Abstract
At the same time that free enterprise advocates ran “public service” campaigns and organized advertisers and businesses to help the U.S. government, many of them worked to develop commercial television within the United States and around the globe. Television proved to be an ideal free enterprise, persuasive information media allowing brand manufacturers to develop an even more intimate relationship with viewers. Campaigns such as the Freedom Train and the Crusade for Freedom were designed to create a sense of national community and national unity and national commercial television would streamline this process. It also allowed free enterprise advocates to develop another popular medium into a commercial one based on advertising. Like radio, television gave the American people free entertainment, news and sports, in exchange for bringing advertising into their lives, a deal Americans did not mind. Television brought to maturity James Webb Young’s vision of American politics incorporating advertising and free enterprise principles, and provided an even more efficient vehicle for public information campaigns.
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Notes
William Hawes, Live Television Drama, 1946–1951 (London: McFarland & Company, Inc, 2001), 14–15.
William Hawes, Filmed Television Drama, 1952–1958 (London: McFarland, 2002), 5, 69; Baughman, Same Time, Same Station, 225.
Kerry Segrave, American Television Abroad, Hollywood’s Attempt to Dominate World Television (London: McFarland & Company, Inc, 1998), 15; Hawes, Live Television Drama, 1946–1951; William Hawes, Filmed Television Drama, 1952–1958 (North Carolina, London: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2002); “JWT: The Fleet-Footed Tortoise,” Broadcasting, November 23, 1964, 46–48, box 14, JWT TV-Radio Department 1930–1964, Colin Dawkins Papers, JWTCA, HCAMR.
Lawrence M. Hughes, “Free Choice or Free TV? The Argument Up-to-Date,” SRI Recordings Section, February 22, 1958, box 2, Administrative Records, TV Pay TV, 1958, Department Organization, Radio TV Department; Warren G. Magnusen to Dan Seymour, J. Walter Thompson Co., December 30, 1958, box 2, Administrative Records, TV Legislation 1958–1959, May 1960, Papers of the Administrator, John F. Devine, JWTCA, HCAMR.
Regarding J Robinson and NBC, see Baughman, Same Time, Same Station, 162–164; Jackson, Mississippi, first TV station WJTV Jackson in 1953; Steven D. Classen, Watching Jim Crow: The Struggles Over Mississippi TV, 1955–196 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 34, 158; Lee Lowenfish, Branch Rickey: Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 351–352 356–357, 371–384; Hawes, Filmed Television Drama, 1952–1958, 170–172.
Based on A.C. Nielsen ratings statistic, see the Television Bureau of Advertising, The Three “Hows” of Television (New York: Television Bureau of Advertising, Inc, June 1955.), 21; Baughman, Same Time, Same Station, 41, 232; Samuel, Brought to You By Postwar Television, 34.
Bob Colacello, Ronnie & Nancy, Their Path to the White House-1911 to 1980 (New York: Warner Books, 2004), 271–274; Frances Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York: The New Press, 1999), 132, 158, 422.
Carroll L. Wilson, “The International Operation of the J. Walter Thompson Company, Analysis of an Expanding Venture with Policy Recommendations,” December 15, 1945, box 4, The International Operation of the J. Walter Thompson Company, Analysis of an Expanding Venture with Policy Recommendations, International Offices, International Department, International Marketing, Samuel W Meek Papers, JWTCA, HCAMR.
H.H. Wilson, “The Campaign for Commercial Television in England” (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1961), 1–3, 16, box 14, Offices London, Colin Dawkins Papers, JWTCA, HCAMR; Samuel, Brought to You By Postwar Television, 67.
Nancy E. Bernhard, U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947–60 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 186; Segrave, American Television Abroad, 33–35.
Nicholas John Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 111: Earl James Collins, “A History of The Creation, Development and Use of A Worldwide Military Non-Commercial Television Network for the United States Military By the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service,” Dissertation, Ohio State University, 1959, 1, 45, 49, 71, 75, map.
Television Bureau of Advertising, The Three “Haws” of Television (New York: Television Bureau of Advertising, Inc, June 1955), 6, 11, 53, 58.
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© 2011 Dawn Spring
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Spring, D. (2011). One Nation, One World with Television. In: Advertising in the Age of Persuasion. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230339644_8
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