Shifting Time and Space

This book chronicles the metamorphosis of videotape from its beginnings nearly 35 years ago as a media technology controlled by a handful of television executives, to a popular communications agent which is profoundly altering the way America consumes information and entertainment. The authors analyze videotape technology and its impact on the broadcasting and advertising communities, the home video market, and the private sector. Well documented and accessible to the general reader, Shifting Time and Space tells the fascinating story of how videotape revolutionized the content and style of the $12 billion broadcast and satellite-delivered television industries and brought about the $17 billion home video market.

Since its commercial introduction in 1956 the videotape recorder has evolved from a mechanism initially limited to the broadcast television field to a popular technology that gives consumers control over television viewing patterns. This book discusses the major role the VCR has played in the shift of consumer electronics research and development and manufacture from the West to the Far East. It covers the initially slow adoption of the technology by the motion picture industry as a primary source of revenue through the distribution of prerecorded feature films on videotape cassette. The authors examine the increasingly important role the VCR will play in the U.S. media environment as new generations of technologically proficient consumers become more comfortable with the technology. Professionals working in the advertising, broadcast, satellite television, and home video industries, as well as communications scholars will find Shifting Time and Space provocative and insightful reading.

EUGENE MARLOW, Ph.D., is Professor at Baruch College (City University of New York) and founder and president of Media Enterprises, a New York based television and radio production and consulting company. He has been involved with media for over 25 years--as a marionetteer, stage manager, adio producer and announcer, author, scriptwriter, musician and composer, stage, film, and television producer/director and educator.

EUGENE SECUNDA, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at Baruch College (CUNY) and heads his own consulting company. He has spent the last 25 years as a senior executive in several large advertising and public relations agencies. An active speaker and professional magazine writer, he specializes in subjects relating to the home video, marketing, advertising, public relations, and television industries. He frequently appears on television news shows, discussing media and marketing-related topics.