Content writer

QUESTION 1 What is meant by the phrase "The age of relevance" in American television? Describe two memorable TV shows from this era and discuss why critics consider them to be good examples of how television can be relevant in this sense. Broadcasting from the television network is the largest and most distributed in the world. The very first broadcast of television started in the year 1928, but it took years for it to grow, as in that time, people were only familiar with radio and were quite happy with its working. Even after the popularity of television increased, radio was still more popular than television as it was quite expensive for the people at that time. From the data of the year 1941, there were only 24% households in the total population using television, but soon,television reached its peak of popularity in the year 1966-97 when 98.4% of the total households, started having at least one television at their houses. In the year 2011, the percentage of household users reduced to about 96.7%. The first commercialization started in the year 1941 on July 1, because people were not taking much interest in television; at that time, only 3 television shows were broadcasted(Stadel, L.2016). The late 1960s and early 70s era are considered as “the age of relevance” or the relevant moment. At that time, the television craze reached at its peak as many television shows and news stories, documentaries, and many other non-fiction shows started getting produced in bulk. At the time of national crisis, television kept the country updated with regular resourceful programs to provide essential coverage of situations the country was going through. The television network covered the technology improvement era when they covered the Moon landing in July 1969 (Orosa et al., 2017). The escapist fictional fare of clock time was of little regard to what was being reported on the news. The phenomenon began to vary in the late 1960s and early 70s but the transition was a clumsy one; some shows began to reflect the new cultural landscape but others continued to ignore it. That girl ABC (1966- 71) “That girl” was a comedy TV show whose first episode aired in the year 1966. It had a total of 5 seasons, 136 episodes in total. It was a totally modern concept in terms of women’s passion for their work, it casted Marlo Thomas as Ann Marie, Ted Bessel as Donald Hollinger, Lew parker as Lew Marie, among others. The story was about an aspiring actor Ann Marie who moved to New York recently to get her dream job of being a famous actress but she was struggling to get a role and was working on temporary jobs to make a living. She was very focused on her work and her dream but she soon fell in love with Donald Hollinger, an executive director of a magazine, and got engaged too. The show won 1 Golden Glove Award along with 2 other awards, and managed to become a nominee 10 times. “That girl” movie was primarily based on a woman and it was the first sitcom focusing on only one woman, who aimed to establish a career on her own and who chose not to remain a domestic girl. It is believed that this show was the forerunner to the "The Marry Tyler Moore show". It was an early indication for the changing society which showed an independent woman having a dream apart from being a housewife and creating a feminist era in America (Curtin et al., 2017). In the year 1968, there was a protest for the feminine products at the Miss America Pageant. Marlo Thomas (Ann Marie) even supported that on the show and she said "God made us bounce, so be it". “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in” show (NBC, 1968-73) The show receiveda8 out of 10 rating on IMDB and was a comedy show. The show had 6 seasons in total, covering 140 episodes at its completion. The cast of the show starred different people as guests but its main characters included Dan Rowan, Dick Martin, Ruth Buzzi, Goldie Hawn, and Arte Johnson, among others. The show received many awards and appeared in many nominations. It was most famous for its innovative style and used rapid fire editing which was cut in between various discrete images and various scenarios. The most amazing thing about the show was the time limit of each joke.Usually, the jokes were made for a longer duration but in this show, they were only seconds long and the show continued with other jokes;the duration was enough to deliver a good punchline. The show is remembered for its courting of the counterculture of the 1960s. Laugh-in was not only for fun and comedy but it also reached out to youngsters and educated them about social and practical issues (Arkhangelskaya, 2019). Both the shows were ahead of their time and continued to portray changes in the American culture. Both the shows had different perspectives even after sharing the same genre, that is, comedy. The shows gave strength to women and youths to discover themselves and entertained people in tough times. References: - Stadel, L. (2016). Radio/television/sound: Radio aesthetics and perceptual technics in early american television. Journal of e-Media Studies, 5(1). Curtin, M., &Shattuc, J. (2017). The American television industry. Bloomsbury Publishing. Orosa, M. A., López-Golán, M., Márquez-Domínguez, C., & Ramos-Gil, Y. (2017). The American postdramatic television series: the art of poetry and the composition of chaos (How to understand the script of the best American television series). Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 72, 500-520. Arkhangelskaya, I. (2019). Political Humor in the US Late Night Comedy Shows, 1960s-1990s. USA & Canada: ekonomika, politika, kultura, (11), 108-123. Haven, L. S. (2016). Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In by Ken Feil. Studies in American Humor, 2(1), 122-124.