9 Television Broadcast and Beyond. Television: Broadcast and Cable/Satellite The Invention of...

9

TelevisionBroadcast 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:• 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 low-

earth-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 nationally-broadcast 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

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 and-

advertising 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 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/