The roots of television stretch back to the 19th century when Russian scientist Paul Nipkow developed a device to transmit a scene people could see. The Nipkow disc produced 4,000 pixels per second, producing a picture of 18 parallel lines, but was limited by the mechanical system. By 1925 British inventor John Logie Baird transmitted visual images with a mechanical disc; three years later, he sent a television picture from London to Hartsdale, New York. Electronical scanning improved things. In 1923, Russian immigrant Vladimir Zworykin demonstrated his iconoscope tube, the first practical television camera tube. David Sarnoff hired him in 1929 for RCA to head the electronics research lab, where he developed the kinescope. In 1927, 20-year-old Philo Farnsworth perfected an electronic television system that he had first shown to his high school teacher at 15 years old. A fierce patent battle ensued for a decade, but Farnsworth won and RCA paid royalties. In April 1939, RCA made the first "true" public demonstration of television, showing regularly scheduled NBC broadcasts ever two hours at the World's Fair in New York. People could buy TV sets at the RCA Pavilion: $200 for a 5-inch screen or $600 for the deluxe 12-inch model. In 1952, 108 stations broadcast to 17 million television homes. By the end of the decade, 559 stations were broadcasting to the nation, where nearly 90 percent of households contained a television in a decade where more TV sets were sold (70 million) than people were born (40.5 million). 
Quiz Show Scandal Originally, the networks only acted as an outlet for clients to show their wares, i.e. the Big Three showed news and sports and not much else of their own. Instead, advertisers sponsored shows like The Kraft Television Theatre and Westinghouse Studio One. But the 1959 quiz show scandal changed the way networks operated. Producers and advertisers rigged popular quiz shows like The $64,000 Question and Twenty-One to ensure favorite contestants defeated unpopular ones, thus artificially building tension where a mismatch was anticipated. It shocked audiences to find out it wasn't true, leading Congress to hold hearings over the reputation of the new medium. Networks used the "embarrassment" to eliminate advertisers from the production and distribution process; this also led to increased network riches from spot commercial sales, i.e. selling individual 60-second spots on a given program to a wide variety of advertisers. I Love Lucy CBS asked Lucille Ball to move her hit radio show My Favorite Husband to television. Lucy was willing if her real-life husband, Desi Arnaz, could play her video spouse. The networked refused (though CBS denies it, some historians claim the network objected to a prime-time presentation of an interracial marriage). Lucy also wanted to produce the show from three film-cameras (instead of kinescope) in front of a studio audience in Hollywood (instead of New York) so that she could be closer to her family. CBS refused these requests as well. Lucy and Desi borrowed money to produce I Love Lucy on their own and changed both the look and business of television:
McCarthyism & TV's Growing Power Joseph McCarthy, Wisconsin's junior Republican senator, used the Red Scare to come to power as his investigation of communists in the U.S. Army was broadcast to millions of viewers on all networks for 36 days in 1954. Due to the Red Scare, advertisers would not buy time from broadcasters who employed "Red sympathizers" and the networks looked into people's backgrounds, refused to hire suspect talent and demanded loyalty oaths from performers. But just as television built McCarthy up, it also took him down. After a military man was dismissed because his father was a communist, Murrow used his See It Now series to dig into McCarthy's power, letting video footage of McCarthy provide its own indictment half a century before Jon Stewart did the same. Rise of the Ratings System The A.C. Nielsen Company started reporting three types of TV ratings in the 1950s.
Nielsen selects 15,000 households representative of the U.S. population. It still uses a peoplemeter, which requires each member of a TV home to press buttons that record an individual's viewing. Telephone lines transmit this information to Nielsen, which can determine the program watched, who was watching it and the amount of time spent viewing it. However convergence changed how ratings data is gathered. The personal peoplemeter, a special remote control with personalized buttons for each household viewer, has been problematic as young men and minorities, especially Hispanics, tend to be undercounted (see pp. 214-215). Is this due to a counting problem as the broadcasters insist, or is it due to young men and minorities gravitating toward cable, DVD, the Internet and video games? Nielsen conducts diary surveys of viewing patterns (a.k.a. sweeps) during February, May, July and November. Viewers are asked to write down what they're watching and who's watching. But sweeps may be a thing of the past due to cable's year-round programming. Shares provide a more important measure of television's audience. While ratings measure a program audience as a percentage of all television households, a share measures a program audience as a percentage of the television sets in use during the time a program airs. CABLE AND EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING In 1948, appliance salesman John Walson had trouble selling TVs because the Pocono Mountains sat between Philadelphia's three new stations and Mahanoy City, Pa, where he worked. So he convinced his boss to let him run a wire from a tower erected on New Boston Mountain to his store. To increase picture quality, he offered coaxial cable and self-manufactured boosters. By June of that year, 727 people subscribed to Walson's community antenna television system (Chin, 1978). Meanwhile, Milton Jerrold Shapp noticed thousands of antennas cluttering the roofs of department stores and apartment buildings. Years before becoming Pennsylvania's governor, he set up master antennas and connected the sets in these buildings to them, starting the master antenna television (such as that used today in UAM's dorms). By 1962, 800 systems provided cable TV to more than 850,000 homes; that same year, Congress passed all-channel legislation, which required all TV sets imported into or manufactured in the United States be equipped with VHF and UHF receivers. UHF independents and educational stations (e.g. AETN) had to wait for cable to boom before becoming an attractive outlet for entertaining cultural fare. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 united the educational stations into the Public Broadcasting Service; PBS now has nearly 4,000 member stations. A year later, this affected the lives of many children, the majority of whom didn't attend preschool under the age of 5. Joan Ganz Cooney decided to use a television show to "promote the intellectual and cultural growth of preschoolers, particularly disadvantaged preschoolers" (see Sesame Street on p. 217).
The 1960s also provided a descriptive expression still used when discussing television. John F. Kennedy's FCC chair, Newton Minnow, invited broadcasters to watch television from the time a station signed on to when it signed off, assuring them that they would only observe a "vast wasteland." Regardless of if you agree or not, there's no doubt we continue to watch:
Television also attracts a lot of advertising dollars:
SCOPE AND NATURE OF THE INDUSTRY A few centralized production, distribution and decision-making organizations dominate television business. Networks link affiliates for the purpose of delivering and selling viewers to advertisers. Local affiliates clear time for network programs in exchange for direct payments (called compensation) and the rights to all income earned from locally-sold commercials. Compensation and local spot times are negotiated with affiliates on a station-by-station basis; in fact, many affiliates received no compensation at all or are asked to underwrite production costs for some content. Networks not only control what appears on the vast majority of local TV stations, but also what appears on non-network television, i.e. when affiliates program their own content that most often is programming originally aired on the networks (called off-network programs). This domination can be understood due to the availability of 65 years worth of successful network content, the well established production and distribution mechanisms that have served the broadcast outlets, and that most audiences are comfortable with formats developed on the networks. Out of the thousands of annual proposals for new TV series, about 120 will be filmed as pilots and maybe 20-30 will make it on the air. Approximately 10 percent of the pilots will make it through an entire season; three or four will do well enough to be considered hits. Most won't do that well, e.g. 61 new shows were cancelled before airing 10 times in 2005-2006. This is one reason the same people make TV hits again and again, e.g. Jerry Bruckheimer produced 14 prime-times series from 2005-2007 alone, including Cold Case, Close to Home and all three versions of CSI. TV program producers stand to make vast amounts of money via syndication, where they sale their programs to stations on a market-by-market basis (thanks to Lucy & Desi), e.g. Paramount has already earned more than $2 billion from Frasier and Warner Brothers has already pocketed $4.3 million an episode from syndicating Friends. Programming produced specifically for syndication into a market-by-market basis is called first-run syndication, where producers keep 100 percent of the income. Satellites improved the distribution process, increasing the number and variety of available programs. In 1978, the Big Three (ABC, CBS and NBC) drew 92 percent of all prime-time viewers; 10 years later, they collected 70 percent. As of 2002, the four-network share (including FOX) dropped to 47 percent, which can account for the most-watched nonsports TV broadcasts all occurring before most of you were born (see Figure 8.2, p. 221). THE RISE OF CABLE AND SATELLITE In 1972, the creation of Home Box Office worried some broadcasters, but that turned to outright anger after Time, Inc., began distributing the premium cable channel by satellite in 1975. Cable's share of the prime-time audience exceeded the four networks in 2001:
In recognition of the public's growing dependence on cable programming, Congress passed the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, which requires operators to offer a basic service of area broadcast stations and access channels. Expanded basic cable additionally includes stations with broad appeal like TBS, TNT, the USA Network and Comedy Central (see the Top 20 networks in Figure 8.3 on p. 223). The FCC and some members of Congress want to see a la carte pricing, i.e. paying for cable on a channel-by-channel basis, but the industry argues many niche programs would not survive. The most popular premium cable channels include HBO, Showtime, the Spice Channel, the Sundance Channel and Cinemax. These movie channels showed people would pay for subscription television and didn't mind repeats (as they could watch shows at most anytime). In addition to movies, sports programming and other content not usually found on broadcast TV, high-quality serial programming attract large, loyal followings, e.g. The Sopranos, Big Love, The Wire, Queer as Folk, Weeds, Rome, etc.(see p. 225). TRENDS AND CONVERGENCE New technologies continue to change the relationship between audiences and television: VCR Videocassette recorders could be found in 91 percent of all homes in 2002, but now more and more people are using DVD players. Still, VCRs played an important part in changing TV as it A) allowed audiences to skip over-the-air television for rented and purchased videos; B) allowed time-shifting, i.e. taping a show for later viewing; and C) permitted zipping, i.e. fast-forwarding through taped commercials, a practice used by 95 percent of all VCR owners. DVD Digital video discs went on sale in U.S. stores in March 1996. Much like VCR players, DVD viewers can stop images with no loss of image quality, can subtitle movies in many languages, can search for specific scenes and can access extra information tracks. Exceeding VCR sales for the first time in 2001, DVDs are the fastest-growing consumer electronic product of all time. DVR Digital video recorders first went on sale in March 1999; however, they remain expensive, especially for those who already possess tape machines that record. Still, TiVo and ReplayTV put a significant amount of control in viewers' hands, e.g.
To use DVR, viewers must buy a special receiver; today about 23 percent of viewers own DVR, but the industry predicts that will grow to 40 percent by 2011. Digital Television Traditional broadcasters see digitization of TV signals as their salvation. But digitization for the purpose of transmitting multiple signals conflicts with using that spectrum space to transmit high-definition digital television, putting broadcasters in a bind as more people purchase HDTV. If broadcasters use digitization to divide their channels through multiplexing, they will lose HDTV set owners who want the even-crisper images of DVD (Note: As of 2007, all receivers imported into or made in the United States had to come equipped with digital tuners). As millions of viewers switched to Congressionally mandated digital transmission on June 12, 2009, problems continued. Have you made the switch? Television and the Internet Bandwidth problems kept TV on the Net from taking off, but broadband connections have changed that. WebTV turned a television into a computer screen, but didn't really attract people ... that came later. Now, Apple's iTunes offers complete downloads of programs like Lost and Desperate Housewives for $2 each that will play on full-size computers and video iPods. Google Video offers new and old programs (e.g. The Brady Bunch, CSI) ranging in price from free to $4. America Online's In2TV offers free downloads of classic shows with commercials, while Yahoo! provides free downloads of a few contemporary programs. Even better, millions of users have discovered Hulu, where viewers can watch popular movies and TV shows, in some cases within 24 hours of the original broadcast. Video on the Internet Sixty-two percent of Internet viewers reported watching online video in 2007; 46 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds watch Web-only videos. None of this would have been possible without the success of YouTube, which now attracts more than 50 million unique visitors every month. AtomFilms.com presents another model, i.e. it offers user-generated uploads and original Web series. Among its notable alumni is Jason Reitman, who directed Thank You for Smoking and Juno, which earned him an Oscar nomination in 2008. Interactive Television Interactive TV allows viewers to converse with content providers through a number of services:
Phone Over Cable Phone-over-cable continues to spread as people become less resistant to relying on cable companies for their phone service too. Why? Because if telephone service comes through cable, so can the Internet. If the cable line is broadband capable of handling digitally compressed data, that Internet service can be faster than what comes through the old phone lines, i.e. through bundling, cable becomes a one-stop communication provider of television, VOD, audio, high-speed Internet access, long-distance and local phone service, multiple phone lines and fax. The value? One bill for multiple services. But what's the flip side? Possible domination by a few, large media companies, e.g. in 2007 alone, AT&T deleted anti-Bush administration lyrics from a live Pearl Jam Internet broadcast and Comcast blocked some users' legal P2P video file-sharing to conserve bandwidth for others (see Brand X, pp. 230-231). Mobile Video More and more consumers receive video through their cell phones (e.g. VCasts, MobiTV) or other portable video players (e.g. iPods, PocketDishes, Zunes, PSPs). Brief content tends to work best. You can see how mobile phone consumers use their content in Figure 8.5 (p. 233). DEVELOPING MEDIA LITERACY SKILLS Recognizing Staged News Most of the public turns to TV for news, with a majority ranking it as the most believable news source. But remember, TV news is also a show. Without a visual, some people won't believe it's news at all. So news stations go out of their way to provide a visual, sometimes even walking the fine ethical line of news staging, i.e. re-creating a news event in a manner that could have happened or that is believed to have happened. On a simple scale, this can be a reporter narrating an event that he or she did not witness while video of the event is played, e.g. Cokie Roberts "reporting" from the Capitol on a wintry January night while actually standing in a nearby studio. One way reporters can counter this problem is to let the picture speak for itself, as CNN did when covering Virginia Tech. On a more egregious scale, Geraldo Rivera staged the news while reporting from "sacred ground" where U.S. forces lost American lives ... even though he was actually miles away from the spot. Even more troubling, Dateline NBC re-created the explosion of a GMC truck since similar explosions "had happened." Where should media professionals draw the line? Accessing Additional Content As previously discussed, sometimes Americans do not receive the same news as those around the world. Some people publicly wonder why stations such as Al-Jazeera's English language channel are not coming to a channel near you. In addition to looking at multiple sources, you can keep track of some of the issues facing the industry today. The Television Critics Association represents more than 200 journalists writing about television for print and online outlets in the United States and Canada. Paper Tiger Television tries to include diverse perspectives in the process of making media, striving to increase awareness of how media can be used to affect social change. Recognizing Product Placement Do you know when you're watching a show or an advertisement? Surely we'd all like to believe we do, but do you realize sometimes products are placed in areas just so you will see them? It's called product placement, of all things. How do we know we need a new automobile? Well, perhaps we saw the Chevy Camaro in My Own Worst Enemy, the Ford Expedition spots in 24, or for us older folks, the Pontiac Trans-Am in the original Knight Rider. Ford Motor Co. again devoted its dollars to Fox's American Idol and to NBC's revamp of Knight Rider. The Sarah Connor Chronicles set a new high-water mark with its hour-long Dodge Ram commercial. And they don't have to be American cars: The Sopranos car of choice? None other than the Mercedes Benz. Toyota has all but taken over NBC's American Gladiators, and Nissan is the sole auto advertiser of NBC's Heroes although it also hawks Sprint, Apple, Dell and other brands. Hmmm ... hungry? Well, The Sopranos can also tell us what to eat. Jerry Seinfeld let us know we need Junior Mints. "Seinfeld broke the barrier on brand-name products in television," the Hollywood Reporter explains. Smallville devoted an entire episode to explain how Stride gum could turn you into a superhero. Meanwhile, American Idol hawks Coca-Cola, The Apprentice promotes Burger King, American Dreams pushes Campbell's Soup, and Survivor hawks Doritos, Mountain Dew, Bud Light and even Charmin (for the leftovers) while topping the Most-Recalled In-Program Placements list. Feeling greasy yet?Perhaps you're a technophobe. Well, Apple's Mac's constantly appear in Dawson’s Creek and Sprint is the phone of record in Heroes and a designated prize in Survivor. And fellas, you'll always need deodorant, so Eureka! You should use Degree For Men. Just when you thought you could get away from it if you left out the shows ... Sourcewatch notes it even occurs in news programs. And with the rise in TiVo use, expect to see more in the future. Images and articles used here under Educational Fair Use. Notes originally produced to accompany Stanley Baran's "Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture." 6th ed. If you don't understand something in this Web note, please e-mail Dr. Sitton.
©Ronald W. Sitton 2009 Revised 110209 — http://www.uamont.edu/FacultyWeb/sitton/crz/mcom/tv.html |
