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That's Television Entertainment: The History, Development, and Impact of the First Five Seasons of "Entertainment Tonight," 1981-86

Magee, Sara C.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1217427973

Abstract Details

2008, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Mass Communication (Communication).
The line between news and entertainment on television grows more blurry every day. Heated debates over what is news and what is entertainment pepper local, national, and cable newsrooms. Cable channels devoted entirely to entertainment and a plethora of syndicated, half-hour entertainment news magazines air nightly. It was not always so. When "Entertainment Tonight" premiered in 1981, the first daily half-hour syndicated news program, no one thought it would survive. No one believed there was enough celebrity and Hollywood news to fill a daily half-hour, much less interest an audience. Still, "ET" set out to become the glitzy, glamorous newscast of record for the entertainment industry and twenty-seven years later is still going strong. But the legacy of entertainment as news is only one of its many facets. The creators of "ET" developed a unique delivery system that revolutionized satellite syndication and it popularized the cash-plus-barter system of selling syndicated programs. The first five years of the program, from 1981 to 1986, were seminal in creating these facets that would provide the backbone for the success of the program and much of syndicated television for the next two decades. The philosophies and principles for producing the program that emerged during these years provided a stable base upon which "ET" would evolve into the leader for entertainment news on television. This dissertation uncovers what it took to create a pioneer in syndicated television and a show that today can bill itself as "television's most watched entertainment news program." The story of the first five years of "ET" is told in this dissertation through the personal interviews and reflections of the producers, reporters, anchors, and executives who brought "ET" to life, as well as contextual analysis of a sample of early shows and published reviews and articles. Television news directors in local and cable markets who remember when "ET" premiered also explain the impact it had on television news. By understanding how "ET" began and why it survives, we can better understand where news and entertainment are headed today and how syndicated television programming developed.
Patrick S. Washburn, PhD (Committee Chair)
Mary Rogus, Prof. (Committee Member)
Gregory Newton, Prof. (Committee Member)
Joseph Bernt, Prof. (Committee Member)
Sherrie Gradin, Prof. (Committee Member)
306 p.
Journalism; Mass Media
television; entertainment; news; broadcast;

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Magee, S. C. (2008). That's Television Entertainment: The History, Development, and Impact of the First Five Seasons of "Entertainment Tonight," 1981-86 [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1217427973

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Magee, Sara. That's Television Entertainment: The History, Development, and Impact of the First Five Seasons of "Entertainment Tonight," 1981-86. 2008. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1217427973.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Magee, Sara. "That's Television Entertainment: The History, Development, and Impact of the First Five Seasons of "Entertainment Tonight," 1981-86." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1217427973

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2008, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.