchell looks at the dreams that inspired those who created it, the all too human realities that grew out of those dreams, and the criticism they incurred from both sides of the political spectrum. As National Public Radio's very first employee, and the first producer of its legendary "All Things Considered," Mitchell tells the story of public radio from the point of view of an insider, a participant, and a thoughtful observer. He traces its origins in the progressive movement of the 20th century, and analyzes the people, institutions, ideas, political forces, and economic realities that helped it evolve into what we know as public radio today. NPR and its local affiliates have earned their reputation for thoughtful commentary and excellent journalism, and their work is especially notable in light of the unique struggles they have faced over the decades. More than any other book published on the subject, Mitchell's provides an accurate guide to public radio's development, offering a balanced analysis of how it has fulfilled much of its promise but has sometimes fallen short. This comprehensive overview of their mission will fascinate listeners whose enjoyment and support of public radio has made it possible, and made it great.

Film and television production are important components of the Canadian economy. In Vancouver, popular American television series like "The X-Files" and Canadian series like "Da Vinci's Inquest" have boosted the city's profile as a centre for international and domestic productions. Serra Tinic's "On Location" is the first empirical analysis of regional Canadian television producers in the context of developing global media markets.

Tinic observes that global television production in Vancouver has been a contradictory process that has, on one level, led to the homogenization of culturally specific storylines, while simultaneously facilitating the development of new avenues for international ventures. The author explains how federal and regional network considerations, funding guidelines, and partnerships with international co-producers affect the capacity of Canadian television producers to negotiate culturally specific storylines in the development process. She further interrogates the concepts of globalization, culture, and national identity, and their relationship to broadcasting from the perspectives of members of the television industry themselves, highlighting the extent to which industry practices in Vancouver epitomize current trends in global television production. "On Location" fills a major gap in contemporary media and cultural studies debates that question the connections between the politics of place, culture, and commerce within the larger context of cultural globalization.

" Among America's most unusual and successful weapons during the Cold War were Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. RFE-RL had its origins in a post-war America brimming with confidence and secure in its power. Unlike the Voice of America, which conveyed a distinctly American perspective on global events, RFE-RL served as surrogate home radio services and a vital alternative to the controlled, party-dominated domestic press in Eastern Europe. Over twenty stations featured programming tailored to individual countries. They reached millions of listeners ranging from industrial workers to dissident leaders such as Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel. Broadcasting Freedom draws on rare archival material and offers a penetrating insider history of the radios that helped change the face of Europe. Arch Puddington reveals new information about the connections between RFE-RL and the CIA, which provided covert funding for the stations during the critical start-up years in the early 1950s. He relates in detail the efforts of Soviet and Eastern Bloc officials to thwart the stations; their tactics ranged from jamming attempts, assassinations of radio journalists, the infiltration of spies onto the radios' staffs, and the bombing of the radios' headquarters. Puddington addresses the controversies that engulfed the stations throughout the Cold War, most notably RFE broadcasts during the Hungarian Revolution that were described as inflammatory and irresponsible. He shows how RFE prevented the Communist authorities from establishing a monopoly on the dissemination of information in Poland and describes the crucial roles played by the stations as the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union broke apart. Broadcasting Freedom is also a portrait of the Cold War in America. Puddington offers insights into the strategic thinking of the RFE-RL leadership and those in the highest circles of American government, including CIA directors, secretaries of state, and even presidents.

Offers a first look at the all-Arab news network and its controversial role in the Arab world. Al-Jazeera, the independent, all-Arab television news network based in Qatar, emerged as ambassador to the Arab world in the events following September 11, 2001. Arabic for the island, Al-Jazeera has scooped the western media conglomerates many times. With its exclusive access to Osama Bin Laden and members of the Taliban, its reputation was burnished quickly through its exposure on CNN. During the 2003 war in Iraq, Al-Jazeera seemed to be everywhere, reporting dramatic stories and images, even as it strived to maintain its independence as an international free press news network. Al-Jazeera sheds light on the background of the network: how it operates, the programs it broadcasts, its effects on Arab viewers, the reactions of the West and Arab states, the implications for the future of news broadcasting in the Middle East, and its struggle for a free press and public opinion in the Arab world.

During the second half of the 20th century, the developments in television broadcasting exerted an immeasurable influence over our social, cultural and economic practices. This volume presents an overview, written by leading media scholars, which traces the history of broadcasting in two major centres of television development and export: Great Britain and the USA. to make connections between events and tendencies that both unite and differentiate these national broadcasting traditions. From the origins of the public service and commercial systems of broadcasting to the contemporary period of technological and economic convergence, this book provides an accessible overview of the history of television technology, institutions, policies, programmes and audiences.

Blending cultural, religious and media history, Tona Hangen offers a detailed look into the world of religious radio. She uses recordings, sermons, fan mail and other sources to tell the stories of the determined broadcasters and devoted listeners who, together, transformed American radio evangelism from an on-air novelty in the 1920s into a profitable and wide-reaching industry by the 1950s. Hangen traces the careers of three of the most successful Protestant radio evangelists - Paul Rader of Chicago, Aimee Semple McPherson of Los Angeles and Charles Fuller of Pasadena - and examines the strategies they used to bring their messages to listerners across the nation. Initially shut out of network radio and free airtime, both of which were available only to mainstream Protestant and Catholic groups, evangelical broadcasters gained access to the airwaves with paid-time programming. By the mid-20th century millions of Americans regularly tuned in to evangelical programming, making it one of the medium's most distinctive and durable genres. The voluntary contributions of these listeners in turn helped to bankroll religious radio's remarkable growth. Revealing the entwined development of evangelical religion and modern mass media, Hangen demonstrates that the history of one is incomplete without the history of the other; both are important to understanding American culture in the 20th century.

The voice we hear on the radio--the voice with no body attached--is a key element in the history of media in the twentieth century. Before television and the internet, there was radio; and much of what defined the makeup of these newer media was influenced by the way radio was broadcast to people and the way people listened to it. Emergency Broadcasting focuses on key moments in the history of early radio in order to come to an understanding of the role voice played in radio to describe national crises, a fictional invasion from outer space, and general entertainment. Taking the Hindenburg disaster, The War of the Worlds hoax, Franklin Roosevelt's Fireside Chats, and the serial mystery The Shadow as his focal points, Edward Miller illustrates how the radio, for the first time, instantly communicated to a mass audience, and how that communication--where the voice counts more than the image--is still at work today in television and the World Wide Web. Theoretically sophisticated, yet grounded in historical detail, Emergency Broadcasting offers a unique examination of radio and at the same time develops a complex understanding of the media whose birth is owed to the innovations--and disembodied power--established by it. Author note: Edward D. Miller is Chair of the Department of Media Culture at The College of Staten Island/CUNY.

If a judgment were ever rendered on all the multi-million words I have spoken into microphones, I hope something like this could be said: 'He [Huntley] had a great respect, almost an awe, of the medium in which he worked. He regarded it as a privilege, not a license.... Perhaps the best I might hope is that by some accident of voice tone or arrangement of words I did, on a few occasions, excite, exhort, annoy or provoke a few of my fellow human beings to think with their heads, not the viscera'"-Chet Huntley. This biography of NBC newsman Chet Huntley, who, along with David Brinkley, anchored NBC's "Huntley-Brinkley Report," covers his youth on a farm in Montana, his education and his graduation from the University of Washington, his development as a radio personality and news reporter for stations in Seattle, Spokane, Portland, and his work for CBS, ABC and NBC radio and television in Los Angeles from 1939 to 1955. It also details his move to New York and his work on the "Huntley-Brinkley Report" from 1956 to 1970, his retirement from the news business, his supervision of the development of the Big Sky Ski resort in Montana, and his death from cancer in 1974 at the age of 62.

A collection of essays by leading media professionals and academics, which debates the past, present and future of British television drama. Writers, producers and television executives reflect on the changing face of TV drama, and academics present case studies on critical approaches, general topics and specific programmes.

The United States is vitally dependent upon the use of the radio spectrum to carry out national policies and achieve national goals. Use of the spectrum is vital to the security and welfare of the Nation and to the conduct of its foreign affairs. This use exerts a powerful influence upon our everyday lives, in countless ways, annually contributing significantly to the Nation's growth and economy. The radio spectrum is a limited natural resource which is accessible to all nations. It is imperative that we develop and administer our use of this resource wisely so as to maintain a free democratic society and to stimulate the healthy growth of the Nation, while ensuring its availability to serve future requirements in the best interest of the Nation. Therefore, consistent with our international treaty obligations and with due regard for the rights of other nations, the national objectives for the use of the radio spectrum are to make effective, efficient, and prudent use of the spectrum in the best interest of the Nation, with care to conserve it for uses where other means of communication are not available or feasible. This revised NIA report details the policies and plans geared towards government oversight of the national radio spectrum, an asset we cannot afford to overlook.

"Salant, CBS, and the Battle for the Soul of Broadcast Journalism" tells the story of CBS News during its golden era. The late Richard S. Salant was president of CBS News for sixteen years throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He became widely recognized by journalists as the "patron saint of television news." During his tenure, Salant confronted issues of enormous importance - Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and Watergate - and launched the first thirty-minute E"vening News, CBS Morning News," and "60 Minutes," Along the way, he hired Mike Wallace, Roger Mudd, Dan Rather, and Diane Sawyer. This first-person account, compiled and edited by Susan and Bill Buzenberg during the years since Salant's death in 1993, is an important part of the history of broadcast journalism, an inside story of the politicians and journalists who shaped our recent history, and an eloquent alarm about the current erosion of broadcast journalism standards.

This continuation of the history of shortwave broadcasting takes up the story at the end of the Cold War, exploring the many developments in the context of an era of wide political change. Propaganda, religious and other areas of broadcasting are examined in different cultural settings.

Since the 1970s, American society has provided especially fertile ground for the growth of the Christian right and its influence on both political and cultural discourse. In "Stations of the Cross" political theorist Paul Apostolidis shows how a critical component of this movement's popular culture--evangelical conservative radio--interacts with the current U.S. political economy. By examining in particular James Dobson's enormously influential program, "Focus on the Family"--its messages, politics, and effects--Apostolidis reveals the complex nature of contemporary conservative religious culture.
Public ideology and institutional tendencies clash, the author argues, in the restructuring of the welfare state, the financing of the electoral system, and the backlash against women and minorities. These frictions are nowhere more apparent than on Christian right radio. Reinvigorating the intellectual tradition of the Frankfurt School, Apostolidis shows how ideas derived from early critical theory--in particular that of Theodor W. Adorno--can illuminate the political and social dynamics of this aspect of contemporary American culture. He uses and reworks Adorno's theories to interpret the nationally broadcast "Focus on the Family," revealing how the cultural discourse of the Christian right resonates with recent structural transformations in the American political economy. Apostolidis shows that the antidote to the Christian right's marriage of religious and market fundamentalism lies not in a reinvocation of liberal fundamentals, but rather depends on a patient cultivation of the affinities between religion's utopian impulses and radical, democratic challenges to the present political-economic order.
Mixing critical theory with detailed analysis, "Stations of the Cross" provides a needed contribution to sociopolitical studies of mass movements and will attract readers in sociology, political science, philosophy, and history.

"With a New Introduction"
Unsurpassed since its first publication, " Inside Prime Time" is the only book to take us behind the scenes to reveal how prime-time shows get on the air, stay on the air, and are shaped by the political and cultural climate of their times. Using more than 200 interviews with network executives, producers, writers, agents, and actors, as well as months of on-set investigation during the networks' more prosperous years, sociologist and critic Todd Gitlin takes us into a frantic world searching for hit shows. The result is both a lucid picture of the mechanics of prime time and a series of vivid stories of what succeeded or failed, and why. His analysis includes a blow-by-blow account of how the exceptional police series "Hill Street Blues" succeeded against all odds before eventually succumbing to formula itself.

No one else has analyzed, as Gitlin has, the inside track that links executives and producers, or the efforts of worried advertisers, hopeful writers, and the lobbyists of the fundamentalist right to shape America's waking hours. In a new introduction, Gitlin describes the elements of the new television order, and argues that the proliferation of cable channels and the decline of the old networks have not fundamentally changed the business mentality that guides decisions about the entertainment that will fill Americans' leisure time.

As Laura Linder asserts, increased concentration of media ownership has resulted in the homogenization of public discourse. Packaged, commercialized messages have replaced the personalized and localized opinions necessary for the uninhibited marketplace of ideas envisioned in the First Amendment. Narrowcast outlets such as talk radio give vent to individual voices, but only to a limited, predefined audience. The media have led a social shift toward splintering and compartmentalization, away from pluralism and consensus.

Public access television provides an alternative to this trend, requiring active public participation in the process of developing community-based programming through the dominant medium of television. Today, more than 2,000 public access television centers exist in the United States, producing more than 10,000 hours of original, local programming every week. But public access television remains underutilized, even as deregulation and growing interest in other telecommunications delivery systems pose a potential threat to the long-term viability of public access television. In this comprehensive review of the background and development of public access television, Linder offers all the information needed to understand the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings as well as the nuts and bolts of public access television in the United States. Must reading for students and scholars involved with mass media in the United States and professionals in the television field.

Marty Glickman, the incomparable sportscaster and Olympian athlete, writes of his five decades in sports. And what a career it was! At the heart of his autobiography is the notorious incident at the 1936 "Nazi Olympics" in Berlin. Glickman and Sam Stoller, the only Jews on the American track and field team, were dropped from the 400-meter relay team. More than any other event that would shape his life, this would be a defining moment for Glickman, one that would propel him into one of the richest and longest career in sports broadcasting history. In The Fastest Kid on the Block, Glickman recounts his beginnings as an athlete in Brooklyn and his early years at Syracuse University. After his devastating experience at the Olympics, he began his broadcasting career. As one of the best-known voices of New York City sports, he announced many of the most exciting games in sports history, including baseball, hockey, football, wrestling, and basketball. Glickman was actively involved with, and now brings to life, the most influential teams and personalities in the sports world, including the New York Knicks, the New York Giants, Red Auerbach, Joe Namath, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Bradley, Bud Collins, and Mike Emrick, to name just a few. This spirited autobiography concludes with Glickman's trenchant observations about his fellow sports broadcasters, the present-day Olympics, and his own tips on how to break into the competitive, wonderful world of sports broadcasting.

Love, Light, and a Dream is a timely and provocative look at the medium of television as one of the cultural vehicles carrying us toward the 21st century. It provides an up-to-the-minute review of developments and trends shaping the policy and regulatory issues that exert the strongest influence on the evolution of information technology. Topics covered in this study include the Federal Communications Commission and its role as a regulatory body, the relationship between cable services and telephone systems as information providers, television advertising campaigns and the structure of the agency business, public television and its struggle for financial independence, and the culture of television news and the creation of a journalistic mythology.

After World War II, when thousands of African Americans left farms, plantations, and a southern way of life to migrate north, African American disc jockeys helped them make the transition to the urban life by playing familiar music and giving them hints on how to function in northern cities. These disc jockeys became cultural heroes and had a major role in the development of American broadcasting. This collection of interviews documents the personalities of the pioneers of Black radio, as well as their personal struggles and successes. The interviewees also define their roles in the civil rights movement and relate how their efforts have had an impact on how African Americans are portrayed over the air.