9
Television
Broadcast and
Beyond
Television: Broadcast and
Cable/Satellite
The Invention of Television
 Philo T. Farnsworth:
• developed the central
concepts of television
at age fourteen
• the lines of a tilled
potato field
supposedly the
inspiration behind the
technology
 September 7, 1927: “There
you are, electronic
television.”
 Vladimir Zworykin:
o working to develop
television for RCA
o filed for a patent 1923
o U.S. patent office ruled
in favor of Farnsworth
o RCA lost, and had to
pay royalties
o television development
halted for World War II
o Farnsworth’s patents
expired in 1947
• The Beginning of Broadcasting
 1939, NBC transmitted television broadcasts from the
New York World’s Fair.
 From 1948 to 1952, the licensing of new television
stations was frozen:
• needed to give the FCC time to determine best way to
regulate television
 early, popular programming included comedy and
variety shows, some dramas.
• The Arrival of Color
Television
 In 1959- only three shows
were regularly shown in
color:
• NBC peacock logo
 By 1965, all three major
networks were
broadcasting in color.
 Cost of early color sets was
very high.
• Cable and Satellite Television
 Community Antenna Television
• pioneered by the Parsons family of Astoria,
Oregon
• connected a cable to an antenna to strengthen
signal
• became known as community antenna
television (CATV)
• up until the 1970s, cable was a way to get a
better signal, not more channels
• Satellite Distribution and the
Rebirth of Cable
 By the mid-1970s, FCC
relaxed regulation.
 Home Box Office (HBO)
began in 1975.
 Satellite systems had
advantage over networks:
• hundreds of cable
systems could obtain
the programming as
cheaply as one
• Ted Turner
 on December 27, 1976—
Superstation WTBS
 created Cable News
Network (CNN) and CNN
Headline News
 TNT, Cartoon Network, and
Turner Classic Movies
 in 1996 Turner
Broadcasting bought by
Warner Brothers:
• merger allowed
Turner access to
more media
 Two-thirds of Americans have cable; 12.9 percent in
the United Kingdom.
 Types of Cable Programming:
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affiliates of the major broadcast networks
independent stations and minor network affiliates.
superstations (WTBS, WGN, etc.)
local-access channels
cable networks (MTV, CNN, BET, etc.).
premium channels (HBO, Showtime, etc.).
pay-per-view channels
audio services
• Hollywood and the VCR
 initially two incompatible
formats, costly
 by 1991, VCRs found in
seven out of ten homes
 Universal and Disney sued
Sony over its promotion of
the VCR for recording
movies:
• 1984—U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that
viewers had the right
to record copyrighted
programs for their
own use
 VCR ownership peaked in
1999 (89 percent).
• Direct Broadcast Satellites
 1990s—advent of the lowearth-orbit direct broadcast
satellite
 fall 2006—in approximately
26 percent of U.S. homes
 head-to-head competition
with cable
 specialized programming
(NFL package)
• Digital Television
 All television broadcasting
in the United States is
scheduled to be digital by
February 17, 2009:
 Two digital formats:
• high-definition
television (HDTV)—a
wide-screen format,
high resolution picture
• standard digital
television—allows
multiple channels to
be delivered on same
frequency
 On November 1, 1998
Space Shuttle Discovery
launch:
• first nationallybroadcast digital
program
From Broadcasting to
Narrowcasting: The Changing
Business of Television
• The Big Three:
 NBC, CBS, and ABC
 television network—companies that provide
programs to local stations around the country
 network makes money from national advertising:
• network affiliate keeps all ad revenue from programming
they produce/carry
• Educational Broadcasting Becomes
Public Broadcasting
 Public Broadcasting Act of 1967:
• established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• funding for noncommercial programs on Public
Broadcasting System (PBS)
• Sesame Street—November 8, 1969
• popular documentaries
• FOX Network:
 on the air in 1986 in six out of ten top U.S. markets
 string of popular programs
 “stole” NFL away from Big Three networks
• Defining Ratings
 Nielsen Media Research:
• tracks television usage in 9,000 U.S. homes
• uses PeopleMeters in large markets, viewer
diaries in smaller markets
• sweeps—quarterly viewership measurement
• rating point—the percentage of the total
potential television audience for a show
• share—the percentage of sets actually tuned
to a particular show
• An Earthquake in Slow Motion
 1976—nine of ten people were watching network
television
• by 1991—Big Three lost a third of audience
• more channels on cable
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Big Three networks sold to new owners in 1985
broadcast networks’ revenue plummeted in the 1990s
cable programs cheaper to produce
cable channels have both a subscription fee andadvertising revenue
• Television News Goes 24/7
 began with brief coverage of the 1940 Republican
national convention on NBC
 by 1948, both parties’ conventions were covered
 1947—Meet the Press
• TV’s longest-running news/commentary program
 August 1948—CBS airing nightly fifteen minute news
show
• CBS coverage of 1956 sinking of the Andrea Doria
• in 1963, CBS and NBC expand to half hour nightly news
broadcast (ABC in 1967)
• November 3, 1979—Americans held hostage in Iran
 ABC started a nightly news update at 11:30 p.m. EST.
• show eventually became Nightline
• 1980—CNN goes on air
 1991 Gulf War—attracted large audience with its
twenty-four-hour coverage
 by 2003 Iraq War—had significant competition
 by 2002, FOX News getting higher ratings than CNN
• Diversity on Television
 1999—Big Four networks introduced twenty-six new
shows
• none featured a nonwhite lead character
 Fall of 2006
• thirty-two of the forty-three new shows featured Hispanic,
African-American, and Asian-American actors
 Lost
• featured diverse cast (interracial couple, non-English
speaking actor)
• Univision and Spanish-Language Broadcasting
 Univision—Spanish-language broadcast network:
• fifth largest broadcast network
 Telemundo
 Telenovelas—Spanish soap operas
• Make up fifteen of the top twenty Spanish-language
programs
• Black Entertainment Television (BET)
 reaches 60 million households:
• 12.5 million black households
 started in 1980 in Washington, D.C.
 purchased by Viacom
 attracting advertisers who want to reach nonwhite
audience
• Audience Members as Programmers:
Public Access Cable
 Channels air public affairs programming and other
locally produced shows.
 More than 15,000 hours of programming are
produced annually on 2,000 stations.
 Most programming is conventional, but some is
controversial.
Television and Society
Television as a Major Social Force
 Time spent watching television:
• average person watches about four hours per day
• fifteen hours per week actively watching, twenty-one
passively watching
• Americans spend half their leisure time with TV
• at any given time in the evening one third of Americans
watching TV (over 50 percent in winter)
• children spend four hours per day watching television or
videos
How Do Viewers Use Television?
 Reasons identified in the “Television in the Lives of
Our Children” study:
• to be entertained
• to learn things or gain information
• for social reasons
 Study found children watched the same program for
different reasons.
Bringing the World into Our Homes
 TV breaks down the physical barriers that separate
people.
 TV provides a view into formerly separate worlds.
 People everywhere in the world have access to
information simultaneously.
Standards for Television
 Set by each network’s own standards and practices
department:
• to ensure the network did not lose viewers or sponsors
because of offensive content
 Implemented a two-part rating system in 1997:
• G, PG, TV-14, TV-MA, S, V, L, and D
• use ratings to warn, rather than restrict
The Problem of Decency
 2004 Super Bowl halftime show:
• FCC received more than 500,000 complaints about the
“wardrobe malfunction.”
 Rules state no indecent material between 6 a.m. and
10 p.m.:
• no single standard for what constitutes broadcast
indecency
Future of Television
Interactive Television
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multiple versions of single channels
DVRs
video-on-Demand
online voting to decide outcome of shows, polls
The Earthquake In Slow Motion Continues
 Video games as mass communication:
• In 2006, nearly 94 million persons aged two
and older played a video game in the last three
months of the year.
• Two-thirds of all men 18–34 have at least one
video game console in their homes.
• Convergence of Television and the Internet
 On Wednesday, October 12, 2005, video iPod
debuted:
• Apple partnering with Disney to sell ABC's top rated
shows through iTunes.
• Apple is selling programs to consumers, instead of
audiences to advertisers.
 Now there are multiple ways to watch a network
broadcast show.
 Networks are figuring out how to compensate
affiliates for digital purchases of programming.
• http://www.hulu.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=
websites+to+watch+tv&go=Go
• http://www.nbc.com/
• http://www.cbs.com/
• http://abc.go.com/