"Since the explosion of television in the immediate postwar era, the sounds of the medium have been hard to avoid. You may have wanted to hear these sounds, a steady stream of audio carrying you along in your favorite program-or maybe you didnt, tuning out the noise of a television set from another room. In a world saturated with television sound, most of us know that television sounds a particular way: the distinct chatter of newscasters and pundits, witty dialogue interwoven with laughter, commercial jingles, and theme songs. Television has a sonic style, one that articulates its particular economic, industrial, and formal arrangements. This sonic style has had important consequences for audiences, particularly as television rose to popularity during the postwar period and came to influence American culture writ large. Engagingly written, well-researched, and compellingly argued Stay Tuned: Listening to Network-Era Television, 1952-1984 is devoted to the history of televisions sonic register. It is a work of media history and analysis that argues that televisions sonic history is a missing piece of our understanding of the medium. Author Patrick Sullivan provides detailed production and technological history, coupled with close analysis of specific moments in programs like Hanna-Barbera cartoons, the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows and the sit-com laugh track.

Sullivan provides a close reading of sound on network-era television to reveal how sound emerges from the "frantic pace of production" during this era, and that these historically, industrially, and culturally specific modes of sound-making then recalibrated how television audiences engaged with aesthetic experience of television. It is a must read for those interested in media history, television aesthetics, and sound studies"-- Provided by publisher.