Graham Roberts and Dorota Ostrowska radically rethink European cinema's post-war history from the perspective of television's impact on the culture of cinema's production, distribution, consumption, and reception. In every European country television has transformed the economic, technological, and aesthetic terms of cinema production. Its growing popularity has drastically reshaped cinema's audiences and forced governments to introduce policies to regulate the interaction between cinema and television. Cinematic criticism has been slow to address the impact of television, but this study recognizes its influence and offers a more authentic and richer history of European cinemas.