David Bianculli has been the TV critic for National Public Radio’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross since 1987. He currently teaches as a tenured full professor at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ, and oversees a Master’s Degree program specifically devoted to Television Studies. Animaletters, with illustrations by Melinda Copper, is his first children's book.
His other books include The Platinum Age of Television: From ‘I Love Lucy’ to ‘The Walking Dead,’ How TV became Terrific (Doubleday, 2016), Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of ‘The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour’ (Simon and Schuster, 2009), and Teleliteracy: Taking Television Seriously (Continuum, 1992). He is at work on a new book, on the visual artistry of The Beatles.
From 1975 to 2007, he worked as a daily TV critic for newspapers in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York (in that order), most recently for the New York Daily News from 1993-2007. He was a columnist for TV Guide, and has contributed articles to The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and dozens of other publications. From 2007-2021, he was editor and columnist for the website TV Worth Watching.
He is beginning to suspect that he may have watched more television than any other living human. Or any dead one, for that matter.