Book Review—J. Emmett Winn and Susan L. Brinson, eds., Transmitting the Past: Historical and Cultural Perspectives on Broadcasting

Abstract

With some persons predicting the soon-to-be demise of network media (radio and television), Transmitting the Past reminds readers that network broadcasting was, not too long ago, an innovative technology that influenced the direction of law, popular culture, and modern advertising. Consisting of an introduction and nine essays, Transmitting the Past provides cultural studies of specific events in the history of 20th-century broadcasting from the inventor of wireless technology to the cast of Cheers. The breadth of this anthology provides the editors—both professors of communications and journalism at Auburn University—an opportunity to explore important historical events of broadcasting through the intersection of traditional historical analysis and contemporary critical theory. Eight of the essays consist of profiles of events in radio and television (four for each media), whereas the remaining essay examines the emergence of women in both radio and television broadcasting. Three of the essays are notable for rescuing important transitional periods in the first 50 years of broadcasting. Michele Hilmes, “Femmes Boff Program Toppers: Women Break Into Prime Time, 1943–1948,” reminds readers of the path-breaking careers of such figures as Judy Canova, Martha Rountree, and Hattie McDaniel. Wartime scarcity and corporate program packaging explain why an avenue for women to become hosts of shows occurred during World War II. But Hilmes demonstrates that the beginnings of sophisticated audience research may have been the more important catalyst in the network search for talented women. Advertisers realized that women were the primary purchasers of consumer items, and thus increasing numbers of radio and television ads featured or were aimed at women. Businesswomen such as Canova, Rountree and, in the 1950s, Lucille Ball, used this philosophy to their advantage and became not merely the stars but the producers of their own shows. Most readers would agree that the arrival of the Beatles in 1964 changed AM radio, but Matthew Killmeier reminds us that fans listened to the group on their car radios. Killmeier’s “Space and Speed of Sound: Mobile Media, 1950s Broadcasting, and Suburbia” profiles an important change in listening habits. Before World War II, the radio “functioned as foreground,” as the centerpiece of the living room; however, in postwar America, “radio increasingly became background” (p. 164). Americans were on the move from city to suburbia, from home to office, or from one city to another. Listeners did not have the time for half-hour or hour-long dramas or comedies. Station managers adjusted their programming to reflect these new listening habits. Popular songs, short newsbreaks, and weather updates became the staples of radio broadcasting by the mid-1950s. In 1957, for example, 69.1% of all radio programming consisted of music and news. Journal of Radio Studies/November 2005