Television history
Television today
Television, now
Some key questions
• Public service broadcasting (PBS) vs.
commercial enterprise
• Funding of PSB
• Networks vs. cable television
• National vs. transnational dimensions
• Consequences of time shifting
• Media convergence
• Changes in content and uses
International programme trade
• From early on American television producers lobbied in many
countries for American technical standards
• The US government sponsored international festivals,
produced programmes targeted for foreign broadcasters and
organized broadcasts in their military bases
• In 1985 USA produced 44 % of imported programmes in
Western Europe, Britain 16 % - the two should be though of is
complementary than competitive
• Successful European television programmes are usually
remade in the USA
• In Latin America, South-East Asia and some other places
melodrama and other popular genres reach their own
international markets
Sports on the telly
• Direct broadcasts enable global attendance of sport
events
• Many people have bought their first tv sets, colour tellies
and videos on the eve of great sports events
• Audiovisual aesthetics becomes an integral part of the
sports experience
• Today one of the most successful and expensive formats
of programming → heavily commericalized
• Satellite technology has facilitated the creation of sport
channels
• Televising of Olympics has developed into the most
global media event
Television in India
• According to Nehru television is a luxury in a country suffering from
squalor, famine, and illiteracy
• State controlled broadcasting promoting science and the distribution
of knowledge.
• “The real India” – rural areas prominently treated.
• TV spreads beyond Delhi in the 1970s.
• Mainly highbrow programmes in Hindi
• Illegal cable operators since the 1980s.
• Murdoch’s STAR TV and other satellite channels break down the state
monopoly
• A new Bollywood style format based commercial operation begins in
1991 – the worlds largest growing TV audience.
• Also the state governed Doordashan has had to increase the volume of
entertainment.
• India has become a major operator in the international TV market.
US networks face new competition
• Home Box Office (HBO, 1972): a subscription based
premium cable television network with headquarters in
New York City
• Prime Time Access Rule (PTAR, 1975) limits the amount
of time a local affiliate can broadcast programming
provided by the network.
• VCRs become household devices in the 1980s
• Ted Turner launches CNN 24-hour television news in
1980
• Rupert Murdoch launches Fox Network in 1986
• A major change of leadership in the three old Networks
in the 1980s
• Networks' share of the audience declines throughout the
1980s and 1990s
Satellite and cable technology challenges
traditional modes of operation
• Geostationary satellites together with glass fibre technology
increase the number of potential channels available tenfold
• Cable channels begin in Britain in 1983 with the purpose of
supplementing BBC & ITV existing services →narrowcasting
• The new Cable Authority declares that “cable was not designed
as a public service”
• British IBA is forced to acknowledge that satellite broadcasts are
beyond national control and legislation
• Rupert Murdoch’s News International begins Sky Channel in
1981
• Satellite channel MTV launched in 1987 offers music round the
clock
Media Concentration
• Rupert Murdoch creates a media empire
stretching over three continents
• Silvio Berlusconi gains near complete control
of both public and commercial television in
Italy
• Critical media in Russia is stifled
• Chinese media becomes more popular but
remains under strict government control
Formats – definitions and volume
• ”A television format is a program or a program concept with
distinct elements that can be exported and licensed to
production companies or broadcasters outside its country of
origin or for local adaptations (Schmitt, 2005).
• “A recipe for re-producing a successful television program, in
another territory, as a local program.” (Bodycombe, 2005)
• Mass-attracting, serialized non-fiction such as quiz shows,
real-life soap-operas, chat shows
• Global volume in the range of 2.5 billion €
• Market shares: UK 43%, US 13&, Netherlands 9%
Format trade – McDonaldisation of TV?
• No international legal basis but generally respected – except
in China
• Format Recognition and Protection Association (FRAPA)
founded in London in 2000
• Packets include use of title, set designs, PR & auxiliary
material, ratings etc.
• Domestication: becoming a part of national culture is costly
but a key element of success
• The owner of the format might insist on strict adherence to
the original concept (Who Wants to be a Millionaire?)
• Big Brother has become the most watched programme in the
history of television - by 2005 estimated 740 million viewers
“It’s not TV. It’s HBO “
• A premium New York cable television service
• Pay-television system allowed people to see uncut commercial-free
movies and sports coverage.
• A reputation for offering very high quality original programming.
• Not much pressure to tone down controversial aspects in their
programs, thus allowing for explicit themes, such as graphic
violence, explicit sex, profanity, and drug use.
• Networks' share of the audience declined throughout the 1980s
and 1990s.
• Other providers have tried to produce their own “It’s not TV”
• Prestige series today bring in long-term revenue through extended
sales of international rights
TV and the internet
• Many popular series have internet sites which are either producer based
or which have grown from private initiative. Among the first: Xena:
Warrior Princess, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, My So-Called Life
• Screenwriters started participated in discussing the themes and
undertones of the series – now such blogging can be part of their job
description
• Fans have sometimes succeeded in ensuring the continuation of a series,
even influencing plot and character development
• Sites have also been used to distribute pirate material
• Programmes and sites may interact with one another just like films and
videogames
• Reality shows in particular give rise to blogs in which makers, participants
and viewers participate
• To an increasing degree programmes are quickly put into the net either by
the broadcasters or pirates (catch-up television)
• Programmers produce also other televisual material in the net
Television/webpage synergy in Britain
• Channel 4:n Embarassing bodies (2007 - ) programme/ pages
are considered to provide better and more unashamed health
information than the Nation Health Service
• Big Art Project provided young people with a forum to exhibit
their artistic talent in public places in their region. Some 1400
people signed up immediately. Participants produce and
moderate content.
• Children’s BBC: e.g. a spy story might offer clues and children
have to look for solutions from the web page
Old and new platforms
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Terrestrial broadcasts
Cable
Satellite
Internet
Mobile television
Public premises
Recirculation(VCR, DVD, BlueRay, smart
phones etc.)
New Media - digitalisation
• The increasing facility of live broadcasting on the one hand and
freedom allowed by time-shift on the other
• Immediately available on-location material in conjunction with studio
material
• Broadcasting vs. narrowcasting – both programmers and advertisers
encourage ever more bold targeting on specialized audience sectors.
• Extremely costly vs. extremely cheap (which can still look good)
• New and recirculated material on various platforms.
• DVR enables ’intelligent’ automatic recording functions (in the USA:
TiVo) – and skipping advertising
• Weakly and strongly interactive media
• In theory all the world is available – in practice distribution is heavily
centralized
• Media experience (de-localization of social life) – incentive for both
participations and alienation
Matrix media (Michael Curtin)
• Aim: concentration of creative talent and synergy of
different channels of distribution
• Technical-practical background: the multiplicity and
fragmentation of media allow for an amoeba-like
changes in their usage
• Economical background: media conglomerations
• Major hindrance: different operators tend to adhere to
their established practices and guard jealously their own
spheres of activity
• Future: development of increasingly interactive, targeted
and multiplatform programme formats
• Ever increasing participation in social networks
Commercial implications
• Digital technology allows increasingly close following of
what people actually watch → also the impact of
advertising can be monitored with greater precission
• Interactive applications produce data about consumers
→ increasingly targeted advertising
• “The goal of the surveillance-based, digitally enhanced,
scientific management of consumption looms on the
digital horizon” (Mark Andrejevic)
• Audience Indentity Metric traces correlations between
programme watching and consumer practices
2007 – point of no return?(Michael
Curtin)
• DVR viewing which takes place within three days is taken
into account in ratings
• Ratings of actual advertising taken into account in pricing
policies
• Script writer strike demand: royalties also from distribution
in other media than TV
• Networks lose a major part of their prime time audiences
• NBC in particular begins to push up its multimedia-profile:
all programming must develop a multimedia strategy
• Increasing awareness of the need to produce web material
that excels amateur production
PBS – traditional justifications that
remain
• Acknowledgement of the need to keep up national
culture in a globalizing world
• Commitment to a universal service
• Nurturing of diversity
• Securing representative character of content in political,
social and cultural terms
• Guaranteeing democratic accountability
• Adhering to non-profit goals → dependence on some
form of public financing
• “A public service remit aimed at protecting moral values,
cultural traditions, pluralism and democracy”
Main source: Lowe & Bardoel (eds): From Public
Service Broadcasting to Public Service media
PBS – new justifications
• Convergence, globalization and digitalization legitimate
the social importance of PSM
• Vertical and horizontal integration in the commercial
sector leads to prohibitive costs →
• narrowing of choice and overriding of domestic media
policies
• PSM must operate on a sufficiently large scale to insure
quality and competitiveness
• The need to create social cohesion in order to counter
cultural and social fragmentation
Main source: Lowe & Bardoel (eds): From Public
Service Broadcasting to Public Service media
Arguments against PBS/PMS
• PBS ethos reflects value judgements based on traditional
taste and cultural values that are not self-evidently valid
• No forms or contents are more valid than others → no
justification for a privileged position
• Spectators as consumers with their free choices are the
only relevant arbiters of value
• People should only pay for what they actually use (but
actually we all pay for advertising)
• TV production just like any other form of enterprise
should be open to free competition
• PBS operators should not compete with commercial
operators.
Ibid
Challenges for PSB - or PSM
• From supply orientated to demand orientated content
provision
• From providing to audiences to interacting with users
• From products to processes
• PSM must legitimate itself more explicitly than PSB in the past
• Public value test:
– Confirming contribution to public interest
– Assessing impact on the commercial market
• Linear viewing habits have decreased → multichannel
platforms with a public service ethos
• New media supplement rather than replace existing media –
each medium occupies its own niche in the social practices of
everyday life
ibid
”How to accommodate public values and
private interests in European media 2012?”
Anker Brink Lund, 27.4.2012
• Correcting of market failure / distorting market
competition
• Global copying vs. local sense making
• Emphasis on reach rather than share
• Long tail only possible with a strong head – even PSB
needs blockbusters
• Developing civil society norms and values
• In the long run PSB is in the interest also of business
life
Constant state of change
• Ellis’s three eras of television:
– era of scarcity
– era of availability
– era of plenty
• Change fatigue: it is strenuous to have to make choices all the
time as to what you want to watch
• Constant feeling of not having enough time
• According to ratings audiences tend to be fairly conservative
• Constant media revolution vs. limits of creativity
Major media concentration
• Rupert Murdoch creates a three continen
media empire
• Silvio Berlusconi in Italy exercises control over
both public broadcasting and commercial
television
• Critical media in Russia is to a great extent
silenced