Television Genres

Table of Contents: Season one: an expensive experiment -- Season two: ratings and relevance -- Season three: from Brian's song to the night stalker-something for everyone -- Season four: feeding the beast twice a week -- Season five: every night of the week: TV movie saturation -- Season six: diminishing returns -- Epilogue -- Appendix I- A chronological list of the movie of the week -- Appendix II- An alphabetical filmography -- Appendix III- List of movie of the week pilot films -- Appendix IV- A comment on available sources.

In the years immediately following World War II, NBC's legendary David Sarnoff and his cross-town equal, CBS's William S. Paley, decided that American television would be identified with quality live drama surrounded by news, light entertainment (in the form of variety and quiz shows), and family-oriented series generally spun off from radio. That initial vision eroded over the years and decades, but the dramatic part of this equation endured well into the 1960s, when, with NBC's Project 120 (which commissioned movies expressly for television in 120-minute doses), the genres known as Movies Made for Television and the miniseries emerged. ...

Television historian Alvin H. Marill has compiled a comprehensive listing of every film made for television since the first was broadcast in 1964. Each entry cites the film's original network, airdate, length of broadcast, extensive production credits (director, writer, producer, composer, director of photography, and editor), and a complete cast (and character) listing, as well as a brief summary. Five volumes including complete actor and director indexes.

To paraphrase silent movie queen Norma Desmond in Billy Wilder's classic 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, "The epic miniseries are big! It's television that got small!" This is especially true when one compares such iconic epic miniseries as Rich Man, Poor Man (1976), Roots (1977), Holocaust (1978), Shogun (1980), The Winds of War (1983), War and Remembrance (1988-89) and Angels in America (2003) to today's ordinary television programming. This work traces the historical trajectory of the epic miniseries and delves into the character archetypes and themes that recur in the genre, giving close critical attention to more than 40 miniseries. A filmography is included.

From live productions of the 1950s like Requiem for a Heavyweight to big budget mini-series like Band of Brothers, long-form television programs have been helmed by some of the most creative and accomplished names in directing. Encyclopedia of Television Film Directors brings attention to the directors of these productions, citing every director of stand alone long-form television programs: made for TV movies, movie-length pilots, mini-series, and feature-length anthology programs, as well as drama, comedy, and musical specials of more than 60 minutes. ...

In 2008, the broadcast networks, cable channels and syndication produced nearly 1,100 new and continuing entertainment programs - the most original productions in one year since the medium first took hold in 1948. This reference book covers all the first run entertainment programs broadcast over the airwaves and on cable from January 1 through December 31, 2008, including series, specials, miniseries, made-for-television movies, pilot films, Internet series and specialized series (those broadcast on gay and lesbian channels). ...

This season includes an episode on "Primetime Soaps" and mini-series.

Television & New Media (TVNM), explores the fields of television and new media studies as they focus on the historical, ethnographic, political-economic, technological, and textual dimensions of media in social contexts.

Television Quarterly featured in depth articles about the TV medium. This coverage is from 1994-2008.

Television Quarterly featured in depth articles about the TV medium. This coverage is from 1962-2008. [From the site World Radio History].

Covers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television.

The online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.