A Word from Our Sponsor: Admen, Advertising, and the Golden Age of Radio
A Word from Our Sponsor: Admen, Advertising, and the Golden Age of Radio
Associate Professor of Communication
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Abstract
In this book the author repositions the advertising industry as a central agent in the development of broadcasting in the USA and challenges conventional views about the role of advertising in culture, the integration of media industries, and the role of commercialism in broadcasting history. It describes the “golden age” of radio, from roughly the late 1920s until the late 1940s, when advertising agencies were arguably the most important sources of radio entertainment. The book is based largely on archival materials from academics, advertising agencies and contemporaneous trade publications and on the voluminous correspondence between NBC and agency executives held in the NBC Records at the Wisconsin Historical Society. It shows how admen combined “showmanship” with “salesmanship” to produce a uniquely American form of commercial culture. In recounting the history of this form, the author enriches and corrects our understanding not only of broadcasting history but also of advertising history, business history and American cultural history from the 1920s to the 1940s.
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Front Matter
- Introduction
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1
Dramatizing a Bar of Soap: The Advertising Industry before Broadcasting
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2
The Fourth Dimension of Advertising: The Development of Commercial Broadcasting in the 1920s
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3
They Sway Millions as If by Some Magic Wand: The Advertising Industry Enters Radio in the Late 1920s
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4
“Who Owns the Time?”: Advertising Agencies and Networks Vie for Control in the 1930s
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5
The 1930s’ Turn to the Hard Sell: Blackett-Sample-Hummert’s Soap Opera Factory
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6
The Ballet and Ballyhoo of Radio Showmanship: Young & Rubicam’s Soft Sell
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7
Two Agencies: Batten Barton Durstine & Osborn, Crafters of the Corporate Image, and Benton & Bowles, Radio Renegades
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8
Madison Avenue in Hollywood: J. Walter Thompson and Kraft Music Hall
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9
Advertising and Commercial Radio during World War II, 1942–45
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10
On a Treadmill to Oblivion: The Peak and Sudden Decline of Network Radio
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Conclusion
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End Matter
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