ABSTRACT
Pursuing a mediamorphic approach, this chapter offers an intermedial study of United State television's (TV) emergence as a new medium of dramatic entertainment in the fifteen-year period following Second World War, exploring its relationship with the 'old' medium of radio broadcasting. It focuses on the genre of the anthology drama and argues that TV workers framed their medium not simply as a 'visual' one, but also actively cultivated and theorized its sonic potentialities. The chapter draws familiar communicatory codes of aural broadcasting while at the same time distancing themselves from their radio forbears in bids for aesthetic autonomy and professional legitimation. It focuses on sonic practices pursued by TV budding production workers as they strove to develop standardized modes of representation for their medium and establish its viability as a legitimate vehicle for dramatic entertainment.
