What was television programming like in the 1950s

But the medium had been around for years before it started to take off. Televisions made their way into U. Through the s, Americans had the three networks, and all programming originated in New York. According to Encyclopedia. Through the s, the US went from 20 percent of homes having a television to nearly 90 percent. The number of television stations, number of channels, and available programming all grew to meet the demand of a public. Television sitcoms came to being in the s and have been a dominant format of programming ever since.

Gameshows like The Price is Right launched in the 50s, setting the standard for that genre. The Today Show sets the standard for morning news programming. Then came the "Beverly Hillbillies" in The premise was simple.

The show was an inspired piece of silliness, produced by Paul Henning, a Midwesterner from Missouri who spent 30 years in Hollywood mining his rural roots.

The "Beverly Hillbillies" shot up to number one in the ratings the first two years it was on the air, and stayed in the top fifteen for most of the rest of the decade. Critics have called the show, "equal parts Steinbeck and absurdism, the nouveau riche-out-of-water. Producer Henning followed that up with "Petticoat Junction" from and "Green Acres" from Both shows proved to be almost as popular. The daughters gave the writers ample opportunity for thinly veiled farmer's daughters jokes while the hotel's isolation created a rural milieu that didn't exist in reality anymore.

One fan web site, "Memorable TV," calls the show, "a flat-out assault on Cartesian logic, Newtonian physics, and Harvard-centrist positivism. Beulah Gocke left was one among many rural residents who appreciated the inspired silliness of these shows. William Luebbe right points out that two of his sons have gone to college and one has a doctorate degree. The TV shows "portrayed the farmers as being backward, uneducated [people].

But that wasn't fair to the farmers. Even critics at the time recognized the curious popularity of these rural shows. Despite continued good ratings, the "Beverly Hillbillies" and "Green Acres" were cancelled the next year when CBS decided it needed to attract a more youthful Baby Boomer audience. Written by Bill Ganzel, the Ganzel Group. First published in A partial bibliography of sources is here.

Because Americans now had more disposable income, they desired a home filled with appliances. Sitcoms showed Americans the ideal lifestyle of the perfect family, suburban neighborhood, and a loving family. The makers of situation comedies were not necessarily attempting to produce Cold War propaganda but "believed that viewers were more attracted to affluence than to poverty.

Sponsors preferred their consumer products to be associated with an upbeat image of affiance that would encourage viewers to buy more goods in order to resemble people on tv" Schwartz