Outline Ch. 8 — Television

Chapter 8
Television

n  Television Is Born

Radio with pictures’: 1920s

Ø  Technical standards: 1941

Ø  TV flourishes after
World War II

Ø  FCC freeze: 1948-52

n  Cable TV emerges

Ø  Television Is Born

Ø  1952 FCC rules

n  Expand VHF band

n  Open UHF band

n  Create educational channels

Ø  Most cities: 3 VHF channels

Ø  Radio pioneers shift to TV

Ø  So does advertising

n  The Golden Age

Ø  Late 1940s and early ’50s

Ø  Live drama anthologies

Ø  News and public affairs

Ø  Then, audience shift
and ratings rule

Ø  Sitcoms and quiz shows

n  Into the Wasteland

Ø  More focus on ratings than quality

Ø  TV turns to Hollywood

Ø  Concerns about TV’s
impact on culture, children

Ø  FCC’s Minow calls TV
‘vast wasteland’ in 1961

Ø  Still, some golden moments, like Kennedy-Nixon debates

n  TV Goes to Washington

Ø  Big 3: NBC, CBS, ABC

Ø  FCC’s Fin-Syn rules

Ø  Prime Time Access Rule

Ø  Limits on in-house entertainment programming

Ø  Rise of UHF stations

Ø  FCC’s Sixth Report and Order

n  TV Goes to Washington

Ø  Non-commercial alternatives

Ø  Public Broadcasting Act (’67)

Ø  PBS created in 1969

Ø  Concerns about violence

Ø  Family Viewing Hour

n  Ruled unconstitutional

n  Rise of Cable

Ø  Cable operators relay distant broadcasts to small towns

Ø  Threat to UHF stations

Ø  FCC bans cable from
100 largest markets in 1966

Ø  FCC reverses ban in 1972

Ø  HBO: first pay-TV network

n  Rise of Cable

Ø  Basic cable channels

Ø  Multiple system operators

Ø  ‘50 channels and nothing on’

Ø  Cable expands ‘wasteland’

Ø  Free of indecency rules

Ø  VCRs appear in 1975

n  Big 3 in Decline

Ø  New owners in 1980s

Ø  Cable TV expands

Ø  Ownership limits relaxed

Ø  Rise of Fox TV network

Ø  Fin-Syn rules lifted

Ø  WB, UPN/CW, Univision

Ø  1992 Cable Act & satellite TV

n  TV in the Information Age

Ø  Deregulation

n  Telecom Act of 1996

n  Mergers & conglomerates

n  Synergies & cross-promotion

Ø  New digital media forms
undercut conventional TV

n  Internet, iPods, video games

n  TV in the Information Age

Ø  Net ads replace TV spots

Ø  Corporate changes

Ø  Cheaper ‘reality’ programs

Ø  Comcast & NBC

Ø  Transition to digital TV

Ø  New distribution strategies

n  From a Single Point of Light

Ø  How TV pictures are formed

Ø  Optical illusion of movies:
persistence of vision

Ø  NTSC’s technical standards

Ø  Digital TV: June 2009

n  HDTV

n  Multicasting (4 signals)

n  Digital TV Is Here

Ø  On-Demand viewing

Ø  Some problems with
transition to digital TV

Ø  Phone companies & FiOS

Ø  Apple and Google as TV providers

Ø  Streaming live TV via web

n  Video Recording

Ø  Key to home VCR:
helical scanning

Ø  DVDs: compressed video

Ø  Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD format

Ø  TiVo & other DVRs

Ø  Next: video on demand

n  Video Production Trends

Ø  Rugged portable cameras

Ø  Electronic news gathering

Ø  Video servers

Ø  Nonlinear editing

Ø  Graphics & special effects

Ø  Virtual news studios

n  Interactive TV

Ø  Time Warner’s Qube

Ø  Audience participation

Ø  ‘Clickable’ commercials

Ø  DVRs, video on demand

n  Internet and 3-D TV

Ø  TV + Internet = IP TV

Ø  Clicking on-screen images?

Ø  Apps taking place of remotes

Ø  3-D viewing with and without glasses

Ø  Future 3-D TV approaches still years away

n  Who Runs the Show?

Ø  Time Warner, Disney, Viacom/CBS, News Corp, NBC Universal (Comcast)

Ø  Vertically integrated

Ø  Entertainment, network news, local news, sports

n  Who Runs the Show?

Ø  National TV distributors

Ø  Local TV distributors

Ø  Syndication and affiliates

Ø  Noncommercial stations (PBS)

Ø  Advertisers

n  Genres: What’s on TV

Ø  Broadcast network shows

Ø  Cable TV

Ø  PBS

Ø  Scheduling strategies

Ø  Is TV programming diverse?