Significance.

"I Love Lucy" was one of the most successful television shows in the history of American broadcasting. First broadcast on Monday night, 15 October 1951, on the CBS television network, the show captured the loyalty of millions of viewers with its comic depiction of marital life. The story of its development and its long prime-time run illustrates many of the forces and trends that shaped television in the 1950s.

Ball's Career.

In the mid 1940s actress and comedienne Lucille Ball was the star of a CBS radio program called "My Favorite Husband." When television began to search for programming, CBS executives approached Ball about switching from radio to television. Ball and her husband, Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz, responded to the approach in 1950 by buying the RKO film studio properties and ambitiously forming their own production company, Desilu, to develop and produce television...