{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}} {{Infobox television | image = | caption = | genre = Talk show | creator = Phyllis Adams Jenkins | presenter = {{Plainlist| * John McCaffery * Faye Emerson * Virgilia Peterson }} | narrator = | theme_music_composer = | open_theme = | composer = | country = United States | language = English | num_seasons = | num_episodes = | producer = Martin Stone | camera = Multi-camera | runtime = 24–26 minutes | company = | channel = NBC (1948, 1951)<br />ABC (1949)<br />DuMont (1952-1954) | first_aired = {{Start date|1948|04|04}} | last_aired = {{End date|1954|10|10}} }}
'''''Author Meets the Critics''''' is an American radio and television talk show. After beginning on radio, it was also broadcast on television by the National Broadcasting Company, American Broadcasting Company, and then the DuMont Television Network.
==Overview== On the series, two literary critics debated a recently published book, one in favor and the other against. Later, the author of the book appeared to meet the critics. Columnist Jack Gaver outlined the concept in his column "Up and Down Broadway", in 1946: "The author of a current best-seller is tossed in with a couple of guest critics and a commentator and, if he survives 30 minutes of unscripted pro and con, may decide never to write another book. Sometimes the boys get rough and lucky is the writer who draws a couple of critics of such opposed views that they go after each other instead of him."<ref name="upanddown">{{cite news |last1=Gaver |first1=Jack |title=Up and Down Broadway |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117727217/the-circleville-herald/ |access-date=February 1, 2023 |work=The Circleville Herald |date=June 19, 1946 |page=4|via = Newspapers.com}}</ref>
John K. M. McCaffery was the television moderator from 1948 to 1951<ref name="Brooks">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w8KztFy6QYwC&dq=%22Author+Meets+The+Critics+Book%22&pg=PA169 |author-link1=Tim Brooks (television historian) |first1=Tim |last1=Brooks |first2=Earle |last2=Marsh |title=The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present |edition=9 |date=2007 |page=87 |location=New York |publisher=Ballantine Books |isbn=978-0-345-49773-4 |access-date=2023-07-12 }}</ref> (continuing his radio role). Faye Emerson had a brief stint as moderator during 1952. Then Virgilia Peterson was the moderator during its DuMont run from 1952 to 1954.<ref name="Brooks"/>
The DuMont episodes of the series were produced by Phyllis Adams Jenkins (1923-2004), a pioneer in providing serious programming intended for daytime television audiences. She later produced other series, including ''What's the Problem?'', the daytime series ''Home'' featuring Arlene Francis during the 1950s, and Dinah Shore's daytime series during the 1960s.{{Citation needed |date=October 2023}}
On his series, Ernie Kovacs parodied it as "Author ''Heats'' the Critics", with the author attacking the critics, rather than the other way around.
==Broadcast history==
Martin Stone first proposed producing the program in 1940, but radio executives found the concept "too highbrow";<ref name="highbrow">{{cite news |title=Authors to meet critics on show starting, June 1 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34612513/ |work=The Morning Herald |date=24 May 1947 |location=Hagerstown, Maryland |page=6}}</ref> the program was first conceived of by Stone and "Albany newspaper man" Richard Lewis.<ref name="upanddown" /> It first made air in December 1940, on an Albany station, before moving to Schenectady, and then to New York City.<ref name="highbrow" /> (It was on the AM radio station WHN in New York City, by 1942.)<ref>{{cite news |title=Radio |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34612666/radio_daily_news_new_york_ny_1/ |work=Daily News |date=1 December 1942 |location=New York NY}}</ref> Stone produced the program remotely during much of this era, as he was serving as general counsel for the Lend-Lease Administration and in the United States Navy, during World War II.<ref name="highbrow" />
After six years on local radio stations, the national radio broadcaster Mutual network began airing the program. It carried the series on radio from June 12, 1946 to April 2, 1947.<ref name="dunningota">{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Fi5wPDBiGfMC&dq=%22Author+Meets+the+Critics,+literary+confrontation%22&pg=PA51 |last=Dunning |first=John |author-link=John Dunning (detective fiction author) |title=On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio |date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York, NY |isbn=978-0-19-507678-3 |page=51 |edition=Revised |access-date=2019-10-11}}</ref> It was sponsored by the Book-of-the-Month club, on Mutual. In summer 1946, Stone left Mutual "under agreement", airing the show on WQXR on Thursdays with the club sponsorship, and on Mutual without sponsorship. On May 20, Mutual filled his old time slot with ''Books on Trial'',<ref>{{cite news |last1=Shalit |first1=Sid |title=Listening in |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34612980/sid_shalit_listening_in_daily_news/ |work=Daily News |date=21 May 1946 |location=New York NY |page=32}}</ref> a series sponsored by the Literary Guild, featuring a "prosecuting attorney and jury." Stone took the situation to court, alleging appropriation and effort to confuse.<ref name="upanddown" /> Stone lost in court, as State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Botein found no conflict of ideas.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Shalit |first1=Sid |title=Listening in |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34613040/sid_shalit_listening_in_daily_news/ |work=Daily News |date=27 June 1946 |location=New York NY |page=57}}</ref> NBC debuted the series as a weekly radio program, on Sundays, beginning June 1, 1947.<ref name="highbrow" /> By that point, "almost 1,000 of the world's top-flight authors and other literary figures" had appeared on the program.<ref name="highbrow" /> In one episode before NBC, author Gontran de Poncins walked out on a debate about ''Kabloona''.<ref name="highbrow" />
The television series began as a mid-season replacement on NBC on April 4, 1948.{{Citation needed |date=November 2024}} General Foods Corporation ended its sponsorship in July 1949.<ref name="nyt">{{cite news |title=Radio and Television; 'Studio One,' CBS Video Series, Will Switch to Wednesdays Beginning May 11 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1949/04/30/archives/radio-and-television-studio-one-cbs-video-series-will-switch-to.html |access-date=November 1, 2024 |work=The New York Times |date=April 30, 1949 |page=28|url-access=subscription }}</ref> It was transferred to ABC during 1949. The show was transferred back to NBC during 1951, and then to DuMont from January 10, 1952, to October 10, 1954.<ref name="Brooks"/>
==See also== *List of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network *List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts
==Bibliography== *David Weinstein, ''The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television'' (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004) {{ISBN|1-59213-245-6}} *Alex McNeil, ''Total Television'', Fourth edition (New York: Penguin Books, 1980) {{ISBN|0-14-024916-8}}
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *{{IMDb title|id=0040030}} *[http://www.womenbehindtv.com/women/women.asp?subject=jenkins producer Phyllis Adams Jenkins] *[https://dumonthistory.com/a1.html DuMont historical website]
Category:1940 radio programme debuts Category:1948 American television series debuts Category:1954 American television series endings Category:American Broadcasting Company talk shows Category:1940s American television talk shows Category:1950s American television talk shows Category:Black-and-white American television shows Category:DuMont Television Network original programming Category:English-language American television shows Category:Lost television shows Category:NBC talk shows Category:Literary criticism