Epithet applied to the innovative (often live) developmental period of network television from 1948 to 1960. Among the shows taken as high points of this period are dramas like Studio One, Playhouse 90, Kraft Television Theater and other sponsored theater shows in prime time. Certainly, this produced many fine pieces in writing, acting and directing, including Paddy Chayefsky’s Marty, which later won an Oscar as a cinematic production.

Many viewers and critics also fondly recall early comedy—both variety shows with Milton Berle or Sid Caesar and sitcoms like I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, etc. Finally this period was also taken as a high point for news, with the towering figure of Edward R. Murrow. In all these choices (which omit the hours of dross over the decade), one also sees standards set by New York urbane sensibilities that were challenged by television’s growing ties with Hollywood as well as its national expansion and appeal to new audiences. Robert Thompson, in Television’s Second Golden Age (1996), argues that the 1980s produced more complex and broader medical, crime, law and other dramas that better merit such accolades.