title: History of books

text: Authors had reached a new market with their more simplistic writing. After passing this hurdle, they began writing about more than specified crafts and social lexicons. For the first time, writers had the chance to make once private knowledge public, and moved into more regional information guides. Detail-oriented writing still persisted as writing became understood as something that needed to show "quantitative evidence in order to measure continuity against change". The increasing literacy across Japan as well as the proliferation of authors made writing a semi-autonomous system. However, there were still instances of censorship in the late 17th century. Despite the vast depiction of landscape, governmental powers ensured areas that entailed sensitive subjects, such as military households, foreign affairs, Christianity, and other heterodox beliefs, and disturbing current events were kept out of public works. This self-censorship did have drawbacks, as social commentary stayed in the higher social caste where this information was more readily available. Despite these censors, public readings increased across Japan and created new markets that could be shared between the higher elites as well as middlebrow people, albeit with differing subject matter.


title: History of books

text: In Mesoamerica, information was recorded on long strips of paper, agave fibers, or animal hides, which were then folded and protected by wooden covers. These were thought to have existed since the time of the Classical Period between the 3rd and 8th centuries, CE. Many of these codices were thought to contain astrological information, religious calendars, knowledge about the gods, genealogies of the rulers, cartographic information, and tribute collection. Many of these codices were stored in temples but were ultimately destroyed by the Spanish explorers.


title: History of books

text: Currently, the only completely deciphered pre-Columbian writing system is the Maya script. The Maya, along with several other cultures in Mesoamerica, constructed concertina-style books written on Amate paper. Nearly all Mayan texts were destroyed by the Spanish during colonization on cultural and religious grounds. One of the few surviving examples is the Dresden Codex.


title: History of books

text: Although only the Maya have been shown to have a writing system capable of conveying any concept that can be conveyed via speech (at about the same level as the modern Japanese writing system), other Mesoamerican cultures had more rudimentary ideographical writing systems which were contained in similar concertina-style books, one such example being the Aztec codices.


title: History of books

text: There are more than 2,000 illustrations drawn by native artists that represent this era. Bernardino de Sahagun tells the story of the Aztec people's lives and their natural history. The Florentine Codex speaks about the culture religious cosmology and ritual practices, society, economics, and natural history of the Aztec people. The manuscript is arranged in both Nahuatl and in Spanish. The English translation of the complete Nahuatl text of all twelve volumes of the Florentine Codex took ten years. Arthur J.O. Anderson and Charles Dibble had a decade of long work but made it an important contribution to Mesoamerican ethnohistory. Years later, in 1979, the Mexican government published a full-color volume of the Florentine Codex. Now, since 2012, it is available digitally and fully accessible to those interested in Mexican and Aztec History.


title: History of books

text: The Florentine Codex is a 16th-century ethnographic research study brought about by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagun. The codex itself was actually named "La Historia Universal de las Cosas de Nueva España." Bernardino de Sahagun worked on this project from 1545 up until his death in 1590. The Florentine Codex consists of twelve books. It is 2500 pages long but divided into twelve books by categories such as; The Gods, Ceremonies, Omens, and other cultural aspects of Aztec people.


title: History of books

text: Romans used wax-coated wooden tablets or "pugillares" upon which they could write and erase by using a stylus. One end of the stylus was pointed, and the other was spherical. Usually, these tablets were used for everyday purposes (accounting, notes) and for teaching writing to children, according to the methods discussed by Quintilian in his "Institutio Oratoria" X Chapter 3. Several of these tablets could be assembled in a form similar to a codex. Also, the etymology of the word codex (block of wood) suggests that it may have developed from wooden wax tablets.


title: History of books

text: Parchment progressively replaced papyrus. Legend attributes its invention to Eumenes II, the king of Pergamon, from which comes the name "pergamineum," which became "parchment." Its production began around the 3rd century BCE. Made using the skins of animals (sheep, cattle, donkey, antelope, etc.), parchment proved to be easier to conserve over time; it was more solid and allowed one to erase text. It was a very expensive medium because of the rarity of the material and the time required to produce a document. Vellum, in particular, is a fine quality parchment, made from calf hide.


title: History of books

text: The scroll of papyrus is called "volumen" in Latin, a word which signifies "circular movement," "roll," "spiral," "whirlpool," "revolution" (similar, perhaps, to the modern English interpretation of "swirl") and finally "a roll of writing paper, a rolled manuscript, or a book."


title: History of books

text: In the 7th century Isidore of Seville explains the relation between codex, book, and scroll in his "Etymologiae" (VI.13) as this:


title: History of books

text: The scroll is rolled around two vertical wooden axes. This design allows only sequential usage; one is obliged to read the text in the order in which it is written, and it is impossible to place a marker in order to directly access a precise point in the text. It is comparable to modern video cassettes. Moreover, the reader must use both hands to hold on to the vertical wooden rolls and therefore cannot read and write at the same time. The only volumen in common usage today is the Jewish Torah.


title: History of books

text: The authors of antiquity had no rights concerning their published works; there were neither authors' nor publishing rights. Anyone could have a text recopied, and even alter its contents. Scribes earned money and authors earned mostly glory unless a patron provided cash; a book made its author famous. This followed the traditional concept of the culture: an author stuck to several models, which he imitated and attempted to improve. The status of the author was not regarded as absolutely personal.


title: History of books

text: From a political and religious point of view, books were censored very early: the works of Protagoras were burned because he was a proponent of agnosticism and argued that one could not know whether or not the gods existed. Generally, cultural conflicts led to important periods of book destruction: in 303, the emperor Diocletian ordered the burning of Christian texts. Some Christians later burned libraries and especially heretical or non-canonical Christian texts. These practices are found throughout human history but have ended in many nations today. A few nations today still greatly censor and even burn books.


title: History of books

text: But there also exists a less visible but nonetheless effective form of censorship when books are reserved for the elite; the book was not originally a medium for expressive liberty. It may serve to confirm the values of a political system, as during the reign of the emperor Augustus, who skillfully surrounded himself with great authors. This is a good ancient example of the control of the media by political power. However, private and public censorship has continued into the modern era, albeit in various forms.


title: History of books

text: Little information concerning books in Ancient Greece survives. Several vases (6th and 5th centuries BCE) bear images of volumina. There was undoubtedly no extensive trade in books, but there existed several sites devoted to the sale of books.


title: History of books

text: The spread of books, and attention to their cataloging and conservation, as well as literary criticism developed during the Hellenistic period with the creation of large libraries in response to the desire for knowledge exemplified by Aristotle. These libraries were undoubtedly also built as demonstrations of political prestige:


title: History of books

text: Book production developed in Rome in the 1st century BC with Latin literature that had been influenced by the Greek. Conservative estimates place the number of potential readers in Imperial Rome at around 100,000 people.


title: History of books

text: This diffusion primarily concerned circles of literary individuals. Atticus was the editor of his friend Cicero. However, the book business progressively extended itself through the Roman Empire; for example, there were bookstores in Lyon. The spread of the book was aided by the extension of the Empire, which implied the imposition of the Latin tongue on a great number of people (in Spain, Africa, etc.).


title: History of books

text: Libraries were private or created at the behest of an individual. Julius Caesar, for example, wanted to establish one in Rome, proving that libraries were signs of political prestige.


title: History of books

text: In the year 377, there were 28 libraries in Rome, and it is known that there were many smaller libraries in other cities. Despite the great distribution of books, scientists do not have a complete picture as to the literary scene in antiquity as thousands of books have been lost through time.


title: History of books

text: Papermaking has traditionally been traced to China about 105 CE, when Cai Lun, an official attached to the Imperial court during the Han dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE), created a sheet of paper using mulberry and other bast fibres along with fishnets, old rags, and hemp waste.


title: History of books

text: While paper used for wrapping and padding was used in China since the 2nd century BC, paper used as a writing medium only became widespread by the 3rd century. By the 6th century in China, sheets of paper were beginning to be used for toilet paper as well. During the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) paper was folded and sewn into square bags to preserve the flavor of tea. The Song dynasty (960–1279) that followed was the first government to issue paper currency.


title: History of books

text: Paper as a substrate was introduced from China and practiced in Central Asia by the 8th century CE. Rather than the bast fibers used for Chinese papermaking, artisans used rag fibers which could be locally sourced. Under Arab rule, these artisans enhanced their techniques for beating rag fibers and preparing the surface of the paper to be smooth and porous by utilizing starch. By the latter half of the 10th century CE paper had replaced papyrus as the dominant substrate for books in the regions under Islamic rule.


title: History of books

text: An important development was the mechanization of paper manufacture by medieval papermakers. The introduction of water-powered paper mills, the first certain evidence of which dates to the 11th century in Córdoba, Spain, allowed for a massive expansion of production and replaced the laborious handcraft characteristic of both Chinese and Muslim papermaking. Papermaking centers began to multiply in the late 13th century in Italy, reducing the price of paper to one-sixth of parchment and then falling further.


title: History of books

text: By the end of antiquity, between the 2nd and 4th centuries, the scroll was replaced by the codex. The book was no longer a continuous roll, but a collection of sheets attached at the back. It became possible to access a precise point in the text quickly. The codex is equally easy to rest on a table, which permits the reader to take notes while they are reading. The codex form improved with the separation of words, capital letters, and punctuation, which permitted silent reading. Tables of contents and indices facilitated direct access to information. This is still the standard book form, over 1500 years after its appearance. However, it is more likely that its development is attributable to the early Christians who began using it.


title: History of books

text: Paper would progressively replace parchment. Cheaper to produce, it allowed a greater diffusion of books.


title: History of books

text: A number of Christian books were destroyed at the order of Diocletian in 304. During the turbulent periods of the invasions, it was the monasteries that conserved religious texts and certain works of classical antiquity for the West. There were also important copying centers in Byzantium.


title: History of books

text: Despite this ambiguity, monasteries in the West and the Eastern Empire permitted the conservation of a certain number of secular texts, and several libraries were created: for example, Cassiodorus ('Vivarum' in Calabria, around 550), and Constantine I in Constantinople. Even so, survival of books often depended on political battles and ideologies, which sometimes entailed massive destruction of books or difficulties in production (for example, the distribution of books during the Iconoclasm between 730 and 842). A long list of very old and surviving libraries that now form part of the Vatican Archives can be found in the Catholic Encyclopedia.


title: History of books

text: To help preserve books and protect them from thieves, librarians would create chained libraries, with books attached to cabinets or desks with metal chains. This eliminated the unauthorized removal of books. One of the earliest chained libraries was in England during the 1500s. Popular culture also has examples of chained libraries, such as in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K Rowling.


title: History of books

text: The scriptorium was the workroom of monk copyists; here, books were copied, decorated, rebound, and conserved. The armarius directed the work and played the role of the librarian.


title: History of books

text: The role of the copyist was multifaceted: for example, thanks to their work, texts circulated from one monastery to another. Copies also allowed monks to learn texts and to perfect their religious education. The relationship with the book thus defined itself according to an intellectual relationship with God. But if these copies were sometimes made for the monks themselves, there were also copies made on-demand.


title: History of books

text: The task of copying itself had several phases: the preparation of the manuscript in the form of notebooks once the work was complete, the presentation of pages, the copying itself, revision, correction of errors, decoration, and binding. The book, therefore, required a variety of competencies, which often made a manuscript a collective effort.


title: History of books

text: The revival of cities in Europe would change the conditions of book production and extend its influence, and the monastic period of the book would come to an end. This revival accompanied the intellectual renaissance of the period. The Manuscript culture outside of the monastery developed in these university-cities in Europe at this time. It is around the first universities that new structures of production developed: reference manuscripts were used by students and professors for teaching theology and liberal arts. The development of commerce and of the bourgeoisie brought with it a demand for specialized and general texts (law, history, novels, etc.). It is in this period that writing in the common vernacular developed (courtly poetry, novels, etc.). Commercial scriptoria became common, and the profession of bookseller came into being, sometimes dealing internationally.


title: History of books

text: There is also the creation of royal libraries as in the case of Saint Louis and Charles V. Books were also collected in private libraries, which became more common in the 14th and 15th centuries.


title: History of books

text: The use of paper diffused through Europe in the 14th century. This material, less expensive than parchment, came from China via the Arabs in Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries. It was used in particular for ordinary copies, while parchment was used for luxury editions.


title: History of books

text: The invention of the moveable type on the printing press by Johann Fust, Peter Schoffer, and Johannes Gutenberg around 1440 marks the entry of the book into the industrial age. The Western book was no longer a single object, written or reproduced by request. The publication of a book became an enterprise, requiring capital for its realization and a market for its distribution. The cost of each individual book (in a large edition) was lowered enormously, which in turn increased the distribution of books. The book in codex form and printed on paper, as we know it today, dates from the 15th century. Books printed before January 1, 1501, are called incunables. The spreading of book printing all over Europe occurred relatively quickly, but most books were still printed in Latin. The spreading of the concept of printing books in the vernacular was a somewhat slower process.


title: History of books

text: Since the 7th century CE, parchment was used in the codex form for transcribing the Quran. They ranged from being of a larger size used for public recitations to being pocket sized. Books created in this time period placed greater importance on text over image. In many cases, the parchment was dyed (such as the Blue Quran), which was initially executed in Christian Byzantine manuscripts. Earlier Quran manuscripts were oriented vertically, with the height of the book longer than its width. However, later the standard horizontal orientation was established.


title: History of books

text: The art of the book as a discipline came to be established in the Medieval Islamic period during the 11th-century CE. This is attributed to the rising availability of paper which replaced parchment and was easier to handle and distribute, and that rounded scripts took the place of previously angular scripts. In this period, an array of book types were produced in addition to the Quran, including scientific notes, poetry and literary narratives.


title: History of books

text: The conversion of members of the Mongol elite classes to Islam in the 13th century CE to form the Ilkhanate led to a surge in patronage for book production and distribution from Tabriz and Baghdad. Large scale operations of producing Qurans were made possible by the availability of Baghdadi paper. The increase in the volume of books produced was used as a tool to spread publicity about the workings of the papermaking mills established by the Ilkhans. Along with this, the other artisans working in conjunction with the book arts (calligraphers, bookbinders, illuminators, etc.) all benefited from the increased output. Images began to appear on illuminated manuscripts along with text with illustration becoming a focal point of the book, not just calligraphy. The role of the books produced by the Ilkhans were intended to promote either religion or heritage and ranged from holy books to historical ones.


title: History of books

text: Manuscript production in the 16th and 17th centuries CE were directed towards royal workshops with the economic power to produce them. Book distribution tied to their use as status symbols in one's collection, or as economic investments and donations. The process of producing a manuscript began with the workshop director designing the overall layout, followed by the process of making the paper (which may be gold-speckled or marbled), the scribe writing the text and finally multiple artisans illustrating the pages with miniature paintings, banners and decorated frontispieces. After the pages were burnished, bookbinders sewed the front cover, spine and back cover with the folios.


title: History of books

text: Baghdad emerged as the epicenter for book production in the Ottoman Empire. Books produced in Ottoman workshops included biographies, travelogues and genealogies. In the late 16th century CE patronage to the arts declined, including book production, due to an economic crisis. The arts revived under the rule of Ahmet III who established the Topkapi Palace library in Constantinople to commission new manuscripts. The imagery used in these books began to take influence from contemporary European engravings. Until the late 1500s, availability of printed books increased but not acceptance of the printing press, since the scribes and calligraphers felt they would be out of work should it be introduced.


title: History of books

text: The Persian Safavids held great importance to the book arts and had a thriving book culture. In this era, the "kitab-khana" ("book house") was a term serving three definitions – first, it was a public library for the storing and preservation of the books; secondly, it also referred to an individual's own private collection of books; and thirdly to a workshop where books were made with calligraphers, bookbinders and papermakers worked together. The Safavid style of manuscript illustrations evolved into its own style building from the arts of the Timurid Period. The most well-known manuscript created by the Safavids is the "Shahnama", based on the poem by Ferdowsi.


title: History of books

text: Movable type in the Arabic script was initially created by European printing presses. In the 1530s, the first Quran had been printed in Venice by Paganino Paganini. The embrace of the printing press by the general public in the Arab and Persian worlds occurred in the 18th century CE, despite having been introduced in Europe three centuries earlier. The first Arabic printing press was established in Constantinople in 1720 under the reign of Sultan Ahmed III.


title: History of books

text: In 1815, Muhammad Ali Pasha sent artisans to Milan to learn the principles of printing in order to set up a press in Egypt. The Bulaq Press was established in 1822 and was headed by Nikula al-Masabiki from Syria, who designed the Arabic typesets. The first published book by the printing press was an Italian–Arabic dictionary.


title: History of books

text: Lithographic printmaking was introduced as a way of mechanical reproduction of text and image by the 19th century CE, shortly after its invention in the Kingdom of Bavaria. The first Persian book to be printed by lithography was a copy of the Quran, using a printing press imported from Russia to the city of Tabriz. Despite the use of movable typography diminishing between 1852 and 1872, the process of printing from stone lithography flourished in Islamic book production. The advantage of lithography included the medium being well suited to adapt the well established artistic traditions found in traditional Islamic manuscripts. In Persia in the mid 1800s, several "mixed-media" codices were created, employing a hybrid range of both handwritten scribed portions and printed matter.


title: History of books

text: By the late 1800s movable type increased in popularity again. In Egypt, the majority of the 10,205 books printed from 1822 to 1900 were through letterpress printing. As the arts pertaining to manuscript production such as miniature painting and bookbinding decreased in popularity in the 20th century CE, calligraphy and the art of writing still remain popular.


title: History of books

text: In ancient times, stone slabs had been used for writing. The oldest surviving books come from the 10th century CE, the earliest belonging to the Buddhist manuscript tradition. Prior to the adoption of paper, these were written on palm leaves, a naturally abundant resource in the southern part of the subcontinent. The pages were usually three feet wide and two inches tall. The process of preparing the palm leaves consisted of drying, polishing, and treating with starch to form a surface suitable for writing. The pages were bound together by a single piece of string on the shorter edge, and held with the longer edge of the manuscript running alongside the user's chest.


title: History of books

text: Paper was introduced to the Indian Subcontinent from Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula in the 11th century CE by merchants trading with Gujarat. The first papermaking mills were established in the 15th century CE by artisans arriving from Samarkand. However, palm leaves continued to be used as a substrate for manuscripts in parts of eastern and southern India and Sri Lanka. Paper was commonly used in the Jain manuscript tradition from the 15th century CE onwards. The elongated proportions of the palm leaf manuscripts were dropped for thinner forms made possible by the use of paper, however, the pages still used a horizontal orientation. Images took up around one-third of the page, the rest being filled with text.


title: History of books

text: The first Mughal Emperor Babur was not a large patron of the arts, however, he chronicled his endeavors in a biographic manuscript called the "Baburnama". Following his exile into the Safavid Empire, in 1540 Babur's successor Humayun brought back artisans of illustrated Persian manuscripts to the Mughal court.


title: History of books

text: Despite being illiterate himself, the book arts flourished under the patronage of Mughal Emperor Akbar. He established a painting workshop adjacent to the royal library and atelier in Fatehpur Sikri in the late 15th century CE, allowing the production of the book and illustrated manuscript to occur more efficiently. Large scale poster-sized manuscript paintings were used as recitation aids to famous stories and narratives, such as the "Hamzanama". Akbar's grandson Shah Jahan established a manuscript decoration tradition that included a strong emphasis on text than his predecessors, as well as margins filled with imagery of flowers and vegetation. Manuscpript production had declined from its peak by the time of Shah Jahan's reign and book illustrators and artisans went on to be employed by the regional Rajasthani courts of Bikaner, Bundi and Kota.


title: History of books

text: During the 17th century CE, the influence of the illustrated book declined. Single sheet artworks became more popular since they were more cost-effective to produce and purchase, and were later assembled into albums with decorative elements added after.


title: History of books

text: The Late Modern Period saw a lot of development in the types of books being circulated. Chapbooks – short works on cheap paper – were targeted towards lower-class readers and featured a diverse range of subjects. Everything from myth and fairy tales to practical and medical advice and prayers contributed to a steady demand that helped spread literacy among the lower classes. Literacy was in general on the rise, with a near-universal literacy rate in Western Europe, Australia, and the United States of America by 1890, with the inequality between men and women's literacy starting to equalize by 1900.


title: History of books

text: The printing press became increasingly mechanized. Early designs for metal and steam-powered printing presses were introduced in the early 19th century by inventors like Friederich Koenig and Charles Stanhope. However, they became widely adopted by the 1830s, particularly by newspapers such as the London Times. Around the same time, a revolution was triggered in paper production by Henry Fourdrinier and Thomas Gilpin, whose new paper-making machines output very wide continuous rolls of paper. The only bottleneck to book production was the time-consuming process of composition. This was eventually solved by Ottmar Mergenthaler and Tolbert Lanston who produced the Linotype and Monotype machines respectively. With these barriers removed book production exploded.


title: History of books

text: Great strides began in the realm of publishing as authors began to enjoy early forms of Copyright protection. The Statute of Anne was passed in 1710, establishing basic rights for the author's intellectual property. This was superseded by the Copyright Act of 1814 which transferred sole rights to print work for twenty-eight years after publication. This was extended in 1842 to the author's lifetime plus seven years, or forty two years after first publication.


title: History of books

text: During the Enlightenment more books began to pour off European presses, creating an early form of information overload for many readers. Nowhere was this more the case than in Enlightenment Scotland, where students were exposed to a wide variety of books during their education. The demands of the British and Foreign Bible Society (founded 1804), the American Bible Society (founded 1816), and other non-denominational publishers for enormously large inexpensive runs of texts led to numerous innovations. The introduction of steam printing presses a little before 1820, closely followed by new steam paper mills, constituted the two most major innovations. Together, they caused book prices to drop and the number of books to increase considerably. Numerous bibliographic features, like the positioning and formulation of titles and subtitles, were also affected by this new production method. New types of documents appeared later in the 19th century: photography, sound recording and film.


title: History of books

text: Typewriters and eventually, computer-based word processors and printers let people print and put together their own documents. Desktop publishing is common in the 21st century.


title: History of books

text: Among a series of developments that occurred in the 1990s, the spread of digital multimedia, which encodes texts, images, animations, and sounds in a unique and simple form was notable for the book publishing industry. Hypertext further improved access to information. Finally, the internet lowered production and distribution costs.


title: History of books

text: It is difficult to predict the future of the book in an era of fast-paced technological change. Anxieties about the "death of books" have been expressed throughout the history of the medium, perceived as threatened by competing media such as radio, television, and the Internet. However, these views are generally exaggerated, and "dominated by fetishism, fears about the end of humanism and ideas of techno-fundamentalist progress". The print book medium has proven to be very resilient and adaptable. In the 2020s, print books still considerably outsell ebooks in most countries and remain a multi-billion dollar industry.


title: History of books

text: A good deal of reference material, designed for direct access instead of sequential reading, as for example encyclopedias, exists less and less in the form of books and increasingly on the web. Leisure reading materials are increasingly published in e-reader formats.


title: History of books

text: Although electronic books, or e-books, had limited success in the early years, and readers were resistant at the outset, the demand for books in this format has grown dramatically, primarily because of the popularity of e-reader devices and as the number of available titles in this format has increased. Since the Amazon Kindle was released in 2007, the e-book has become a digital phenomenon and many theorize that it will take over hardback and paper books in the future. E-books are much more accessible and easier to buy and it's also cheaper to purchase an E-Book rather than its physical counterpart due to paper expenses being deducted. Another important factor in the increasing popularity of the e-reader is its continuous diversification. Many e-readers now support basic operating systems, which facilitate email and other simple functions. The iPad is the most obvious example of this trend, but even mobile phones can host e-reading software.


title: History of books

text: Braille is a system of reading and writing through the use of the finger tips. Braille was developed as a system of efficient communication for blind and partially blind alike. The system consists of sixty-three characters and is read left to right. These characters are made with small raised dots in two columns similar to a modern domino piece to represent each letter. Readers can identify characters with two fingers. Reading speed averages one hundred and twenty-five words per minute and can reach two hundred words per minute.


title: History of books

text: Braille was named after its creator Louis Braille in 1824 in France. Braille stabbed himself in the eyes at the age of three with his father's leatherworking tools. Braille spent nine years working on a previous system of communication called night writing by Charles Barbier. Braille published his book "procedure for writing words, music, and plainsong in dots", in 1829. In 1854 France made Braille the "official communication system for blind individuals". Valentin Haüy was the first person to put Braille on paper in the form of a book. In 1932 Braille became accepted and used in English speaking countries. In 1965 the Nemeth Code of Braille Mathematics and Scientific Notation was created. The code was developed to assign symbols to advanced mathematical notations and operations. The system has remained the same, only minor adjustments have been made to it since its creation.


title: History of books

text: The spoken book was originally created in the 1930s to provide the blind and visually impaired with a medium to enjoy books. In 1932 the American Foundation for the Blind created the first recordings of spoken books on vinyl records. In 1935, a British-based foundation, Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB), was the first to deliver talking books to the blind on vinyl records. Each record contained about thirty minutes of audio on both sides, and the records were played on a gramophone. Spoken books changed mediums in the 1960s with the transition from vinyl records to cassette tapes. The next progression of spoken books came in the 1980s with the widespread use of compact discs. Compact discs reached more people and made it possible to listen to books in the car. In 1995 the term audiobook became the industry standard. Finally, the internet-enabled audiobooks to become more accessible and portable. Audiobooks could now be played in their entirety instead of being split onto multiple disks.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin, billed as Supremacy, was a professional boxing match contested for the unified WBA (Super), WBC, IBF, IBO, "Ring" magazine, and lineal middleweight championship. The bout was on September 16, 2017, at T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip. It was televised on HBO pay-per-view in the United States, on BoxNation Box Office in the United Kingdom, and on Space in Latin America.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: Despite Golovkin outlanding Alvarez in 10 of the 12 rounds according to Compubox, the fight ended in a controversial split draw, with Dave Moretti scoring the fight 115–113 for Golovkin, Adalaide Byrd scoring it 118–110 for Álvarez, and Don Trella scoring it 114–114. Byrd's scorecard especially was subject to a very large amount of criticism, with many critics describing the decision as a robbery.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: The controversial outcome led to the organization of a rematch, which was tentatively scheduled for May 5, 2018. The fight was canceled after Álvarez tested positive for a banned substance in March 2018, and formally withdrew pending hearings with the Nevada Athletic Commission in April. After facing a suspension until August 17, 2018, Álvarez and Golovkin agreed to reschedule the rematch to September 15, 2018.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: Following Canelo Álvarez's victory against Miguel Cotto in 2015, talks began between the Golovkin and Álvarez camps over the future WBC title defense. In the end, an agreement was ultimately reached to allow interim bouts before the fight to, in the words of WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman, "maximize the interest in their highly anticipated showdown. The fight was anticipated to take place well into 2016.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: On May 18, 2016, a few weeks after knocking out Amir Khan, Álvarez vacated the WBC middleweight title, which resulted in Golovkin being immediately awarded the title by the WBC who officially recognized him as their middleweight champion.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: Immediately after his victory over Julio César Chávez Jr. on May 6, 2017, Canelo Álvarez announced that he would next fight Gennady Golovkin on the weekend of September 16, 2017 at a location to be determined. Golovkin joined him in the ring during the announcement to help promote their upcoming bout, accompanied by his trainer Abel Sanchez and promoter Tom Loeffler. Speaking through a translator, Álvarez said, "Golovkin, you are next, my friend. The fight is done. I've never feared anyone, since I was 15 fighting as a professional. When I was born, fear was gone." When Golovkin arrived in the ring, he said, "I feel very excited. Right now is a different story. In September, it will be a different style -- a big drama show. I'm ready. Tonight, first congrats to Canelo and his team. Right now, I think everyone is excited for September. Canelo looked very good tonight, and 100 percent he is the biggest challenge of my career. Good luck to Canelo in September." In the post-fight press conference, both boxers came face to face and spoke about the upcoming fight.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: On May 9, Eric Gomez, president of Golden Boy Promotions told the "LA Times" that Álvarez had an immediate rematch clause in place on his contract, whereas Golovkin, if he loses, won't be guaranteed a rematch. De La Hoya later also revealed in an interview with ESPN the fight would take place at the full middleweight limit of 160 pounds with no re-hydration clauses, meaning Golovkin and Álvarez would be able to gain an unlimited amount of weight following the weigh in. On June 5, the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas was announced as the venue of the fight, and would mark the first time Golovkin would fight in the state of Nevada. The AT&T Stadium, Madison Square Garden and Dodger Stadium missed out on hosting the fight. Eric Gomez of Golden Boy Promotions said in a statement that Álvarez would fight for the IBF meaning he would participate in the second day weight in, which the IBF require that each boxer weighs no more than 10 pounds over the 160-pound limit. Although he said there was no word on whether Álvarez would fight for the WBC title, Álvarez claimed that he would not be. On July 7, 2017, Golden Boy and K2 Promotions individually announced the tickets had sold out.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: On fight night, in front of a sold out crowd of 22,358, Álvarez and Golovkin fought to a split draw (113–115, 114–114, 118–110). ESPN's Dan Rafael and HBO's Harold Lederman scored the fight 116–112 in favor of Golovkin. Judge Adalaide Byrd's scorecard of 118–110 in favor of Álvarez was widely ridiculed. Many observers felt that Golovkin had won a narrow, closely contested fight, and while a draw was justifiable, a card that wide in favor of Álvarez was inexcusable. Nevertheless, Bob Bennett, director of the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC), said that he had full confidence on Byrd going forward. Despite the controversy, several mainstream media outlets referred to the bout as a "classic". The first round found both boxers finding their rhythm, Canelo using footwork to become a slippery target using hard counter shots to the body and head as Golovkin seemed to try to establish his power jab, being the busier of the two. Round 2 found Canelo starting to pick up his pace, landing hard body shots throughout the round while Golovkin had a hard time finding a hard shot to damage Canelo. So far, each judge had Canelo up on the scored 20-18. Round 3 had Golovkin pick up his pace, starting the round surprising Canelo with left hooks and right hands as Canelo would later land harder shots, mostly uppercuts and hooks. 2 of the 3 judges gave the round to Golovkin while one judge gave the round to Canelo. Soon, however, the pressure from Golovkin came to Canelo as he would wear down the Mexican star. For the next 6 rounds, Golovkin would become the aggressor, backing Canelo up with harder shots. Canelo did have spots of success, landing an eye catching shot every now and then. Still, during the middle rounds, particularly between 4 and 9, Álvarez started each round quick, but seemed to tire out after a minute, with Golovkin taking over and doing enough to win the rounds. The championship rounds were the best for Canelo, according to the judges as he would exchange with Golovkin, both men missing, but the judges had Canelo winning the last 3 rounds. the judges had a draw, with the scores of 114-114, 115-113 for Golovkin, and 118-110 for Canelo. The draw saw Golovkin make his 19th consecutive defense, just one behind middleweight great Bernard Hopkins. CompuBox stats showed that Golovkin was the busier of the two, landing 218 of 703 thrown (31%), while Álvarez was slightly more accurate, landing 169 of his 505 thrown (33%). Golovkin out landed Álvarez in 10 of the 12 rounds.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: Speaking to Max Kellerman after the fight, Golovkin said, "It was a big drama show. The scoring is not my fault. I put pressure on him every round. Look, I still have all the belts. I am still the champion." Álvarez felt as though he won the fight, saying "In the first rounds, I came out to see what he had. Then I was building from there. I think I won eight rounds. I felt that I won the fight. "I think I was superior in the ring. I won at least seven or eight rounds. I was able to counterpunch and made Gennady wobble at least three times. If we fight again, it's up to the people. I feel frustrated over my draw." Golovkin's trainer Abel Sanchez believed judge Byrd had her scorecard filled out before the first bell rang.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: Álvarez ruled out another fight in 2017, claiming he would return on Cinco de Mayo weekend in May 2018. At the post-fight press conference, Álvarez said through a translator, "Look, right now I wanna rest. Whatever the fans want, whatever the people want and ask for, we’ll do. You know that's my style. But right now, who knows if it's in May or September? But one thing's for sure – this is my era, the era of Canelo." Golovkin's promoter Tom Loeffler stated that they would like an immediate rematch, but Golovkin, who prefers fighting at least three times in a calendar year, reiterated his desire to also fight in December.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: The fight surpassed Mayweather-Álvarez to achieve the third highest gate in boxing history. ESPN reported the fight generated $27,059,850 from 17,318 tickets sold. 934 complimentary tickets were given out, according to the NSAC. Mayweather vs. Álvarez sold 16,146 tickets to produce a live gate of $20,003,150.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: The replay, which took place a week later on HBO averaged 726,000, peaking at 840,000 viewers. The LA Times reported the fight generated 1.3 million domestic PPV buys. Although HBO didn't make an official announcement, it is believed that the revenue would exceed $100 million.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: The controversial outcome prompted near-immediate discussions over the possibility of a rematch. Álvarez stated he would next fight in May 2018, whereas Golovkin was open to fighting in December 2017. ESPN reported that Álvarez, who only had the rematch clause in his contract, had to invoke it within three weeks of their fight. On September 19, Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez told ESPN that everyone on their side was interested in the rematch and they would hold discussions with Tom Loeffler in the next coming days. Ringtv reported that the negotiations would begin on September 22. On September 24, Gomez said that the fight would likely take place in the first week of May 2018, but left the possibility of it occurring as early as March.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: At its 55th annual convention in Baku, Azerbaijan on October 2, the WBC officially ordered a rematch. Golden Boy president Eric Gomez told ESPN that "regardless of if they did or didn't order the rematch, we are going to try to make it happen. We'll do whatever it takes to make it happen." On November 7, Eric Gomez indicated the negotiations were going well and Álvarez would make a decision in regards to the rematch in the coming weeks. It was believed that Golden Boy would wait until after David Lemieux and Billy Joe Saunders fought for the latter's WBO title on December 16, 2017, before making a decision. On November 15, Eddie Hearn, promoter of Daniel Jacobs, stated that he had approached Tom Loeffler regarding a possible rematch between Golovkin and Jacobs if the Álvarez-Golovkin rematch fails to take place.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: On December 20, Eric Gomez announced that the negotiations were close to being finalized after Álvarez gave Golden Boy the go-ahead to write up the contracts. On January 29, 2018, HBO finally announced the rematch would take place on May 5, 2018. Both fighters said that this time the judges would not be needed, with both men promising to knock the other out. Facing a competing bid from New York City's Madison Square Garden, the rematch was booked to once again be held at T-Mobile Arena. According to the WBC, unlike the first bout, Álvarez would fight for their title.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: The fate of the rematch was put in jeopardy on March 5, 2018, when Álvarez tested positive in two random urine tests for the banned substance clenbuterol. The NAC opened an investigation, and Álvarez was temporarily suspended on March 23, 2018—pending a hearing on April 10. In the hearing, Álvarez will face the possibility of a one-year suspension. Loeffler stated that Golovkin intended to fight on May 5, regardless of his opponent. Former two-time light middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade made an offer to fight if Álvarez received a long-term suspension, as well as IBF #1 contender Sergiy Derevyanchenko.


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: On March 29, 2018, NAC chief Bob Bennett filed a formal doping complaint against Álvarez, which delayed the disciplinary hearing to the commission's next monthly meeting on April 18. "ESPN.com" writer Dan Rafael felt that this delay made it more uncertain that the fight would not go ahead, while T-Mobile Arena announced that it would offer full refunds on tickets. On April 3, 2018, Alvarez officially withdrew from the fight. Gomez explained that "given the current regulations in Nevada we have been advised, and it is unfortunate, that Canelo won't be cleared to fight in May. We are hopeful this matter will be resolved and we are hoping Canelo will be cleared so we can reschedule the fight for August or September."


title: Canelo Álvarez vs. Gennady Golovkin

text: During the hearing, Álvarez was given a six-month suspension. As suspensions are retroactive from the date that the first positive test was collected (February 17, 2018), the suspension ends August 17, 2018. On June 13, 2018, Álvarez and Golovkin agreed to a new deal to hold the rematch.


title: The Glass Hotel

text: The Glass Hotel is a 2020 novel by Canadian writer Emily St. John Mandel. It is Mandel's fifth novel, and the first since winning the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2015. It follows the aftermath of a disturbing graffiti incident at a hotel on Vancouver Island and the collapse of an international Ponzi scheme.


title: The Glass Hotel

text: Paul is a lonely student at the University of Toronto. At a nightclub, he gives some tablets to some people he is hoping to befriend and one of them dies shortly after. Paul flees to the apartment of his half-sister Vincent.


title: The Glass Hotel

text: Five years later, Paul and Vincent work at a hotel on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island in the fictional Caiette, which is based on the real hamlet Quatsino. Some graffiti is discovered written on a window in the lobby with an acid marker, saying, "Why don't you swallow broken glass". Paul is immediately suspected and soon fired. The graffiti would appear to be intended for Jonathan Alkaitis, a wealthy investor who owns the hotel. Vincent, who is working the bar, soon enters into a relationship with Alkaitis and moves into his house in Connecticut. Her life becomes one of extreme wealth and accommodating her partner.


title: The Glass Hotel

text: Alkaitis is arrested and it is revealed that his investment success is a Ponzi scheme. His complicit staff react in different ways to their impending demise. One flees the country, another writes an elaborate confession. Alkaitis is sentenced to 170 years in prison, where he dreams of a "counter-life" in which he escaped to a hotel in Dubai. He is often haunted by the people he defrauded.


title: The Glass Hotel

text: After the collapse of the scheme, Vincent discovers that Paul has taken old videotapes of hers as the basis for musical compositions. Refusing to confront him, she takes a job as a cook on a shipping freighter. She disappears from the ship in the midst of a storm. Her on-board boyfriend is suspected of killing her. Leon Prevant, who lost his life savings investing with Alkaitis, is sent to help investigate. His co-investigator instructs him to cover up incriminating evidence from an interview.


title: The Glass Hotel

text: Jonathan Alkaitis' Ponzi scheme is based on the crimes of Bernie Madoff. Mandel said, "I do want to be clear about this book: it's not about any real people. It's not about Madoff — or Madoff's family or Madoff's actual staff — but the crime is the same. That was my starting point. The thing that fascinated me the most was the staff involved. I found myself thinking, 'Who are these people who show up at work every morning to perpetuate a massive crime?'"


title: The Glass Hotel

text: As with "Station Eleven" (2014), Mandel is inspired by the "invisible world" of shipping and the "ghost fleet" of freighters off the shore of Malaysia after the global financial crisis in 2008. "The Glass Hotel" includes a reference to the "Georgia flu," the illness which drove the plot of "Station Eleven," but adds that the illness never became a pandemic, and two characters from "Station Eleven" (shipping consultants Miranda and Leon) appear in "The Glass Hotel".


title: The Glass Hotel

text: In April 2022, it was announced that HBO Max will be adapting the novel into a television series, produced by Paramount Television Studios with Mandel and Patrick Somerville co-writing.


title: The Glass Hotel

text: At the review aggregator website Book Marks, which assigns individual ratings to book reviews from mainstream literary critics, the novel received a cumulative "Rave" rating based on 47 reviews: six "Mixed", and the others either "Rave" or "Positive".


title: The Glass Hotel

text: "The Atlantic" said, ""The Glass Hotel" is a jigsaw puzzle missing its box. At the book’s start, what exactly it is about or even who the major figures are is unclear. The structure is virtuosic, as the fragments of the story coalesce by the end of the narrative into a richly satisfying shape. There are wonderful moments of lyricism." "The New Yorker" said, "Mandel's gift is to weave realism out of extremity. She plants her flag where the ordinary and the astonishing meet, where everyday people pause to wonder how, exactly, it came to this. She is our bard of waking up in the wrong time line."


title: The Glass Hotel

text: NPR claimed, "In Vincent and Paul, Mandel has created two of the most memorable characters in recent American fiction. The two are both haunted by longing and self-doubt, trying in vain to run away from their respective demons." Seth Mandel at "The Washington Examiner" agreed, "Mandel’s characters are crisply drawn, all sharp lines and living color. Everyone in the book is witty; no one is particularly likable. But taken together, their overlapping stories are gripping."


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: Charles-Henri Sanson, full title "Chevalier Charles-Henri Sanson de Longval" (15 February 1739 – 4 July 1806), was the royal executioner of France during the reign of King Louis XVI, as well as High Executioner of the First French Republic. He administered capital punishment in the city of Paris for over forty years; by his own hand he executed nearly 3,000 people, including the King himself.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: Charles-Henri Sanson was the fourth in a six-generation family dynasty of executioners. His great-grandfather, a soldier in the French royal army named Charles Sanson (1658–1695) of Abbeville, was appointed as Executioner of Paris in 1688. Upon his death in 1695, the Sanson patriarch passed the office to his son, also named Charles (1681 – September 12, 1726). When this second Charles died, an official regency held the position until his young son, Charles Jean-Baptiste Sanson (1719 – August 4, 1778), reached maturity. The third Sanson served all his life as High Executioner, and in his time fathered 16 children, 10 of whom survived to adulthood. The eldest of his sons, Charles-Henri—known as "The Great Sanson"—was apprentice to his father for twenty years and was sworn into the office on 26 December 1778.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: Charles-Henri Sanson was born in Paris to Charles Jean-Baptiste Sanson and his first wife Madeleine Tronson. He was first raised in the convent school at Rouen until in 1753 a father of another student recognised his father as the executioner and he had to leave the school in order to not ruin the school's reputation. Charles-Henri was then privately educated. He had a strong aversion to his family's business.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: His father's paralysis and the assertiveness of his paternal grandmother, Anne-Marthe Sanson, led Charles-Henri to leave his study of medicine and to assume the job of executioner in order to guarantee the livelihood of his family. As executioner (), he came to be known as "Monsieur de Paris"—"Gentleman of Paris". On January 10, 1765, he married his second wife, Marie-Anne Jugier. They had two sons: Gabriel (1767–1792), who also worked in the family business and had been his assistant and heir apparent from 1790, but he died after slipping off a scaffold as he displayed a severed head to the crowd, and Henri (1769–1830), who became his successor.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: In 1757, Sanson assisted his uncle Nicolas-Charles-Gabriel Sanson (1721–1795, executioner of Reims) with the extremely gruesome execution of the King's attempted assassin Robert-François Damiens. His uncle quit his position as executioner after this event. In 1778 Charles-Henri officially received the blood-red coat, the sign of the master executioner, from his father Charles-Jean-Baptiste. He would hold this position for 17 years, being succeeded by his son Henri in 1795 after he showed serious signs of illness. Most of the executions were performed by Sanson and up to six assistants.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: Sanson was the first executioner to use the guillotine, and he led the initial inspection and testing of its prototype on April 17, 1792 at Bicêtre Hospital in Paris. Swift and efficient decapitations of straw bales were followed by live sheep and finally human corpses, and by the end, Sanson led the inspectors in pronouncing the new device a resounding success. Within the week, the Assembly had approved its use and on April 25, 1792, Sanson inaugurated the era of the guillotine by executing Nicolas Jacques Pelletier for robbery and assault at the Place de Grève on April 25, 1792. The use of the guillotine transformed Sanson's status under the revolutionary ideology from outcast to citizen, equal in rights and civil duties.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: Charles-Henri Sanson performed 2,918 executions, including that of Louis XVI. Even though he was not a supporter of the monarchy, Sanson was initially reluctant to execute the king but in the end performed the execution. As David Jordan notes, "No Monsieur de Paris had ever had the honor of executing a king, and Sanson wanted precise instructions." Sanson experienced the political and psychological pressures of revolutionary Paris. He had the duty to execute Louis XVI under the power of the sitting Provisional Government. Being the heir to a line of executioners, to refuse this duty would have brought shame to the family name and danger to himself and to his family members. He experienced the stress of having to execute not only the king but also successive waves of ousted officials as those in power shifted rapidly in a time of revolutionary change.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: However, the execution of Louis XVI was of particular importance. Fearing rescue efforts, the streets of Paris were lined with troops as Louis's carriage took its somber two hours to travel to the scaffold arriving at 10 am on January 21, 1793. After Sanson efficiently cut his hair, Louis attempted to address the crowd but was silenced with a drum roll and Louis was beheaded, with Sanson's pulling his head from the basket immediately after to show to the crowd. But the execution may not have gone as smoothly as possible: "One of two accounts of Louis' death suggest the blade did not sever his whole neck in one go, and had to be borne down on by the executioner to get a clean cut." Quite possibly, then, the execution went from being quick and fast to being more difficult and painful. As David Andress notes, however, "With his spine severed already, it is nevertheless unlikely that Louis could have uttered the 'terrible cry' that one account claims."


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: On July 17, 1793, Sanson executed Charlotte Corday. After Corday's decapitation, a man named Legros lifted her head from the basket and slapped it on the cheek. Sanson indignantly rejected published reports that Legros was one of his assistants. Sanson stated in his diary that Legros was in fact a carpenter who had been hired to make repairs to the guillotine. Witnesses report an expression of "unequivocal indignation" on her face when her cheek was slapped. The oft-repeated anecdote has served to suggest that victims of the guillotine may in fact retain consciousness for a short while, including by Albert Camus in his "Reflections on the Guillotine." ("Charlotte Corday's severed head blushed, it is said, under the executioner's slap.") This offense against a woman executed moments before was considered unacceptable and Legros was imprisoned for three months because of his outburst.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: On October 16, 1793, the Queen, Marie Antoinette, was executed by Charles-Henri's son Henri, an officer in the Garde Nationale. Sanson and his men executed successive waves of well-known revolutionaries, including Hébert, Danton, Desmoulins, Saint-Just, and Robespierre. Less known is Cécile Renault.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: After the Revolution, Sanson was instrumental in the adoption of the guillotine as the standard form of execution. After Joseph-Ignace Guillotin publicly proposed Antoine Louis' new execution machine, Sanson delivered a memorandum of unique weight and insight to the French Assembly. Sanson, who owned and maintained all his own equipment, argued persuasively that multiple executions were too demanding for the old methods.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: The relatively lightweight tools of his trade broke down under heavy usage, and the repair and replacement costs were prohibitive, unreasonably burdening the executioner. Even worse, the physical exertion required to use them was too taxing and likely to result in accidents, and the victims themselves were likely to resort to acts of desperation during the lengthy, unpredictable procedures.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: Sanson's eldest son Gabriel (1767–1792) had been his assistant and heir apparent from 1790, but he died after slipping off a scaffold as he displayed a severed head to the crowd. With his death, the hereditary obligation fell to the youngest son. In April 1793, he handed over his office, de facto, to Henri Sanson (1767-1840), who held it until his death in 1840, a total of 47 years. Henri guillotined Marie Antoinette and the chief prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville (1795), among many others.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: The Memories of Sanson are the apocryphal memoirs attributed to Charles-Henri Sanson. Published in 1830, they were written partially by Honoré de Balzac. In 1847, the last representative of the family Henry-Clément Sanson, decided, after money problems due to the gambling, to return to the text and to a supplement, under the title: Seven generations of executors, Memories of the executioner Sanson, published in 1862. Henri Clément (Henry-Clément) was the sixth and last executioner in the family. He held the office since the 1830's as an assistant, and officially from 1840 to 1847. The 159-year-long term of the family Sanson ended.


title: Charles-Henri Sanson

text: In the late 1840s the Tussaud brothers Joseph and Francis, gathering relics for Madame Tussauds wax museum, visited the aged Henry-Clément Sanson and secured parts of one of the original guillotines used during the Age of Terror. The executioner had "pawned his guillotine, and got into woeful trouble for alleged trafficking in municipal property".


title: Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories

text: Allegations that Barack Obama secretly practices Islam, or that he is the antichrist of Christian eschatology, or covertly holds some other esoteric religious position, have been suggested since he campaigned for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and proliferated after his election as President of the United States in 2008. As with conspiracy theories surrounding his citizenship status, the claims are promoted by various political opponents, with American bloggers and conservative talk radio hosts particularly promoting the theories.


text: Belief in these claims in the public sphere endured and, in some cases, even expanded during Obama's presidency according to the Pew Research Center, with 17% of Americans (including one third of conservative Republicans) believing him to be a Muslim in a 2012 poll.


text: Obama practices Protestant Christianity. Obama attended Black churches while in his twenties. From 1992 until 2008, he was a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ—a Reformed denomination. Obama left it in the wake of the Jeremiah Wright controversy. Since then, he has attended various Protestant churches, including Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopalian churches.


text: In the political culture of the United States, mythologies of nativism and the immigrant identity of most citizens have often been in tension. The constitution contains a natural-born-citizen clause stating that any person born subsequent to the founding of the United States must be a "natural born Citizen" to be eligible to hold the office of president.


text: As a result of the absence of a clear definition of a "natural born Citizen", a history developed of claims against presidents and presidential candidates asserting that citizenship of other nations held in addition to US citizenship, or aspects of ethnicity or religion, made them constitutionally unqualified to hold the office. Anti-Semitic pamphleteer Robert Edward Edmondson published "Roosevelt's Jewish Ancestry—"He Is Not One Of Us!"" in 1939 in support of existing propaganda concerning president Franklin D. Roosevelt's religion and heritage and Roy Zachary, a leader of the Silver Legion of America, linked Roosevelt to the Crypto-Judaism of sixteenth-century Spain in public speeches.


text: Nazi German caricatures of Roosevelt also depicted him as Jewish. In the twenty-first century, similar approaches were developed for Barack Obama and Islam.


text: According to the "Los Angeles Times", false rumors saying that Obama was secretly a Muslim started during his campaign for the United States Senate in 2004 and had expanded through viral e-mails by 2006. The "Times" compared these rumors to earlier false rumors about 2000 presidential candidate John McCain fathering a mixed race child out of wedlock. The rumors were subsequently promoted by conservative talk show hosts, including Michael Savage.


text: In December 2007 the Hillary Clinton campaign asked a volunteer county coordinator to step down after she forwarded an e-mail message which repeated the false rumor that Obama was Muslim. In June 2008, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, himself Jewish, spoke out to Jewish voters in Florida against false e-mail rumors which said that Obama was secretly a Muslim and did not support Israel. Bloomberg said: "I hope all of you will join me throughout this campaign in strongly speaking out against this fear mongering, no matter who you'll be voting for."


text: In 2015, Taha al-Lahibi, a former member of the Iraqi parliament known for promoting fringe conspiracy theories, claimed that Obama was "the son of a Shiite Kenyan father." These unfounded claims do not have broad support among Iraqis, and al-Lahibi's claim prompted mockery.


text: Obama was baptized into the United Church of Christ (UCC) denomination and formally joined it in 1988. He left the UCC in 2008 because of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy. He later worshiped with a Southern Baptist pastor at Camp David but has not become a formal member of any church since 2008.


text: Though according to his own profession and some others, Obama is a practicing Christian and was chiefly raised by his mother and her Christian parents. His father, Barack Obama Sr., with whom he lived only as a baby, was characterized by Obama as being a Muslim-raised atheist. Also, his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, with whom he lived during his early childhood, was nominally Muslim. This familial connection to Islam, among other things, is a basis of claims that Obama secretly practices Islam.


text: A chain e-mail circulating during the presidential campaign claimed that Obama took his oath of office as a U.S. Senator in 2005 while placing his hand on a Qur'an rather than a Bible. This claim is false, as Obama was sworn into office using a Bible that he owned. The claim may have been inspired by a photo-op re-enactment of the 2007 swearing-in of U.S. Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who used a Qur'an that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson.


text: An early version of a rumor that Obama had "spent at least four years in a so-called "madrasa", or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia" appeared in an article published by "Insight on the News", a magazine published by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate then owned by the Unification Church. "Insight on the News" ceased publication soon after the incident. Its editor, Jeff Kuhner, claimed that a person working for the Clinton campaign had told him that the campaign was "preparing an accusation that her rival Senator Barack Obama had covered up a brief period he had spent in an Islamic religious school in Indonesia when he was six". Senator Clinton denied the allegations. When interviewed by "The New York Times", Kuhner did not name the person said to be his reporter's source.


text: Obama attended two schools during the four years he lived in Indonesia as a child (1967–1971). From the first grade until some time in the third grade he attended the Roman Catholic St. Francis Assisi School, where classes began and ended each day with Christian prayers. He was registered there as Muslim because of his stepfather's nominal religion. At some point during the third grade he transferred to State Elementary School Menteng 01, also known as Besuki School, for less than a year. Besuki is a secular public school. Students there wear Western clothing, and the "Chicago Tribune" described the school as "so progressive that teachers wore miniskirts and all students were encouraged to celebrate Christmas".


text: Soon after "Insight"s story, CNN reporter John Vause visited State Elementary School Menteng 01 and found that each student received two hours of religious instruction per week in his or her own faith. Hardi Priyono, the deputy headmaster of the school told Vause: "This is a public school. We don't focus on religion. In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."


text: Interviews by Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press found that students of all faiths have been welcome there since before Obama's attendance. Akmad Solichin, the vice-principal of the school, told Pickler: "The allegations are completely baseless. Yes, most of our students are Muslim, but there are Christians as well. Everyone's welcome here ... it's a public school."


text: One chain e-mail claimed incorrectly that President Obama's middle name is Mohammed or Muhammed. His actual middle name is Hussein inherited from his father.


text: Public opinion surveys carried out, beginning in 2008, have shown that a number of Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim. In March 2008, a survey conducted by Pew Research Center found that 10% of respondents believed that rumor. Those who were more likely to believe he is a Muslim included political conservatives (both Republicans and Democrats), people who had not attended college, people who lived in the Midwest or the South, and people in rural areas.


text: A study conducted by the University of Georgia found that the percentage of Americans who believed that Obama is a Muslim remained constant at approximately 20% in September, October, and November 2008, despite frequent attempts by the media as well as the Obama campaign to correct this misconception. However, the study also showed that some people who had initially believed Obama to be a Christian later believed the rumor that he is a Muslim. The survey found that respondents who had shifted to the misconception were generally younger, less politically involved, less educated, more conservative, and more likely to believe in Biblical literalism. According to Professor Barry Hollander, "These are groups of people who are generally distrustful of the mainstream media...So therefore journalists telling them that this is not true could actually have the opposite effect and make them more likely to believe the rumor."


text: In August 2010, a Pew Research poll showed that 18% of Americans and 30% of Republicans believed that Obama is a Muslim.


text: In 2012, data from the Pew Center found that the popularity of the misinformation had increased in some groups. Specifically, over one in seven Americans (including one third of conservative Republicans) labeled the President a Muslim. Haris Tarin of the Muslim Public Affairs Council said that the survey "shows there's a lot of fear-mongering and politicking in America".


text: A 2016 Public Policy Polling survey indicated that 65% of Trump supporters believed that Obama was Muslim, and only 13% believed he was Christian.


text: Obama has publicly responded to questions regarding his religion on more than one occasion. During a debate of Democratic presidential candidates on January 15, 2008, in Las Vegas, Nevada, the moderator, Brian Williams, asked Obama about the rumor that he was "trying to hide the fact that he is a Muslim". Obama responded that "the facts are: I am a Christian. I have been sworn in [to the US Senate] with a Bible." He then said "in the Internet age, there are going to be lies that are spread all over the place. I have been victimized by these lies."


text: On June 4, 2009, Obama delivered a speech at Cairo University titled "A New Beginning". The entire speech was recorded by C-SPAN. During his speech to the largely Muslim audience, Obama declared, "I'm a Christian."


text: In an interview with NBC journalist Brian Williams on August 29, 2010, Williams asked Obama about a poll that said that 20% of the American public do not believe that he is a Christian or American born. Obama gave a similar answer to the one he gave in the January 2008 debate. During the 2011 National Prayer Breakfast, the President stated, "My Christian faith then has been a sustaining force for me over these last few years, all the more so when Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time".


text: In addition to Obama's personal responses, the 2008 Obama presidential campaign responded to the false claims made against him by people opposed to his candidacy by launching a website called "FightTheSmears.com". One of the false claims countered by the website is that he is a Muslim and not a Christian.


text: In October 2010 the White House announced that it was cancelling a stop at the Golden Temple during Obama's trip to India. The decision to cancel was received with disappointment by the Sikh community, and it was speculated that the decision was in response to a photo that was circulated during the 2008 campaign of Obama wearing Kenyan traditional wardrobe during a 2006 trip to Kenya. The 2006 photo was used to raise doubts about Obama's religion.


text: During the 2008 presidential campaign, one chain e-mail accused Obama of secretly being the biblical Antichrist, saying:


text: According to The Book of Revelations the anti-christ is: The anti-christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal...the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, he will destroy everything is it OBAMA?


text: PolitiFact.com has analyzed the elements in this false claim and debunked each one: The word "Antichrist" does not appear in the Book of Revelation (though it does appear in 1 John and 2 John); the Book of Revelation instead refers to The Beast. The Book of Revelation never mentions the Beast's age, nor does it include any references to "Muslim descent", as the religion of Islam was not founded until hundreds of years after the book was written.


text: During the 2008 United States presidential election, psychologist Alan J. Lipman wrote a fictitious parody account of a "Dr. Negative" grouping things such as drug use, adultery, Cubism, miscegenation, and Pandeism as things candidate John McCain could accuse political opponent Barack Obama of. The following year, conservative blogger Mark Finkelstein in fact labeled Obama, along with Al Gore, and New York Times columnist Gail Collins as Pandeists, in a piece titled "Happy Pan-Deism Day From Gail Collins". Collins having noted the coincidence of Easter and Passover falling in the same week, wrote that "Americans with less religious inclinations can look forward to the upcoming Earth Day celebrations, when the president is planning to do something as yet unannounced, but undoubtedly special, and Arbor Day, when rumor has it that he will not just plant a tree, but personally reforest a large swath of the nation of Mali". Finkelstein retorted that:


title: Ion Television

text: Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented entertainment programming. It rebranded as i: Independent Television (commonly referred to as "i") on July 1, 2005, converting into a general entertainment network featuring recent and older acquired programs. The network adopted its identity as Ion Television on January 29, 2007, and airs programming in daily binge blocks of one program, usually acquired procedural dramas. The network also carries some holiday specials and films before Christmas.


title: Ion Television

text: Ion is available throughout most of the United States through its group of 44 owned-and-operated stations and 20 network affiliates, as well as through distribution on pay-TV providers and streaming services; since 2014, the network has also increased affiliate distribution in several markets through the digital subchannels of local television stations owned by companies such as Gray Television and Nexstar Media Group where the network is unable to maintain a main channel affiliation with or own a standalone station, for the same purpose as the distribution of Ion's main network feed via pay-TV providers and streaming services.


title: Ion Television

text: The network's stations cover all of the top 20 U.S. markets and 37 of the top 50 markets. Ion's owned-and-operated stations cover 64.8% of the United States population, by far the most of any U.S. station ownership group; it is able to circumvent the legal limit of covering 39% of the population because all of its stations operate on the UHF television band, which is subject to a discount in regard to that limit. In the digital age, the restoration of the UHF discount has proven controversial with other broadcast groups and FCC rulings between presidential administrations, though as the network's parent company mainly acquired low-performing stations and stations on the fringes of markets which targeted lower-profile cities in the analog age, it has not been an issue with Ion Media itself.


title: Ion Television

text: The network was founded by Lowell "Bud" Paxson, co-founder of the Home Shopping Network and chairman of parent company Paxson Communications (the forerunner to the current Ion Media Networks). It was originally to be called "Pax Net", but was renamed Pax TV (often referred to as simply "Pax"; stylized as "PAX") – a dual reference to its founder and corporate parent, and the Latin word for "peace" – shortly before its launch. Paxson, who felt that television programs aired by other broadcast networks were too raunchy and not family-friendly enough, had decided to create a network that he perceived as an alternative. Since the new network would focus on programming tailored to family audiences, PAX maintained a considerably more conservative programming content policy than the major commercial television networks, restricting profanity, violence and sexual content; accordingly, many of the network's acquired programs were edited to remove sexual and overt violent content, while profane language was muted.


title: Ion Television

text: Most of the network's initial affiliates were Paxson Communications-owned affiliate stations of the Infomall TV Network (inTV), a network launched by Paxson in 1995 that relied mainly on infomercials and other brokered programming. During the late spring and summer of 1998, a half-hour preview special hosted by former "Waltons" star Richard Thomas, featuring interviews with Lowell Paxson about PAX's development and initial programming, aired on inTV stations slated to become charter outlets of the new network.


title: Ion Television

text: PAX launched on August 31, 1998, with the network's initial schedule being much larger in scope than it would be in later years. At launch, Pax aired general entertainment programming on weekdays from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. and weekends from 3:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Central Time. Through an agreement with then-Disney owned animation studio DIC Productions L.P., its schedule also included a children's program block called "Cloud Nine" on Saturdays from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and Sundays from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. Central. In addition, the network aired religious programming through time-lease agreements with The Worship Network (which aired its overnight programming on PAX seven nights a week) and Praise TV (featuring Contemporary Christian music and other faith-based programs aimed at teenagers and young adults, which aired on Friday and Saturday late-nights from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Central until 2000). The remainder of the schedule was filled by paid programming.


title: Ion Television

text: Initial programming on PAX consisted of first-run shows (such as the true story profile series "It's a Miracle", game show "The Reel to Reel Picture Show", and talk shows "Woman's Day" and "Great Day America"), along with reruns of older programming (including "Highway to Heaven", "Here's Lucy", "The Hogan Family", "Dave's World", "Touched by an Angel", and new episodes and older reruns of "Candid Camera", the latter of which moved to the network following the revival series' cancellation by CBS earlier in 1998). The network also produced some original drama series such as "", "Doc", "Mysterious Ways" (which originated on NBC), "Hope Island" and "Twice in a Lifetime" through its programming division, Paxson Productions. PAX also aired many game shows including first-run revivals of established games that originated on cable networks such as "Supermarket Sweep" and "Shop 'til You Drop", along with some original game shows such as "On the Cover", "Balderdash", a 2002 revival of "Beat the Clock", "Hollywood Showdown" (in conjunction with Game Show Network, which also aired the show) and reruns of "Born Lucky". The network would later carry reruns of the syndicated revival of "Family Feud" (consisting of episodes from Louie Anderson, Richard Karn and John O'Hurley's tenures as host, airing on a one-year delay from their original syndication broadcast) and, due to its alliance with NBC, "The Weakest Link" (both from the Anne Robinson-hosted network run and the George Gray-hosted syndicated version) as well as the 2000 revival of "Twenty-One".


title: Ion Television

text: In September 1999, NBC purchased a 32% share of Paxson Communications for $415 million in convertible stock, with an option to expand its interest to 49% by February 2002, pending changes in ownership regulations set by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that would allow it to acquire additional television stations. NBC later sold its share in the network back to Paxson in November 2003.


title: Ion Television

text: In lieu of a national news program, in 2000, Paxson Communications signed an agreement with Jackson, Mississippi-based WeatherVision – which mainly produces weather forecast inserts for television stations in certain markets that do not operate an in-house news department or maintain a news share agreement with another local station – to produce "Tomorrow's Weather Tonight", a five-minute national forecast segment that aired Monday through Friday nights at the conclusion of PAX's entertainment schedule. Starting in 2000, many PAX stations also entered into news share agreements with a local major network affiliate (mostly involving NBC-affiliated stations, though some involved an affiliate of ABC, CBS, or Fox) to air tape-delayed broadcasts of evening, and in some markets, morning newscasts from the partner station; in a few cases, the agreement partner produced live newscasts for the PAX station (as examples of the latter, NBC affiliate WTHR in Indianapolis produced a prime time newscast for PAX O&O WIPX-TV from February to June 2005, after CBS affiliate WISH-TV (now a CW affiliate) took over production of the newscast that WTHR had been producing for UPN affiliate WNDY-TV (now a MyNetworkTV affiliate) since 1996; Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC-TV produced evening newscasts for WVPX-TV that focused primarily on that O&O's city of license, nearby Akron). In some cities, a major network affiliate also provided some engineering and other back office services for the PAX station.


title: Ion Television

text: In an effort to increase revenue due to low viewership and other financial issues, PAX gradually increased the amount of paid programming content on its schedule throughout the early 2000s, at the expense of its general entertainment programming. Infomercials and other types of brokered programs ultimately became the dominant form of programming during the network's broadcast day; by January 2005, the time that PAX had allocated to entertainment programs had been reduced to six hours on weekdays (from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.) and five hours on weekends (from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Central Time). Original programming was also affected by the network's programming changes; PAX was originally offering five or six new series each season. However, in 2003, the number of new series that aired on PAX dwindled to just two: "", which was cancelled in 2005, and "Doc", which was cancelled in 2004 after PAX's international backer, Canadian broadcast network CTV, pulled out of producing the shows. The network seemingly recovered a year later when seven series made it to PAX's 2004–05 schedule.


title: Ion Television

text: On June 28, 2005, Paxson Communications announced that it would rebrand PAX as i: Independent Television (commonly referred to and stylized as simply "i"), in order to reflect a new strategy of "providing an independent broadcast platform for producers and syndicators who desire to reach a national audience." After the transition was complete, the network would continue to air programming under its Pax brand on one of its digital subchannels over-the-air and on select pay television providers and streaming services (see below).


title: Ion Television

text: The rebranding also resulted in several changes to its programming lineup: infomercials replaced overnight programming from The Worship Network, which began to carry its full 24-hour schedule on a fourth digital subchannel of local "i" owned-and-operated stations and affiliates until the network was dropped in January 2010; in addition, "Tomorrow's Weather Tonight" and rebroadcasts of network affiliate newscasts were discontinued the day prior to the rebrand on June 30, 2005 (though a few stations not owned by the network's parent company retained news share agreements with major network stations after that date, such as WBNA in Louisville, Kentucky, which continues to air newscasts from NBC affiliate WAVE as of January 2015). The network shifted its format almost entirely to reruns of television series from the 1960s to the 1990s (such as "Green Acres", "Amen", and Pax holdover "") and feature films, reruns of former Pax TV series (such as "Doc") and first-run episodes (and later reruns) of Pax holdover series "America's Most Talented Kids" were also included as part of the schedule. In turn, the network adapted its programming content standards to those similar to other broadcast networks. During the 2005–06 season, the network launched only one new series that met the network's new mission of being an 'independent broadcast platform', the teen drama "Palmetto Pointe", which only lasted six episodes and was criticized as a poor imitation of "Dawson's Creek" and "One Tree Hill"; the network went entirely to a lineup of reruns for the 2006–07 season (except for "Health Report" and specials branded under the name iHealth).


title: Ion Television

text: At one point in this era, the network programmed eighteen hours of paid programming per day, ⅔ of the network's broadcast day, with the network only programming the early fringe and prime time periods with traditional programming.


title: Ion Television

text: In November 2005, NBC Universal was granted a transferable option to purchase a controlling stake in Paxson Communications. Had this option been exercised, NBC would have acquired approximately 63 "i" owned-and-operated stations (though this could have resulted in a forced divestiture of either "i" or Spanish network Telemundo, which NBC had acquired in April 2002 (prior to its merger with Vivendi Universal), along with the divested network's O&Os due to FCC rules that prohibit broadcasters from owning more than two television stations in the same market unless there are either a minimum of 20 full-power stations in the market or one of the stations is a satellite). As part of the agreement, Lowell Paxson stepped down from his position as chairman of Paxson Communications. In April 2006, published reports surfaced that "i" owed more than US$250 million to creditors. Standard & Poor's reported a much higher debt in March 2008, owing $867 million to creditors and having a bond rating of CCC+/Outlook Negative.


title: Ion Television

text: According to a statement on its website, DirecTV (which ironically had, and still has, multiple networks made up of full-time paid programming) planned to terminate its carriage agreement with "i" on February 28, 2006. The satellite provider cited that "most of ["i" Network's] programming consists of infomercials and other promotional shows", despite an earlier promise by network executives that it "would consist of general, family-oriented entertainment". At its peak, infomercial time stretched across eighteen hours of the network's broadcast day, or 126 hours of a 168-hour broadcast week. To appease DirecTV management, the network launched a secondary feed of the network for providers adverse to its over-the-air programming direction, replacing paid programming time with older public domain programs and cancelled Pax TV original series. DirecTV and Paxson then reached a new carriage agreement in May 2006.


title: Ion Television

text: In September 2006, i launched Qubo, a children's programming block, as part of a partnership with NBCUniversal and Scholastic Entertainment.


title: Ion Television

text: On January 29, 2007, the network changed its name again to Ion Television (as a result of its parent company's renaming to Ion Media Networks). Days after the rebrand, California-based entertainment group Positive Ions, Inc. filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against Ion Media Networks, claiming that the network stole the "Ion" branding. Positive Ions had registered trademarks on the word "Ion" and had used the mark commercially since 1999. On May 14, 2007, Positive Ions filed for an injunction that, if granted, would have required Ion Media Networks to change its name once again. On May 4, 2007, Ion, Citadel Investment Group, and NBC Universal announced a deal to transfer NBC Universal's rights to purchase a controlling stake in Ion to Citadel, in exchange for Citadel investing $100 million into Ion's growth and digital plans.


title: Ion Television

text: Ion Television's programming, for the most part, remained unchanged upon the rebrand; the network continued to feature programming from the content deals it signed while under the "i" brand (such as "Who's the Boss?", "Mama's Family", "Growing Pains", and "The Wonder Years"). The network also aired a late afternoon sitcom block called "Laugh Attack", which featured reruns of comedy series targeted at African American audiences (originally consisting of "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper" and "The Wayans Bros.", the latter of which was later replaced by "The Steve Harvey Show").


title: Ion Television

text: In January 2008, Ion Media and Comcast reached a carriage agreement to continue carrying Ion Television, while also adding Qubo and Ion Life to the cable provider's channel lineups.


title: Ion Television

text: On May 1, 2008, Ion Television held an upfront presentation announcing its programming for the 2008–09 season at the New York Public Library in Manhattan. In addition to the announcement of its programming acquisitions, the network unveiled a new logo (a wordmark that incorporated a positive ion symbol as a pseudo-period next to the "ion" typeface) and slogan for the network, "Positively Entertaining" (a form of wordplay, as ions are atoms or molecules that have a positive or negative electrical charge).


title: Ion Television

text: With the September 8, 2008 rebrand, the network also retooled its focus, emphasizing the key demographic of adults between ages of 18 and 49, and airing more recent acquired programming aimed at young adults (such as "Boston Legal", "NCIS", and "Criminal Minds").


title: Ion Television

text: By this point, the network shifted its programming to feature extended blocks of its acquired series (which consist mostly of drama series, with sitcoms becoming an increasingly less integral part of the schedule); it also began a gradual expansion of the number of hours devoted to entertainment shows, starting with the addition of a two-hour block of programming in the late afternoon (from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central) in January 2008, and expanding further into the daytime and late fringe/early graveyard periods over a five-year span (however, this resulted in the network increasing its reliance on regularly scheduled marathon-style blocks of a relatively small inventory of programs in lieu of acquiring a much larger lineup of series to fill out the schedule). More recent theatrically released feature films were also added to the lineup, alongside older movie releases from the 1980s and 1990s.


title: Ion Television

text: In April 2009, it was announced that Ion Media Networks was once again facing balance sheet problems. The company disclosed that it was in discussions with lenders on "a comprehensive recapitalization" of its balance sheet, translating to an effort to restructure its considerable debt, which, according to "The Wall Street Journal", stood at $2.7 billion as of April 2009.


title: Ion Television

text: The network launched high definition operations in the 720p format, announcing they would do so on January 28, 2009, with an original launch date of February 16, 2009, but delayed to March 16, 2009, after the passage of the DTV Delay Act, which pushed the national digital television transition to June 12, 2009. Most Ion stations began to switch their main signals from 480i standard definition to 720p HD in late February; an early decision to pillarbox 4:3 programming with blue rather than black pillarboxing was eventually abandoned as black coloring became the industry norm. Some Ion-owned and affiliate stations which carry the network as a multicast offering continue to carry the network in 480i widescreen over-the-air.


title: Ion Television

text: On May 19, 2009, Ion Media Networks filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, putting the Ion network under bankruptcy for the second time in its history; it had reached an agreement with holders of 60% of its first lien secured debt that would extinguish the entirety of its $2.7 billion legacy debt and preferred stock, and recapitalize the company with a $150 million new funding commitment. On July 15, 2009, RHI Entertainment entered into a settlement agreement to resolve a dispute with Ion Media Networks, which resulted in the termination of a programming distribution agreement between RHI and Ion.


title: Ion Television

text: In November 2010, Ion Television began airing its first made-for-TV movies, in the form of Christmas-themed films that air between the weekend after Thanksgiving (airing the weekend before that holiday in 2013) and Christmas Day, with up to five films premiering each year on the network, although they are advertised as "original movies" in on-air promotions (the 2012 film "Anything But Christmas" is the only movie aired to date in which Ion Television had actually held a production interest), most of the films are produced by independent film and television studios such as Reel One Entertainment, Hybrid, LLC, The Cartel, and Vancouver-based Marvista Entertainment without the network's financial involvement (Ion does not maintain exclusivity to most of the films, which are also distributed via syndicated film packages or carried by other networks); the network extended these themed made-for-TV movies to other holidays in 2015, with the premieres of the romance films "Meet My Valentine" (which aired as part of the network's Valentine's Day programming slate) and "You Cast a Spell on Me" (which aired as part of its "Wicked Week" Halloween block).


title: Ion Television

text: On September 24, 2020, E. W. Scripps Company agreed to buy Ion Media for $2.65 billion. The transaction, which closed on January 7, 2021, saw Ion Television and its sister networks absorbed into Scripps' Katz Broadcasting subsidiary, which already operates five specialty networks, most notably Bounce TV and Court TV. In regards to Ion Television's programming, Scripps has indicated it would maintain the status quo, with no plans to invest in original content or deviate from the channel's off-network programming approach. In order to get FCC approval for the transaction, 23 Ion Television stations were sold by Scripps to Inyo Broadcast Holdings.


title: Ion Television

text: Ion provides general entertainment programming to owned-and-operated and affiliated stations every day from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. Eastern Time (the entertainment programming schedule starts at 1:00 p.m. and ends at 1:00 a.m. from Christmas to New Year's Day), with paid programming filling the remaining vacated hours. A children's programming block of "Finding Stuff Out", "Science Max" (two past Qubo series), and Xploration Station from Steve Rotfeld Productions – which features programs compliant with FCC educational programming requirements – airs for three hours each Friday at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Four hours overnight are programmed with compensated religious or commercial paid programming, a comparably small fraction of the paid programming schedule it aired in the past.


title: Ion Television

text: Ion owned-and-operated stations and affiliates formerly also provide limited local programming on weekday mornings to fulfill public affairs guidelines, which ranged from entirely local productions to Ion Life-sourced programs within which commercial slots are instead devoted to local physicians or experts giving locality-specific health advice or advertising their services. This programming has ended as the Main Studio Rule repeal by the FCC in 2019 freed Ion stations from this requirement. Ion also served as the over-the-air broadcast distribution point for TiVo's "Teleworld Paid Program", a weekly 30-minute compilation program – usually carried during the overnight on Wednesdays or Thursdays within the network's designated paid programming time – it was specifically coded to distribute program previews and device tutorials for TiVo's digital video recorders; in 2011, the time was used in early September to preview the pilot of Fox's new sitcom "New Girl", before its actual Fox premiere on September 20. TiVo discontinued the program in 2016 as broadband had become commonplace enough to end it.