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² In 1927, Vladimir Zworykin, a Russian immigrant

working for Westinghouse Corporation, developed a
circuit for transforming a visual image into an
electronic signal.
² Around the same time, Philo T. Farnsworth completed
a working model for a similar system, and applied for a
patent.
² Inventors in several countries including England,
Japan and Russia, claim to have come up with the idea
of television around the same time.
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² David Sarnoff of RCA built one of the first commercial

television stations in 1932, with transmitting facilities
in the Empire State Building, and spent a million
dollars promoting the medium.
² Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first president to
appear on television when he formally opened the
1939 World·s Fair in New York.

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² Each manufacturer wanted to reap profits that would

follow if their patents became the broadcast standard.
² Some wanted black and white technology to be the
standard, while others were working on color and
wanted government to wait for it to be perfected.
² Other patents involved different  
   ,
those row of lighted dots, or  , that make up the
picture image.
² In 1941, government and industry agreed that
television would present black and white pictures with
525 lines of resolution moving at a speed of 30 frames
per second.
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² Most of the engineers in television joined the military

and developed radar, sonar, radio-guided missiles
and battlefield communications.
² Electronic manufacturers stopped producing
televisions and concentrated on the war effort.
² Television did not develop as quickly as some had
hoped, before the end of the war in 1945.

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² ×       is the placement of a station·s

frequency on the electromagnetic spectrum used for
transmitting electronic signals.
² The FCC was charged with ensuring that every
community in America would be supplied with at
least one channel, with no overlapping or
interfering channels and, from 1948 to 1952 placed a
freeze on license applications in order to work out
the problem.
² During that period the number of sets purchased
rose from a 250,000 to more than 17 million.

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² At first there were four television networks: NBC, CBS,

ABC and Dumont, a network founded by TV
manufacturer Allen B. Dumont who got into production
to increase demand for his sets.
² The Dumont network lacked the radio relationships of
the others and could not line up enough

   to be
attractive to advertisers. Dumont folded in 1955. Its
stations went on to become the nucleus of Metromedia
Television, which eventually became the Fox network.
² Stations not connected by cable had to run    
of network programming.

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² 1948 to 1958 was a time of unusually good dramatic

programming.
² Quality dramas were needed to attract wealthy,
educated viewers who could afford television sets.
² Network programming originated in New York City
and producers had access to up-and-coming Broadway
writers, actors, and directors.
² Most television dramas were performed live because
videotape recording had not been invented yet, and
filming was too expensive.

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² Many critics point out that TV had more lowest

common denominator content than quality shows.
² ´I Love Lucy,µ ´Father Knows Bestµ and ´Ozzie and
Harrietµ featured women who were either humorously
incompetent or subordinate to men who made all
important decisions.
² Virtually all the playwrights, producers, actors, and
directors of the live dramas were white. Minorities
were systematically excluded from production jobs.
² The 1980s success of the Cosby show opened the door
for more black oriented programming with black
production staffs.

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² In 1954 Walt Disney was the first studio leader to

associate his name with a television program. In an early
example of horizontal integration, Disney saw the
possibilities of TV for promoting his Disneyland theme
park and his feature films, as well as generating income
from the program itself.
² After Warner Brothers began producing the western
´Cheyenneµ for ABC in 1955, all the major film studios
started producing television programming as well as
feature films.

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² Television continued the social trends that radio had

started: bringing the American family indoors to
experience programming together, but actually
interacting less in the time they spent together.
² Families didn·t talk during prime-time programs; they
talked among themselves and among outsiders about
what they·d seen on television the night before.
² â



 
 (1948-1956) with John
Cameron Swayze is considered the father of television
news.

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² News magazines started in 1968 with â 

² Classic children·s shows included â 
 â  and â
 
² â    is a classic sports program.
² Classic programs are regularly scheduled, long-
running prime-time entertainment programs that
changed what people talked about over coffee the
next day.

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² By 1966, the networks were broadcasting all their

prime-time shows in color and people were rushing out
to replace their old black-and-white sets.
² Public television was established in 1967.
² Television·s economic golden age is thought to have
occurred between 1960 and 1980, when the big three
networks had few competitors within the industry or
outside it.
² Independent stations began to compete a little, but the
real challenger to network television was cable TV.

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² Cable television began in the 1950s as â 


! (CATV). ’p was designed to give
hard-to-reach areas satisfactory reception from the
nearest broadcast television stations.
² The earliest CATV pioneers were appliance dealers who
hoped to sell TV sets. They would install a large antenna
on a nearby hilltop, amplify the local station signals that
were received, and distribute them to the community by
means of a cable.
² CATV became cable television in the 1970s when it
began to offer additional signals from distant stations, a
service called    .

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² One of the first FCC rules for cable was that cable
systems could not duplicate network programs on the
same day that the network aired them.
² Another important regulation came to be known as
  rules, which said that cable systems had to
carry all local televisions stations within each system·s
area of coverage.
² Cable·s big growth period was between 1970 (10
percent of homes wired) and 1990 (60 percent of
homes wired).
² Time Inc.·s HBO was the first pay cable channel.
² Today·s cable systems carry hundreds of channels.

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² In 1985, Rupert Murdoch formed the Fox network by

purchasing 20th Century Fox studios and the
Metromedia chain of independent TV stations.
² Ten years later, Fox was earning more money per
program than CBS or ABC, and, was quickly catching
up to NBC.
² Warner Brothers (WB) and United Paramount Network
(UPN) started within a week of each other in January
1995, after deregulation permitted networks to
produce prime-time programs (In 2006, WB and UPN
merged into CW ² CBS-Warner).

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² The Ampex Corporation introduced the first 

 
  
 (VTRl in 1956.
² By 1975, people were already   
' taping
programs on video recorders for later viewing.
² This led to the practice of avoiding commercials by fast-
forwarding during playback.

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² Broadcast television networks compete with newer

technologies, including cable, satellite, on-demand
video, video games, and the Internet.
² The broadcast television industry is preparing for its
changeover to digital,  

      (HDTV)
which promises pictures as clear and crisp as a Cineplex
feature. Scanning lines are more than double the
standard: 1125 lines instead of the 525 of conventional
TV, and the wider HDTV screen features high-quality
digital sound, interactivity and various other advanced
digital services.

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² Today, television networks and program suppliers are

experimenting with ways to offer programming
downloadable from the Internet to home computers,
cell phones, and other digital media.
² Some experts believe that     (VOD)
through these types of downloads will be the wave of
the future.

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² Today·s cable operations are run almost exclusively by

       (MSOs), which are
companies that own several local cable service
providers, usually in different areas of the country.
MSOs are generally owned by giant communications
corporations like Time-Warner or Comcast.
² An MSO must reach a franchise agreement with the
local government which generally receives a small
percentage of the gross revenues.
² Most municipalities require the MSO to provide  
   which are open to the general public on a first
come, first served basis.
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² Basic cable is made up of channels that are supplied with

the least expensive program package the provider
offers. These channels, like MTV and CNN, supplement
ad revenue by charging the system operator for each
subscriber that carries their signal--usually 20 to 50 cents
per subscriber, per month.
² Today specialized basic cable channels include earliest
basic cable channels include ESPN, CNN, MTV, C-SPAN
(Cable-Satellite Public Affair Network), the Fishing
Channel, the Home and Garden Network and more

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²        such as Home Box Office (HBO),

Showtime, and Cinemax provide programming to cable
subscribers for an additional fee, over and above what they
pay for basic cable. A converter, or cable box, unscrambles
the signals for premium cable.
²     channels allow customers to order recent
feature films, sporting events, concerts, an other special
events on a set schedule.
² Public Access Channels are provided by cable systems as
part of their community franchise agreements.
² They are of three types, known as PEG, for 

    
    channels
² PEGs are all nonprofit and commercial-free.

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² Satellites were an integral part of the success of cable

television, originally being used for point-to-point
communications since the 1960s.
² In the 1970s satellites were made     
parked 22,300 miles above one section of the earth·s
surface.
² r  
     r systems deliver
television programming to individual homes.
² By 2007, satellite companies claimed to have
subscribers in almost 25% of television homes making
DBS a serious competitor with cable.

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² Technically, all broadcast television stations are local

because signals that emanate from a station·s transmitter
will only be seen up to fifty miles from the transmission
point unless picked up by cable, or satellite.
² There are almost 1,600 local TV stations across the
United States: 1,200 are commercial and 400 are public
(PBS).

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² Most network owned and operated stations (O&Os) are

in major markets. They are usually the most profitable
part of the network.
² The majority of broadcast stations are affiliates with a
contractual relationship with a network. The network
provides programming with national advertising
inserted. Local advertising revenue belongs entirely to
the affiliate.

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² Nearly all licensees today are group owners with

properties in two or more markets.
² There is no limit to the number of stations one group can
own, but one group cannot combine stations to reach
more than 35 percent of the U.S. population.

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² Program syndication is selling programs directly to

stations, cable channels, and online venues,  to the
networks.
² à

      were earlier on a network and
generally need a hundred episodes before being
offered in syndication because stations prefer 
   or showing a program in the same
time slot five times a week.
² â"
 and â#
 are highly profitable in
  
  , which is sale of new programs
that were not previously on a network.

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² The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 created the

Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which, in
turn created the  
    U #,
an organization made up of public stations that solicit
donations from corporations and viewers.
² PBS acts like a network but differs greatly in that it
does not produce programming, rather, it helps
member stations share programs.
² Today·s PBS stations are owned by four groups.

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² •  is the percentage of  homes equipped with

TVs that are tuned to a particular station at a particular
time.
²   is the percentage of homes in which the
television is in use and tuned to a particular station.
² A.C. Nielsen collects ratings for network and local
stations, syndicated programs, cable channels, and
World Wide Web sites.

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² Overnight ratings are most important to networks

while local stations set advertising rates based on
ratings during     : November, February,
May, and July.
²  , the other major ratings company, is currently
developing a wireless people meter that individuals
simply carry around with them during the day, while it
automatically records all of their media use.
² At night, the meter is simply inserted into a docking
station and the day·s data is downloaded to Arbitron as
the unit charges.

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² To reach the greatest possible audience, most television
programs are designed to make limited intellectual and
aesthetic demands on their viewers but critics are
concerned that the quality of lowest common
denominator programming damages viewers
intellectually and emotionally.
² Most critics agree that TV entertainment is too violent ²
particularly when the violence goes unpunished or when
a program ignores the real life consequences of violent
acts.
² TV producers counter that pleasing the critics would
severely impede storytelling.
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² Extensive research into television indicates that exposure

to televised material increases the acceptance of ethnic,
racial, and sexual stereotypes.
² Producers point out that stereotyping is important in
storytelling because it allows writers to establish
characters quickly and get on with the plot.
² Most critics agree that popular programming such as
´Will and Graceµ and ´Queer Eye for the Straight Guyµ
have increased tolerance toward gays in the general
public.
² The FCC requires stations to air three hours of
educational programming per week but critics insist that
this is not enough.

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² The Telecommunications Act of 1996 required that new

television sets contain $%&', an electronic device that
can be set to recognize and block programs with
particular parental advisory rating.
² Compulsive television viewers who are college students
watch twice as much TV as other students.
² Critics say too much time in front of the TV keeps viewers
from productively dealing with problems.
² Defenders of television insist that TV is no more addicting
than any other form of pleasurable activity.

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