An Examination of Television Quiz Show Scandals of the 1950s
One of the greatest captivators of public interest in the 1950s was the emerging quiz game show on television. The public, naively trustful, fell in love with television game shows. People found them to be new, exciting, and similar to the captivating radio quiz shows so popular before television's advent. Some game shows were developed primarily for laughs, while others were played for prizes or large sums of money. These game shows were so popular that at their peak, twenty-two of them were concurrently on the air. They varied in format from the basic question and answer type to the naming of popular musical tunes. Public familiarity with the general structure of the quizzes, coupled with the strikingly high stakes, precipitated extreme interest in these shows, and led to the unbelievable popularity of successful returning contestants (Anderson, 9). Virtually everyone with a television set in their home tuned in weekly to their favorite game shows in the interest of seeing the contestants, with whom they identified more and more as the weeks went by, succeed in the quiz games. The popularity of quiz games was staggering. In August of 1955 approximately 32 million television sets and 47,560,000 viewers, almost one third of the nation, tuned in to see The $64,000 Question (Anderson, 8).
By 1958, no one was laughing anymore. Grabbing the attention of the public even more than the shows themselves were the scandals which emerged around them. The public's naive trust had evolved into suspicious cynicism because it had learned that many of the shows were rigged. As can be imagined, this caused great disgust among viewers. The supposed winners, for whom Americans had ro...
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Good evening and welcome to The History of Television. On tonight’s show we will focus on how and
Michael Parenti (2002) declares media in the United States is no longer “free, independent, neutral and objective.” (p. 60). Throughout his statement, Parenti expresses that media is controlled by large corporations, leaving smaller conglomerates unable to compete. The Telecommunications Act, passed in 1996, restricted “a single company to own television stations serving more than one-third of the U.S. public,” but is now overruled by greater corporations. (p. 61). In his opinion, Parenti reveals that media owners do not allow the publishing of stories that are not beneficial and advantageous. Parenti supports his argument very thoroughly by stating how the plutocracy takes control over media in multiple ways: television, magazines, news/radio broadcasting, and other sources.
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In the early fifties, young people watched TV more hours than they went to school, a trend which has not changed greatly since that time. What was portrayed on television became accepted as normal. Shows like What's a My Line debut on CBS, Your Hit Parade premieres on NBC in 1950. In April of 1950 5,343,000 TV sets are in American Homes. In May of 1950, 103 TV Stations in 60 cities were operating. In September 7,535,000 TV sets in USA. In October there were 8,000,000 TV sets.
Over the centuries, the media has played a significant role in the shaping of societies across the globe. This is especially true of developed nations where media access is readily available to the average citizen. The media has contributed to the creation of ideologies and ideals within a society. The media has such an effect on social life, that a simple as a news story has the power to shake a nation. Because of this, governments around the world have made it their duty to be active in the regulation and control of media access in their countries. The media however, has quickly become dominated by major mega companies who own numerous television, radio and movie companies both nationally and internationally. The aim of these companies is to generate revenue and in order to do this they create and air shows that cater to popular demand. In doing so, they sometimes compromise on the quality of their content. This is where public broadcasters come into perspective.
In 2000, three simple words encircling a tiki torch and palm tree defined not only a television series, but a whole new culture of entertainment: outwit, outplay, outlast. When the competitive reality show Survivor first hit the air, producers Mark Burnett and Jeff Probst left sixteen Americans stranded on a tropical island, hoping only for nature to take its course and drama to ensue. No one could have predicted the phenomenon that would be a catalyst not only for reality TV, but competitive game shows set on putting people in their most vulnerable state. Now that ten years have passed, many people have begun to quickly dismiss Survivor as the Destroyer of Thoughtful Television: a show focused only on scheming, conniving, and eating bugs, all for the sake for winning one million dollars. Going even further, intellectuals argue that shows like Survivor encourage blatant discrimination, racism, sexism, and ageism - after all, the idea of the show is to form social cliques (dubbed "alliances") and vote people both out of the game and off the island, sometimes for no reason other than not “liking” them. Not to mention the fact that it always seems to magically start pouring rain the moment two people are left standing on a ten-foot pole above the Atlantic Ocean in the final challenge, introducing the controversial concept of whether or not reality TV is real at all, but merely a contrived series of events captured by a camera.
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It was a Tuesday evening when my mother brought home a baby, born only a few days earlier, and sat down gently on the couch to turn on the television--“Jeopardy!” time. For as long as my mother has lived in the USA, Alex Trebek has been a calming voice for a woman who left India to move to a country genuinely foreign to her. All the while, she pursued a medical career, caring for her newborn child, with a husband who worked from dawn to dusk. In her sheer exhaustion, my mother introduced me to Jeopardy, my first TV show.
Hilmes, Michele. Only Connect: A Cultural History of Broadcasting in the United States. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002. Print.
beginning of reality television. One thing many wonder and some already believe is how real “Reality” television is currently. According to McCraley in a survey of students at BGSU 61.5% of people said they did not think “Reality based shows” depicted real life accurately and 35.3 said they somewhat did. This shows that the majority of people do not think that it is realistic. The producers pick out the people and usually they end up having an equal number of men and women as well as at least one minority and one homosexual (“Reality TV”). They choose people who will cause a sensation but also look for conflict (“Reality TV”). The producers want to create story lines that the audiences wants to see so they use the footage they get to create story lines of conflict and sex since those seem to work the best (“Reality TV”). Although there is the reality of people being chosen from an everyday group of people the rest is basically not true reality. Many people could probably agree that people act differently when they are being filmed as well. There is always going to be people who put on an act to make the audience like them. That takes even more of the reality out of it.
The author Richard S. Tedlow in his article, “Intellect on Television: The Quiz Show Scandals of the 1950s”, sheds light on his examination of the problems inherent in commercial broadcasting, especially as they relate to the television quiz scandals of the late 1950s. The author begins his article with the events of June 1955 when $64,000 Question made its debut on the CBS television network. According to the author, the radio had been exploiting the American’s interest for facts with contests and games since the mid-1930s. Moreover, small amounts of cash or donation were given away in different formats. The specialty about Question was that even the loser got a Cadillac as a consolation prize. The format of the show was very simple, contestant
In spring of ’09, I won Liberty High School’s most likely to become the next American Idol. Receiving the award-winning T-Shirt in front of the whole graduating class was a great honor. However, I never envisioned reality television in my future; especially not a show with Judge Simon Cowel’s vain insults. Fox’s American Idol phenomenon still soars high a decade after its initial premiere in 2002. The remains popular even with Cowel retired. 29.3 million viewers, 21% more than the previous season, tuned in to hear Ryan Seacrest announce the winner of the tenth and latest season of American Idol. The viewers of the show wax and wane year to year, but for eight straight seasons it remains America’s favorite evening entertainment (Bauder par 3, 10). Viewers never seem to tire of the audition episodes aired at the beginning of each season. Through learning of a contestant’s life story and hometown viewers connect with their future American Idol. Besides showing contestants with amazing talents and touching stories, they also feature an assortment of crazies, oddballs, and just plain weirdoes. It is easy to be amused by these people when watching from afar. However, if one stops to think about these exploited contestants as real human beings, one can imagine how embarrassing being portrayed as a nut job on national television must be. The owners and producers of the American Idol brand exploit and control their contestants, finalists, and winners in order to increase viewers and therefore increase profits.
The Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical movie that retells the story of how fame and money can change a person’s strong moral foundation and ethics. Without a solid foundation a person is able to change their morals and values in order to get a better hold of something they want. The strong foundation that a person would need would be their ethics that are essentially what oversee their behaviors toward things. Temptation and drive to prove something or be like someone are also other factors that can change a person’s ethical values. In the Quiz Show, Charles van Doren, a member of America’s great literary families and a Columbia University instructor, is invited to star on the 1950’s NBC show Twenty One after one of the producer’s spots
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