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In the 1990s, the London-based production company, Working Title Films, become synonymous with a brand of globally oriented popular cinema which is identifiably British in content while also embracing many of the aesthetic and cultural forms of Hollywood film-making. Notable films include Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Bean (1997), The Borrowers (1997) and Notting Hill (1999). This paper examines the origins of this production strategy between 1988 and 1993. During these six years, Working Title was transformed from an independently owned and managed production company which largely produced Channel 4-funded 'social art cinema' to a subsidiary label of the nascent film studio, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment (PFE). Taking the approach of business history, I will explore PFE's key innovations, particularly the development of the so-called 'control sheet', a creative and commercial filter used to inform green-light decisions. In so doing, a complex and dynamic picture of film-making within a newly formed studio system emerges. Significantly, control sheet-like business practices were also adopted by the major Hollywood studios. Thus, the logic of the control sheet continues to underpin the current media ecology of Hollywood at large, including that of Working Title's current parent company, Universal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using previously undocumented files from the BBC's Written Archives Centre, this article accounts for Harold Pinter's roles in BBC radio and television productions through the 1950s. The article fills the gaps in Pinter's history with the BBC by detailing these archival records. It also examines the reception of these productions and situates them both in Pinter's career and the history of the BBC. Along the way, this article argues that Pinter's BBC work provides a way in to exploring the different evolutionary histories of BBC radio and television as they competed with one another for audience attention and management support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the decades prior to the 1920's, which is when the development of broadcasting radio occurred in the United States. The pioneers of radio are discussed in the article, which includes the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi who pioneered a point-to-point model of communication before the raise of radio broadcasting. The 1912 Radio Act is also discussed, which granted preferential access to the radio spectrum to institutional users in the United States rather than to just individuals.

When the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) announced the 2017 schedule for the Radio National (RN) network, all but one music programme had been dropped. Removing music from RN in a time of technological change – there are suggestions RN will become a post-broadcast digital platform by 2020 – reflects a deeper relationship between knowledge, information and the arts at the heart Australian public service media. Using historical examples from early Australian broadcasting this article revisits the notion of radio 'liveness' in the context of shifting understandings of knowledge production that emerged when radio was 'new media'. Radio broadcasting's ability to serve up events to listeners as if they were present had a critical effect on emerging media forms from broadcast concerts to dramatic news presentations. The article situates radio within the shift from traditional knowledge values, championed by music appreciation's representation of European art-music, to information programming (including sports and news) presented to a new listening subject that was being formed within broadcasting. With the establishment of local practices to exploit the cultural impact of liveness, conventions emerged in the ABC's national radio service that shaped its information programming for years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines and contrasts differing conceptions of the social significance of the development of television. The observations are taken from the 1937 Paris, France, World's Fair and the 1939 World's Fair held in New York City. Both events took place well before the widespread use of the medium. The introduction of television technology and broadcasting at the Paris event was the province of the French and German exhibits. The latter were controlled by the Nazis, but both were state-sponsored, official displays. The American event emphasized the technological innovation of the process and in contrast to the governmental nature of European television, U.S. broadcasting was aimed at private enterprise and consumerism.