A Broadcast Tradition

Abstract

As the previous chapter has shown, the associations of ghost stories with particular times of the year were well developed by the time that television arrived in Britain and the US in the 1930s and 1940s. As part of the cultural influences on how this new medium developed, literature played its role alongside existing traditions, some of them carried over from radio, in shaping television’s output. Much of this was, as with most cultural products, largely unconscious. Other aspects of the development of this programming were quite intentional, as producers, managers, performers, writers and anyone else involved made decisions as to what should be presented through the medium of television. In turn, the audience commented on the productions, on what they did and did not like, and the broadcasters responded both to actual feedback, and to their ideas of what the television audience wanted, or needed.