Introduction -- Dramatizing a Bar of Soap : The Advertising Industry before Broadcasting -- The Fourth Dimension of Advertising : The Development of Commercial Broadcasting in the 1920s -- They Sway Millions as If by Some Magic Wand : The Advertising Industry Enters Radio in the Late 1920s -- ''Who Owns the Time?'' : Advertising Agencies and Networks Vie for Control in the 1930s -- The 1930s' Turn to the Hard Sell : Blackett-Sample-Hummert's Soap Opera Factory -- The Ballet and Ballyhoo of Radio Showmanship : Young & Rubicam's Soft Sell -- Two Agencies : Batten Barton Durstine & Osborn, Crafters of the Corporate Image, and Benton & Bowles, Radio Renegades -- Madison Avenue in Hollywood : J. Walter Thompson and Kraft Music Hall -- Advertising and Commercial Radio during World War II, 1942-45 -- On a Treadmill to Oblivion : The Peak and Sudden Decline of Network Radio -- Conclusion
Summary
This book describes how admen, advertising agencies, and sponsors shaped U.S. radio into a commercial entertainment medium from the late 1920s until the early 1950s. The author views the development of twentieth-century popular culture through the lens of the advertising and broadcasting industries, and examines the intersection of commerce and culture in American mass media
