ABSTRACT
Prime time: those precious few hours every night when the three major television networks garner millions of dollars while tens of millions of Americans tune in. Inside Prime Time is a classic study of the workings of the Hollywood television industry, newly available with an updated introduction. Inside Prime Time takes us behind the scenes to reveal how prime-time shows get on the air, stay on the air, and are shaped by the political and cultural climate of their times. It provides an ethnography of the world of American commercial television, an analysis of that world's unwritten rules, and the most extensive study of the industry ever made.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |13 pages
Prologue
part |84 pages
Nothing Succeeds Like Success
chapter |11 pages
The Problem of Knowing
chapter |14 pages
Predicting the Unpredictable
chapter |8 pages
By the Numbers
chapter |6 pages
Making Schedules
chapter |24 pages
“Another American Dream Gone Astray”
part |77 pages
The Television-Industrial Complex
chapter |25 pages
Inside Tracks in a Small World
chapter |12 pages
The Deal Is the Art Form
chapter |39 pages
Movies of the Week
part |108 pages
The Politics of Prime Time