Shifting Time and Space: The Story of Videotape

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.