Abstract

Except for accounts of journalists, dissident employees of the industry, and an occasional Congressional committee focusing on crime and unethical practices, there has been little written about how producers of television programs work. In "The Hollywood TV Producer "Professor Cantor tells about the constraints, conflicts, and rewards of the daily lives of television producers. In this unusual work in the social system of mass communications, we are told how producers select stories for filmed series and how movies end up in prime time. To find out, the author interviewed eighty producers in Hollywood over a two season period, attempting to discover whether the people they work for and where they work influence their decision making. The book demonstrates that critics of television have been largely correct in suggesting that to remain in production, a producer must first please the business organization that finances his or her operations. But Professor Cantor also shows that content is determined by a combination of other factors, artistic and professional, as well as social, economic, and political norms which have developed over time in the industry. The Hollywood TV Producer has been heralded by Herbert Gans as "essential reading for anyone interested in understanding or changing contemporary television fare... Dr. Cantor has written a thoughtful book that describes several quite different kinds of producers, none of whom turn out to be unhappy or hyperambitious starlet-chasers. Rather, she shows them to be fairly conventional Americans, working inside a highly rationalized though not necessarily rational industry.