Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-341) and index.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments PART ONE: BROADCASTING BEGINS, 1919-38 Introduction to Part One Michele Hilmes 1. NBC and the Network Idea: Defining the "American System" Michele Hilmes 2. "Always in Friendly Competition": NBC and CBS in the First Decade of National Broadcasting Michael J. Socolow 3. Programming in the Public Interest: America's Town Meeting of the Air David Goodman 4. Regulating Class Conflict on the Air: NBC's Relationship with Business and Organized Labor Elizabeth Fones-Wolf and Nathan Godfried PART TWO: TRANSITIONAL DECADES, 1938-60 Introduction to Part Two Michele Hilmes 5. Breaking Chains: NBC and the FCC Network Inquiry, 1938-43 Christopher H. Sterling 6. Why Sarnoff Slept: NBC and the Holocaust David Weinstein 7. Employment and Blue Pencils: NBC, Race, and Representation, 1926-55 Murray Forman 8. NBC, J. Walter Thompson, and the Struggle for Control of Television Programming, 1946-58 Mike Mashon 9. Talent Raids and Package Deals: NBC Loses Its Leadership in the 1950s Douglas Gomery PART THREE: NBC AND THE CLASSIC NETWORK SYSTEM, 1960-85 Introduction to Part Three Michele Hilmes 10. NBC News Documentary: "Intelligent Interpretation" in a Cold War Context Michael Curtin 11. What Closes on Saturday Night: NBC and Satire Jeffrey S. Miller 12. The Little Program That Could: The Relationship between NBC and Star Trek Maire Messenger Davies and Roberta Pearson 13. Sex as a Weapon: Programming Sexuality in the 1970s Elana Levine 14. Saturday Morning Children's Programs on NBC, 1975-2006: A Case Study of Self-Regulation Karen Hill-Scott and Horst Stipp PART FOUR: NBC IN THE DIGITAL AGE, 1985 TO THE PRESENT Introduction to Part Four Michele Hilmes 15. Must-See TV: NBC's Dominant Decades Amanda D. Lotz 16. Creating the Twenty-first-Century Television Network: NBC in the Age of Media Conglomerates Christopher Anderson 17. Life without Friends: NBC's Programming Strategies in an Age of Media Clutter, Media Conglomeration, and TiVo Kevin S. Sandler 18. Network Nation: Writing Broadcasting History as Cultural History Michele Hilmes and Shawn VanCour NBC Time Line Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

Illuminating the course of American broadcasting by offering, this work offers a comprehensive view of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) that brings into focus the development of this key American institution and the ways that it has intersected with, and influenced, the central events of our times.