Television History

Product List
    • From I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific
    • By: David Bianculli
    • Narrated by: David Bianculli
    • Length: 23 hrs and 30 mins
    • Release date: 11-15-16
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 100 ratings
    • Television shows have now eclipsed films as the premier form of visual narrative art of our time. This new book by one of our finest critics explains how the art of must-see television evolved....

    Regular price: $27.00 or 1 credit

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    • The Collapse of the Studio System, the Thrill of Cinerama, and the Invasion of the Ultimate Body Snatcher—Television
    • By: Foster Hirsch
    • Narrated by: Foster Hirsch
    • Length: 36 hrs and 2 mins
    • Release date: 10-10-23
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 17 ratings
    • A fascinating look at Hollywood’s most turbulent decade and the demise of the studio system—set against the boom of the post-WW II years, the Cold War, and the atomic age—and the movies that reflected the seismic shifts....

    Regular price: $31.50 or 1 credit

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    • The Invention of Reality TV
    • By: Emily Nussbaum
    • Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
    • Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
    • Release date: 06-25-24
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 90 ratings
    • The rollicking saga of reality television, an ambitious cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker writer.

    Regular price: $22.50 or 1 credit

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    • Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution
    • By: Emily Nussbaum
    • Narrated by: Emily Nussbaum
    • Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
    • Release date: 06-25-19
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 340 ratings
    • From her creation of the “Approval Matrix” in New York magazine in 2004 to her Pulitzer Prize–winning columns for The New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum has argued for a new way of looking at TV....

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  • Regular price: $19.95 or 1 credit

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    • A Critical History of Witches in American Film and Television
    • By: Heather Greene
    • Narrated by: Eva Wilhelm
    • Length: 17 hrs and 7 mins
    • Release date: 10-08-21
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 3 ratings
    • No industry has been as influential at shaping the popular notion of what it means to be a witch quite as much as Hollywood. This book traces the fascinating history of witchcraft and witches in American film and television....

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    • The Unexpected Triumph of Old Media in the Digital Age
    • By: Michael Wolff
    • Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
    • Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
    • Release date: 06-23-15
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 43 ratings
    • Every day brings new headlines about the decline of traditional media powerhouses like Time Inc. and the triumph of digital native media like Buzzfeed and Politico....

    Regular price: $14.61 or 1 credit

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    • By: Greg Gutfeld
    • Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne, Greg Gutfeld - Intro
    • Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
    • Release date: 07-25-23
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 125 ratings
    • Greg Gutfeld, five-time New York Times bestselling author and host of the #1 rated late night show GUTFELD!, returns with a witty and tongue-in-cheek essay collection that is part memoir and part political manifesto....

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    • By: K. L. Slater
    • Narrated by: Clare Corbett
    • Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
    • Release date: 11-30-23
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 6,147 ratings
    • Two people fighting for their lives. Two people with secrets to hide. Who will you believe? A completely compelling and twisty thriller from number 1 bestselling author K.L. Slater. Fans of Lisa Jewell and Freida McFadden will be hooked by Husband and Wife....

    Regular price: $16.35 or 1 credit

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    • An Opinionated History of Queer TV
    • By: Shayna Maci Warner
    • Narrated by: Shayna Maci Warner
    • Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
    • Release date: 10-22-24
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 1 rating
    • The Rainbow Age of Television explores why queer people are so invested in—and conflicted by—the kinds of storytelling that TV has to offer. Above all, it's a celebration of the LGBTQIA+ shows, their characters, and their creators that define this new age in television.

    Regular price: $17.49 or 1 credit

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    • When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy
    • By: Bill Carter
    • Narrated by: Sean Kenin
    • Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
    • Release date: 11-04-10
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 916 ratings
    • A dramatic account of the politics and personalities behind NBC's calamitous attempt to reinvent late-night television....

    Regular price: $22.50 or 1 credit

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    • A Writer’s Guide to TV Series Development
    • By: Kelly Edwards
    • Narrated by: Kelly Edwards
    • Length: 3 hrs and 44 mins
    • Release date: 03-08-22
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 15 ratings
    • While there are plenty of books about the mechanics of writing, this is the first time an insider has detailed the invaluable TV executive perspective. As key pieces of the entertainment puzzle, executives hold institutional wisdom that seldom gets disseminated outside network walls....

    Regular price: $14.03 or 1 credit

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    • Sitcoms, Specials, and the Queering of American Culture
    • By: Matt Baume
    • Narrated by: Matt Baume
    • Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
    • Release date: 05-23-23
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 125 ratings
    • Hi Honey, I’m Homo! is the story not only of how subversive queer comedy transformed the American sitcom, from its inception through today, but how our favorite sitcoms transformed, and continue to transform, America....

    Regular price: $20.00 or 1 credit

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    • A History of American Television Themes and Scoring
    • By: Jon Burlingame
    • Narrated by: Paul Woodson
    • Length: 21 hrs and 6 mins
    • Release date: 03-28-23
    • Language: English
    • Not rated yet
    • Music composed for television had, until recently, never been taken seriously by scholars or critics. Catchy TV themes, often for popular weekly series, were fondly remembered but not considered much more culturally significant than commercial jingles....

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    • By: Ellen S. Niz, Keith Tucker
    • Narrated by: anonymous
    • Length: 17 mins
    • Release date: 03-15-22
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 3 ratings
    • This audiobook tells the story of how Philo Farnsworth came up with the idea for electronic television at age 14, and later developed his idea into the technology for television that is still used today....

    Regular price: $6.23 or 1 credit

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  • Regular price: $24.74 or 1 credit

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    • The Most Important Technologies, People and Events That Created the History of Television
    • By: Edward N. Simpson
    • Narrated by: Craig Patterson
    • Length: 1 hr and 17 mins
    • Release date: 04-02-21
    • Language: English
    • 2 out of 5 stars 1 rating
    • Television is probably something we nowadays take for granted. There is a TV in almost every home, a TV in almost every public building - basically, where there is a signal, there is a TV....

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  • Regular price: $22.25 or 1 credit

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    • Letterman, Leno, & the Network Battle for the Night
    • By: Bill Carter
    • Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
    • Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
    • Release date: 06-23-20
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 215 ratings
    • Based on in-depth reporting and interviews with those involved, and updated with a new introduction by the author, The Late Shift is a blow-by-blow account of the fight that ensued as stars, agents, and executives maneuvered for control of the most profitable program in TV history....

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    • How Guts, Guile, and Greed Upended TV
    • By: Peter Biskind
    • Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
    • Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
    • Release date: 11-07-23
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 48 ratings
    • Instead of focusing on one service, like HBO, Pandora’s Box asks, “What did HBO do, besides give us The Sopranos?” The answer: It gave us a revolution....

    Regular price: $25.19 or 1 credit

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