This Routledge Television Guidebook on Television Music provides a comprehensive overview of the engagement between music and television since the inception of network television broadcasting in the United States in the late 1940s. In this book, Norma Coates presents a "how-to" guide, providing examples and case studies of many approaches to making sense of how music functions on television. Music plays many roles on television—it can function as a soundtrack, comment on the narrative, or be part of the narrative itself. Music can be foundational to a genre and industrial structure like music television, or it can be the organizing principle for a type of program such as the televised singing contest. Music can provide content in the form of band or individual performances across a range of television genres. With case studies of popular shows like American Idol and Glee, this Television Guidebook aims to help students explore and understand how music contributes to television style, narrative, genre, and history.