Su Holmes, Entertaining Television: The BBC and Popular Television Culture in the 1950s

摘要

The 1950s was the first significant decade of British television. The BBC's monopoly ended halfway through with the introduction of commercial television, which could more openly and broadly devote itself to popular programming. The BBC had to negotiate how to develop such programming far more carefully because of its public service remit. The story of how the corporation did this is told by Su Holmes in this new study, ranging across such early TV genres as the quiz or game show, soap opera and the problem show. This is a rather neglected story, largely because the BBC in the mid-20th century was associated with 'quality' programming, and, at least partly following from that, because 'serious' drama dominated British television historiography until fairly recently.