The development of the television industry in the United States as it emerged in the 1950s is mirrored by tracing the policies and actions of NBC (the National Broadcasting Company) during this period. As the leading radio network and as a subsidiary of RCA (the Radio Corporation of America), NBC was in a uniquely powerful position to direct the structure of the new television industry, which by the mid-1950s was unlike network radio. In the latter, sponsored programs were produced or licensed to a specific sponsor or its advertising agency and the network brokered the time of its affiliates to the sponsor. In television this sponsor or agency role was taken over by the networks, which licensed programs themselves and relegated the advertiser to shared or participating sponsorship forms. While changes in institutional structures in commercial broadcasting were sometimes accomplished by battles, the victory of the networks by the mid-1950s largely defined the network relations with sponsors, advertising agencies, program producers, affiliates, and federal regulators which still largely obtain today. The shifting production and licensing roles were embedded in larger controversies over program scheduling, production formats, and dramatic forms in early television, and uncertainty and bitter strife existed within the industry. The rise and fall of television's celebrated "Golden Age," which was doomed by major changes in programming philosophy and formats in the late 1950s, was also a part of this process of network ascendancy in early television. (CGD)