Background
Day, James was born on December 22, 1918 in Alameda, California, United States. Son of James Magee and June (Reeve) Day.
( This spirited, first-ever history of public television ...)
This spirited, first-ever history of public television offers an insider's account of its topsy-turvy, forty-year odyssey. James Day, a founder of San Francisco's KQED and a past president of New York's WNET, chronicles public television's fascinating evolution from its inauspicious roots in the 1950s to its strong, fiercely debated presence in contemporary culture. The Vanishing Vision provides a vivid and often amusing behind-the-screens history. Day tells how a program producer, desperate to locate a family willing to live with television cameras for seven months, borrowed a dime—and a suggestion—from a blind date and telephoned the Louds of Santa Barbara. The result was the mesmerizing twelve-hour documentary, An American Family. Day relates how Big Bird and his friends were created to spice up Sesame Street when test runs showed a flagging interest in the program's "live-action" segments. And he describes how Frieda Hennock, the first woman appointed to the FCC, overpowered the resistance of her male colleagues to lay the foundation for public television. Along the way, Day identifies the particular forces that have shaped public television. The result, in his view, is a Byzantine bureaucracy kept on a leash by an untrusting Congress, with a fragmented leadership that lacks a clearly defined mission in today's multimedia environment. Public television's "democratic" structure of over 300 stations stifles boldness and innovation while absorbing money needed for national programming. Day calls for a bold rethinking of public television's mission, advocating a system that is adequately funded and independent of government, one capable of countering commercial television's "lowest-common-denominator" approach with a full range of substantive programs, comedy as well as culture, entertainment as well as information.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520086597/?tag=2022091-20
Day, James was born on December 22, 1918 in Alameda, California, United States. Son of James Magee and June (Reeve) Day.
Bachelor, University of California, Berkeley, 1941; postgraduate, Stanford University, 1951; Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary), Newark State College, Newark, New Jersey, 1972.
Director public service NBC, San Francisco, 1946-1949. Radio specialist Civil Information & Education Section/Supreme Commander Allies/Pacific, Tokyo, 1949-1951. Deputy director Radio Free Asia, San Francisco, 1951-1953.
President, general manager KQED (television-FM), 1953-1969. President National Educational television, New York City, 1969-1971, W National Educational Television-television, New York City, 1971-1973. Professor radio, television Brooklyn College, City University of New York, 1976-1989, professor emeritus, 1989—2008.
President Publivision, Inc., 1973—2008. President Timely Productions for television, New York City, 1989-2008. Founding director Children's television Workshop, Public Broadcasting Service, International Public television Screening Conference, Communications Improvement, Inc.
Chairman advisory board City University television.
( This spirited, first-ever history of public television ...)
Captain United States Army, 1941-1946. Member International Institute Communications, Society Professional Journalists.
Married Beverley Anne Hare, April 12, 1943. Children: Meredith Johnson, Douglas Craig, Alan Kent, James Ross.