Media in America

The term media includes channels of communication through which

people are informed and entertained. Media of the United States
consist of several different types of media: television, radio, cinema,
newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based Web sites. The U.S. also
has a strong music industry. Many of the media are controlled by large
for-profit corporations who reap revenue from advertising,
subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted material. American media
conglomerates tend to be leading global players, generating large
revenues as well as large opposition in many parts of the world. The
media have involved from basic methods of production and distribution
to their present sophisticated technologies.
Americans are conditioned by the media in various ways. The average
full-time worker is exposed at home and at work to different forms of
the media for some nine hours a day. Average home usage in 2010 for
television was 34 hours per week and 19 access hours per week in
2009 for the internet. However , polls suggest that Americans are
losing interest in general current affairs and instead are concentrating
on specific concerns. They may pick news items from a mixture of
network, public and local television, local and national newspapers,
commercial and public radio, cable channels and the internet. A
NBC/Wall Street Journal poll in July 2012 reported that respondents
main sources of political news and information were television (63
percent), internet (44 percent), newspaper (32 percent), radio (23
percent), talking with others (15 percents) and social media, such as
Facebook and Twitter. Network TV news and newspapers have declined,
while cable, independent radio and television, and online services have
grown.

Radio
Radio had a dramatic impact after its commercial introduction to the
US in the 1920s. It helped to unify the population of the cities and
countryside, increased the national and world awareness of Americans
and informed them about the events of the Second World War. Radio
was overtaken by television in the 1940s and has had to develop new
markets and emphases to survive. It has become divided into formats
that are directed a specific consumer markets and this has increased
the diversity of radio offerings. The US does not have one national
station. Instead, cities and local areas have commercial stations and all
are regulated by the FCC, which grants them operating licenses. News,
sports and talk stations predominate on medium wave (AM), with
music on FM. Subscription satellite and cable radio offers hundreds of
stations and has attracted millions of customers. Some stations
consequently only provide music programs such as country, popular
music, rock and roll, light classic, classical music and jazz. Today online
radio enjoys great popularity and most major radio stations offer to
steam some programs online, free of cost. The most popular music
stations in America is: AOLs Shoutcast, Clear Channel Online, Yahoo
Music, AOL Radio Networks and Pandora.
Television
Ninety-nine percent of American households have at least one
television and the majority of households have more than one. The
four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting
Company (NBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the American
Broadcasting Company (ABC) and Fox.
Public television has a far smaller role than in most other countries.
However, a number of states, including West Virginia, Maryland,
Kentucky, and South Carolina, among others, do have state-owned
public broadcasting authorities which operate and fund all public
television stations in their respective states. The income received from
the government is insufficient to cover expenses and stations also rely
on corporate sponsorships and viewer contributions.
DirecTV and Dish Network are the major satellite television providers,
with 20 and 14 million customers respectively as of February 2014.
Meanwhile, the major cable television providers are Comcast with 22

million customers, Time Warner Cable with 11 million, and Cox

Communications, Charter Communications, AT&T U-Verse and Verizon
FiOS with 5-6 million each.

Newspapers
Newspapers have declined in their influence and penetration into
American households over the years. The U.S. does not have a national
paper. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are sold in most
U.S. cities.
Although the Times' primary audience has always been the people of
New York City, the New York Times has gradually become the dominant
national "newspaper of record." Apart from its daily nationwide
distribution, the term means that back issues are archived on microfilm
by every decent-sized public library in the nation, and the Times'
articles are often cited by both historians and judges as evidence that
a major historical event occurred on a certain date. The Los Angeles
Times and the Wall Street Journal are also newspapers of record to a
lesser extent. Although USA Today has tried to establish itself as a
national paper, it has been widely derided by the academic world as
the "McPaper" and is not subscribed to (let alone archived) by most
libraries.
Most general-purpose newspapers are either being printed one time a
week, usually on Thursday or Friday, or are printed daily. Weekly
newspapers tend to have much smaller circulation and are more
prevalent in rural communities or small towns. Major cities often have
"alternative weeklies" to complement the mainstream daily paper(s),
for example, New York City's Village Voice or Los Angeles' L.A. Weekly,
to name two of the best-known. Major cities may also support a local
business journal, trade papers relating to local industries, and papers
for local ethnic and social groups.

Magazines
Thanks to the huge size of the English-speaking North American media
market, the United States has a large magazine industry with hundreds
of magazines serving almost every interest, as can be determined by
glancing at any newsstand in any large American city. Most magazines
are owned by one of the large media conglomerates or by one of their
smaller regional brethren.
The U.S. has three leading weekly newsmagazines: Time, Newsweek
and U.S. News and World Report. Time and Newsweek are center-left
while U.S. News and World Report tends to be center-right. Time is well
known for naming a "Person of the Year" each year, while U.S. News
publishes annual ratings of American colleges and universities.
The U.S. also has over a dozen major political magazines.
Finally, besides the hundreds of specialized magazines that serve the
diverse interests and hobbies of the American people, there are also
dozens of magazines published by professional organizations for their
members, such as Communications of the ACM (for computer science
specialists) and the ABA Journal (for lawyers).
Internet
The Internet has provided a means for newspapers and other media
organizations to deliver news and, significantly, the means to look up
old news. Some organizations only make limited amounts of their
output available for free, and charge for access to the rest. Other
organizations allow their archives to be freely browsed. It is possible
that the latter type obtain more influence, as they are true to the spirit
of freedom of information by virtue of making it free. Anyone who has
followed external links only to be confronted with a pay to view banner,
might attest that the reputations of organizations that charge is not
enhanced by their charging policy, particularly when the same
information is available from sources that don't charge.

In the 1990s, the world wide web also became commercially available;
new software increased internet usage; and the Netcape browser
allowed users to more easily navigate the net. E-mail broke the
monopoly of letter and postal delivery until it was later challenged by
mobile phone texting (SMS). SMS declined in 2012 and gave way to
smartphones and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Technological growth has made the internet an attractive business
medium as a low-cost sales market for producers of goods and services
and a platform for online shopping, Ninety-two percent of e-commerce
is conducted between many businesses and the internet has increased
efficiencies of scale, cut costs and established comparison websites for
goods and services.