Sterling, Christopher H. & Kittross, John Michael. Stay Tuned: a History of American Broadcasting, 3rd Edition.

Raphael, Chad

Sterling, Christopher H. & Kittross, John Michael. Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting, 3rd Edition. Mahwah, NJ/London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002. Pp. xxix, 975. ISBN 0-8058-2624-6 (cloth) $59.95.

Writing a history of American broadcasting, never an easy task given the many technological, economic, political and cultural developments that shaped the medium, has become even harder. As globalized trade in television and radio formats and programs accelerates, it becomes less clear where American broadcasting begins and ends. Technological borders blur as well in an era of digital convergence of all media, as television and radio are delivered via a bewildering array of systems and channels. Corporate concentration in the industry drives cross-media promotions and development of content that can play as well on the silver screen, the small screen or the computer screen. Thus, what is uniquely broadcasting has also grown murkier.

In their third edition of Stay Tuned, long the most helpful and comprehensive single-volume history of broadcasting available, Christopher Sterling (professor at George Washington University) and John Michael Kittross (academic consultant and editor of Media Ethics magazine) bring readers up to date on the major trends and developments since their last edition in 1990. The industry's moves toward digitization, concentration, deregulation, deepening commercialization, and specialized programming for a fragmenting mass audience all figure prominently in a new chapter that covers trends from 1988 to the present.

A final chapter, entitled "Lessons from the Past for the Future," has been entirely rewritten to focus on how history can inform our thinking about current debates over broadcasting's regulation, economic organization and social impacts. The authors draw historical principles relevant to today's struggles to introduce high-definition television (HDTV) and the integration of older broadcast technologies with computers. They note that successful inventions depend on ample financing and marketing, an ability to shape favorable law and policy, and a good deal of luck. They remind us that for consumers to adopt new technologies, as in the shift from black-and-white to color TV in the past or from analogue to digital television today, it takes time, reasonably priced equipment and an incentive in the form of new or better programming. The authors observe that:

 Only when the government intervenes on the side
 of innovation, or a company decides not to exploit
 a patent position, or the rest of the industry gangs
 up on a leader, or a new idea (such as television
 itself, VCRs and the Internet) catches the public's
 fancy, does the field open up" (p. 691).

Even then, they note, a dominant player such as Microsoft can sometimes stifle innovation.

The final chapter also sketches out debates over our media future. Can broadcasting's mission to serve the public interest be clarified and honored at a time when regulators and the industry seem to be abandoning this goal in favor of competition and profit-making? Can local programming survive the increase in chain ownership of stations, conglomerate control of the media by distant owners, and competition from satellite and Internet programming? Can public broadcasting clarify its mission and secure stable funding without becoming indistinguishable from commercial networks? Will the age of narrowcasting bring more original, varied entertainment and serious news, or more imitative situation comedies, cheap game shows, and newscasters cross-dressing as entertainers? How will the new media environment affect the audience's experience and social impacts of broadcasting? The authors consider these and other questions.

The third edition, some 270 pages longer than the second, retains its predecessor's breadth of scope, presenting the many aspects of broadcast history chronologically in clearly periodized chapters. The book begins with a chapter on the social, economic and technological context from which early radio sprang. Further chapters recount the prehistory of broadcasting, when radio was used primarily to supplement the telegraph for point-to-point communication; the beginnings of broadcasting in the early 1920s; the rise to power of commercially-supported networks in the late 1920s; radio's "golden age" of programming in the 1930s; broadcasting during World War II; the postwar growth of AM, FM and television; television's ascension in the 1950s; the mutual adjustments of radio and television industries, regulators and audiences in the 1960s and early 1970s; the growth of competing technologies and channels in the 1980s; convergence and concentration in the 1990s. Throughout, the authors weave together economic, technical and regulatory developments with accounts of changing programming styles and audiences.

The book is richly illustrated with graphics and photos, and punctuated by boxed features that give fuller treatment to particularly important individuals, events, laws, and technical devices. There is an alternate table of contents organized by topic and a long index, organized by author and subject. An ample bibliography as well as a list of web sites, museums, libraries and archives point readers to sources for further research. Other appendices include a chronology of American broadcasting, a glossary, and a collection of historical statistics on the medium.

--Chad Raphael

Santa Clara University