ABSTRACT
Evading the ordinary in spite of their overwhelming number, broadcast pictures seem to retain their cultural and commercial signifi cance in the face of time. Nostalgic retrospectives, historical documentaries, candlelight biographies, entertaining year-end reviews, daily CNN snippets of what happened on “this day, this century”—pictorial history on television has become popular enough to sustain its own genres, even its own channels. With the History Channel, A&E, TLC, ESPN Classic Sports, or Nickelodeon, the media has ultimately institutionalized historical pictures within its daily fl ow of visual entertainment and information.
