The Jack Benny Program: The Texaco Star Theater On Television

In the transition to from radio to television, television had many advantages over radio due to the years of experimentation that radio underwent as the first ubiquitous national broadcast medium which set plethora of precedents for all future broadcasting media. With such a successful prototype and national control of the medium by the same networks as radio specifically, NBC, CBS, and ABC, television was virtually guaranteed to succeed. However, not all television programs that were adapted from top radio programs succeeded in this new medium. Indeed, what made for smooth adaptations of radio shows to television or successful original television programming was the continuation, if not, heightened sense of intimacy that these programs fostered in their audiences based on radio precedents, which caused them to choose television over radio. This is exemplified in the comparison of two major programs of the television to radio transitional era: The Jack Benny Program on the radio, and The Texaco Star Theater on television.

Just like they would be able to recognize a friend or acquaintance’s total likeness, visually and aurally, they too could recognize their favorite actor’s or musician’s, fostering a greater sense of familiarity and companionship because they knew more about the television stars, if only superficially. There no longer seemed to be a physical barrier, only a pane of glass kept the audience from interacting with their favorite celebrities. This was facilitated by television’s adoption of radio’s seriality allowing people to tune in for regular intervals at set times each week so that they built their lives around this, much like one would do with visits from real-life family and friends. Which created a sort of temporal