Canonical Network Television examines the philosophical and aesthetic questions involved in establishing a television canon by analysing key programs from 1960-1999 and comparing television's canonical development to literary and cinematic traditions.

Focusing on the last forty years of the twentieth century, this study defines canonical television as works with an enduring afterlife that reward multiple viewings. The book traces television's controversial canonical status by comparing it to established literary and cinema canons, particularly the influential auteur theory developed by Cahiers du Cinéma theorists in the 1960s. Through analysis of diverse genres - comedy, documentary, drama, serials, and television work by cinema directors - the study proposes a distinctive shape for the twentieth-century television canon, drawing primarily from American and British examples while incorporating Australian and European cases. Offering several distinctive features: it connects television aesthetics to broader cultural formations in visual arts, contemporary music, and literary studies; examines how network television's consensus-building model of the 1960s-70s differs from today's narrowcasting approaches; and addresses authorship controversies while arguing that canonicity depends on longevity over time rather than identified authorship. Unlike most television scholarship focused on post-2000 series, this work reconstructs a historical canon from an earlier era, filling a significant gap in television studies.

Primarily targeting academic readers, this book appeals across multiple disciplines including English, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, and Communications. By arguing that television studies has been too narrowly confined within sociological parameters, it opens the field to broader intellectual horizons.