Every television program is, first and foremost, a television program; before it is about sports, weather, news, drama, or comedy, the primary referent of television is television itself. As David Marc notes, there is a self-reflexivity that rewards heavy viewing; the more you watch, the more you get the inside jokes and cross-references. This recognition heightens the sense of realism which viewers impart to television, and obscures the fact that what they are watching may be naturalistic, but not natural. Television programs are based on narrative conventions more than on reality. According to Myles Breen and Farrel Corcoran, “…the thoroughly familiar conventions of film and television realism hide the fact that the very mode of narration, as well as the story content, is arbitrarily structured…Realism presents itself not as one way of seeing but the way” (134).
As the 1950s media world focused increasingly on the world of their sons and daughters, dominated by rock ‘n’ roll and other manifestations of youth culture, parents were bewildered, but the networks toiled mightily to offer reassurance, to maintain the TV room as an adult comfort zone. As Trav S. D. puts it, “the aesthetic values being embraced by younger people—openness, freedom, honesty, egalitarianism—were in direct opposition to the prevailing culture of enforced and restricted norms of behavior that dominated television” (266). What television had to “say” about rock ‘n’ roll through content, genre, and what might be considered its “hidden curriculum” was almost unrelievedly negative. Variety shows and sitcoms generally portrayed rock music as absurd and trivial, while news coverage emphasized the dangers lurking in the rock ‘n’ roll “lifestyle.”←62 | 63→
But even as the networks catered to the older generation and the status quo in terms of program content, there was a veritable obsession with the behavior of young people. The burgeoning consumer culture of the 1950s was increasingly oriented to youngsters; this was, at best, a mixed bag for adults, for whom the proliferation of transistor radios, hula hoops, and other new products inspired equal parts fascination and annoyance. Every appearance by a rock artist on television was a minor insurrection, disturbing the status quo of home and hearth. The spectacle of their offspring giving themselves over to new fads and fashions, and swooning over swivel-hipped rock stars on TV, inspired what Lawrence Grossberg referred to as “a distinctively ‘American’ brand of political, moral, and cultural conservatism” (We Gotta 146). The onslaught of novel products and amusements contributed to a retrenchment on the part of the older generation.
In addition to bringing a sometimes unsettling new world into the home, television also became the foremost catalyst for a process of nationalization and homogenization that continues today on a global scale. The trend began with earlier advances in transportation and communication (i.e., train and telegraph, car and telephone), and took a giant leap with radio, which created broadcast audiences (today they would be called virtual communities) that transcended geography. As James Carey summarizes, the United States has tended to view communication as a form of power, and as long-distance communication became dominant, “Individuals were linked into larger units of social organization without the necessity of appealing to them through local and proximate structures” and the trend was towards “new things thought about—speed, space, movement, mobility; and new things to think with—increasingly abstract, analytic, and manipulative symbols” (156). Carey was among the first scholars to recognize that the transmission model of communication, which simply followed information from point A of production (encoding) to point B of reception (decoding), was no longer sufficient in the era of mass media. Television does not just reflect the culture, it makes culture.
Compared to television, radio remained a predominantly local enterprise until satellite technology and lax regulation over ownership brought about rapid consolidation in the 1980s. This local orientation was reflected in radio programming. Also, the relative proliferation of radio licenses created a competitive environment in which the need to distinguish one’s station in the marketplace led to variety and experimentation. The investment costs were significantly higher for television due to the technological demands of transmission, and the 1950s was a period in which there were few licenses due to limited airwave space. These expenses left television entrepreneurs drawing the lines of acceptable programming narrowly enough so as not to alienate viewers or prolong the time lapse between up-front expenses and revenues. Moreover, the potential audience for television←63 | 64→ was so vast that producers felt the need to use demographic data and other market research tools to identify the audience so that they could more efficiently cater to it. Although some local stations and affiliates enjoyed considerable autonomy in the 1950s, television presentation was increasingly dominated by a national perspective and risk-averse policies. Noting the reluctance of TV producers to reflect dissenting views or creative expressions, McLuhan dubbed television the “timid giant” (Understanding 411).
Television and Rock ‘n’ Roll
The most salient precedent for the presentation of rock ‘n’ roll on television was the video jukebox. Beginning in the 1930s, having already established an audience for coin-operated phonographs, the Mills Novelty Company developed a video jukebox called the Panoram and the music industry began to produce soundies, films of popular artists designed specifically for these new machines. The soundies were shipped weekly, with eight shorts on one continuous reel, and tailored to specific audiences, showcasing such artists as Louis Jordan, Les Paul, Count Basie, Merle Travis, Spike Jones, and Fats Waller. Soundies generally coincided with hit recordings, fulfilling the combined entertainment and promotional function that would later be served by television. The music was generally recorded first (usually in one take) and filmed afterward, with artists doing their best to synchronize their on-camera performance to the recording. Many of the expectations that Americans still have for filmed musical performance were established by the soundies, which highlighted extroverted showmanship and tolerated considerable sexual suggestiveness. For many people who did not live in urban centers, the soundies were their first exposure to authentic jazz and rhythm & blues. A case in point is Harry “The Hipster” Gibson, a link between the boogie-woogie piano of Meade Lux Lewis and the later pumping styles of Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Gibson had several hits that were filmed for soundies, and although he might come across today as a wide-eyed jester, he was an accomplished player and a harbinger of performance conventions to come.
In the mid-to-late 1940s, the coin-operated soundies were beginning to suffer from competition with television sets that were popping up in public places. By the time soundies got into public establishments, the songs had often lost their freshness, and television offered more timely content. In 1947, the Videograph Corporation developed a system that combined television and jukebox, as well as a limited selection of radio stations. Tradio, which made coin-operated radio sets for hotels, produced a similar system, with expanded radio capabilities. A third←64 | 65→ company, Speedway Products, made a deal with RCA and Wurlitzer to make what Variety called “pay-for-play tavern tele.” Also, between 1950 and 1952, Louis Snader produced hundreds of “visual records,” coupling silent films with hit records, which were used primarily by TV stations to fill airtime between programs.
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