The “Golden Age” of television was the merging of audio and video technologies through the craft of live storytelling which attracted viewers to the small screens in the late 1940’s through late 1950’s. “Before 1947, only a few thousand American homes owned television sets. Just five years later, that number jumped to 12 million. By 1955, half of American homes had a TV set”(Golden Age of Radio in the US-TV: A member of the family ). Audiences were fascinated to watch live television unfold before their very eyes because there was an intimacy and attraction to drama. “Anthology dramas proliferated on all of the broadcast networks in the 1950s, reaching a peak of popularity mid-decade with such shows as Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse, Westinghouse Studio One, Kraft Television Theater, and Playhouse 90. These sixty- to ninety-minute shows were among the most prestigious items on the networks’ schedules”(The Golden Age of Television). It should be noted that, when we examine American History the post-World War II Era is generally referenced as a time period where a central focus was on family values. It is often said that, “life imitates art and vice-versa”, and this was very true in the television shows produced during this time frame. Television shows like Leave it to Beaver, and I Love Lucy became popular because of the family themed genre that matched the ideology of the time period. “A study conducted by CBS and Rutgers University during that time, which interviewed families with television sets, found that Americans enjoyed the new experiences television brought them. Families said they felt unified around their new TVs, that it helped parents and children socialize and connect in new ways and helped the family spend more time together”(Golden Age of Radio in the US-TV: A member of the family ).
Moving forward, how have things shifted today? Well there have been moral panics, social reforms, advances in other communication technologies, and the instant gratification growth phenomenon which first grew out of the advertising markets in the mid 1950’s which has hypnotized many people through the generations. “Sponsors wished for more upbeat lead-ins to their snappy commercial jingles. Advertising practices changed so that sponsors could purchase minute-long (and later 30-second or 15-second) “spots” rather than entire programs. This focused attention on “buying” audiences by the thousand (the cost per thousand), and programs that appealed to refined, but uncommon, tastes had prohibitively high costs on that basis”(Straubaar, Larose and Davenport 213). Today, we see that television has a tremendous lack of golden moments because advertising plugs are the dominant force which drives the networks. For profit companies, tend to largely only care about ratings and their own bottom line. On April 30, 2018, Brancaccio and Nguyen stated, “Over the past 10 years, the number of ads on TV has been rising, with some channels featuring as much as 15 minutes’ worth of them in a single hour”(Brancaccio and Nguyen). The increase of commercials has steadily turned audiences away from television. In order to adjust to the “cut the cord wave” by the fed up audiences, the mergers of the cable companies which largely dominant the internet and telecommunications markets are attempting to win them back with competitive internet rates. The power of the internet can be both beautiful and dangerous, and unfortunately each time a new merger is completed the control over information in the interwebs slowly shrinks just as in the television arena with only a limited amount of broadcast networks.
Ultimately, having access to a seemingly endless pit of information can be a great tool because research and education are necessary elements of life. The danger lurks when addictions to media, popularity, going viral, and others begins to control our lives by replacing God. Proverbs 3:5-6 the (King James Version) states, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths”(Holy Bible ). To enumerate, God wants us to follow His lead and plan in all things we engage in. We can use telecommunications technology which can glorify His will for our lives, but we need to consult Him first. Sadly, having access to a plethora of topics in the internet only aid as a distraction from putting God first for many, and the clichéd expression, “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist” has substance under this umbrella. Today, the state of television is very much in a retooling mode attempting to rebrand themselves on the internet. Youtube and other video streaming platforms have forced the big networks to adjust to the internet wave, but it may be too late. As technology advances continue, people today are largely entertained by live capture streams which are relatively uncensored. We all carry this technology with us in our smart phones. Television cannot compete with this live capture technology because of FCC regulations. This is why as mergers are continually made between cable companies there is a big push to market televisions on devices like laptops, tablets, and phones. This is the growing trend we see today in the United States. Television content right now in America is almost irrelevant. What dominants currently, are the streaming video platforms across the web because of our fast paced lives in this era of information. Isn’t it interesting that as television faded away from “live drama stories”and the internet is largely popular today because of “live drama stories”? Could it be only a matter of time before networks ruin the golden age of the internet in terms of social media with a forced shift away from “live stories”? It has already started with advertising has it not?
Works Cited
Brancaccio, David and Janet Nguyen. Even TV networks agree there are too many commercials. 30 April 2018. <https://www.marketplace.org/2018/04/30/business/television-too-many-commercials>.
Golden Age of Radio in the US-TV: A member of the family . n.d. <https://dp.la/exhibitions/radio-golden-age/radio-tv>.
Holy Bible . Thomas Nelson Publishers , 1997.
Straubaar, Joseph, obert Larose and Lucinda Davenport. Media Now, Understanding Media, Culture, and Technology. Boston,MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012.
The Golden Age of Television. n.d. <https://wcftr.commarts.wisc.edu/exhibits/golden-age-television>.
