Prime time: those precious few hours every night when the three major television networks garner millions of dollars while tens of millions of Americans tune in. Inside Prime Time is a classic study of the workings of the Hollywood television industry, newly available with an updated introduction. Inside Prime Time takes us behind the scenes to reveal how prime-time shows get on the air, stay on the air, and are shaped by the political and cultural climate of their times. It provides an ethnography of the world of American commercial television, an analysis of that world's unwritten rules, and the most extensive study of the industry ever made.

Prologue; Part 1 Nothing Succeeds Like Success; Chapter 1 The Problem of Knowing; Chapter 2 Predicting the Unpredictable; Chapter 3 By the Numbers; Chapter 4 Making Schedules; Chapter 5 The Triumph of the Synthetic; Chapter 6 "Another American Dream Gone Astray"; Part 2 The Television-Industrial Complex; Chapter 7 Inside Tracks in a Small World; Chapter 8 The Deal Is the Art Form; Chapter 9 Movies of the Week; Part 3 The Politics of Prime Time; Chapter 10 The Turn Toward "Relevance"; Chapter 11 Shifting Right; Chapter 12 The "Far Righteous" Shake the Temple of Commerce; Chapter 13 The Temple Stands; Chapter 14 Hill Street Blues;