Television History. Beginning Television Production Mrs. Rampton-Gaskill

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1 Television History Beginning Television Production Mrs. Rampton-Gaskill Works consulted include Chapter 9 of Television History 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

2 A Brief History of Television 1 Early Technology In 1927,, a Russian immigrant working for Westinghouse Corporation, developed a circuit for. Around the same time, completed a working model for a similar system, and applied for a patent. Farnsworth had to endure years of suits and countersuits before RCA paid him $1 million for the rights to his patent. Inventors in several countries including England, Japan and Russia, claim to have come up with the idea of television around the same time.

3 A Brief History of Television 2 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. Franklin D. Roosevelt became the when he formally opened the 1939 World s Fair in New York. Early TV sets did not sell because they were,, and there were no technical standards.

4 A Brief History of Television 3 Development of Technical Standards Each manufacturer wanted to gain profits that would follow if their patents became the broadcast standard. Some wanted technology to be the standard, while others were working on and wanted government to wait for it to be perfected. Other patents involved different lines of resolution,, or pixels,. 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.

5 A Brief History of Television 4 World War II Stops TV s Growth Most of the engineers in television joined the military and developed radar, sonar, radio-guided missiles and battlefield communications. Post-War Development In the early 1940s the audience was excited to see any transmitted picture and the industry broadcast anything available including talentless talent, live shots of a sunset and even test patterns. By 1948, set sales increased by 500 percent over the previous year, and viewership grew by 4000 percent.

6 A Brief History of Television 5 Channel Allocation Channel allocation is the placement of a station s frequency on the electromagnetic spectrum used for transmitting electronic signals. 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. During that period the number of sets purchased rose from a 250,000 to more than 17 million.

7 A Brief History of Television 6 The Rise of Network Television At first there were four television networks:,, and, a network founded by TV manufacturer Allen B. Dumont who got into production to increase demand for his sets. The Dumont network lacked the radio relationships of the others and could not line up enough affiliates to be attractive to advertisers. Dumont folded in Its stations went on to become Metromedia Television, which eventually became the.

8 A Brief History of Television 7 Television s Golden Age 1948 to 1958 was a time of unusually good dramatic programming. Quality dramas were needed to attract wealthy, educated viewers who could afford television sets. Network programming originated in and producers had access to up-and-coming Broadway writers, actors, and directors. Most television dramas were performed live because videotape recording had not been invented yet, and filming was too expensive.

9 A Brief History of Television 8 The Entrance of the Movie Studios In 1954 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 and his feature films, as well as generating income from the program itself. After Warner Brothers began producing the western Cheyenne for ABC in 1955, all the major film studios started as well as feature films.

10 A Brief History of Television 9 Television Changes Family Life Television continued the social trends that radio had started: bringing the American family to experience programming together, but actually interacting in the time they spent together. 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.

11 A Brief History of Television 10 Television Changes Family Life News magazines started in 1968 with 60 Minutes. Classic children s shows included Bozo the Clown, Romper Room, and Sesame Street. Wide World of Sports is a classic sports program. Classic programs are, long-running prime-time entertainment programs that changed what people talked about the next day.

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13 A Brief History of Television 12 Television s Economic Golden Age By 1966, the networks were broadcasting all their prime-time shows in and people were rushing out to replace their old black-and-white sets. Public television was established in. 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. Independent stations began to compete a little, but the real challenger to network television was.

14 A Brief History of Television 13 Cable Television Cable television began in the 1950s as Community Antenna Television (CATV). CATV was designed to give satisfactory reception from the nearest broadcast television stations. The earliest CATV pioneers were 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. CATV became cable television in the 1970s when it began to offer additional signals from distant stations, a service called importation.

15 A Brief History of Television 14 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. Another important regulation came to be known as must carry rules, which said that cable systems had to carry within each system s area of coverage. Cable s big growth period was between 1970 (10 percent of homes wired) and 1990 (60 percent of homes wired). was the first pay cable channel. Today s cable systems carry hundreds of channels.

16 A Brief History of Television 15 Emerging Networks In 1985, Rupert Murdoch formed the by purchasing 20th Century Fox studios and the Metromedia chain of independent TV stations. Ten years later, with shows such as, In Living Color, Beverly Hills 90210, and the broadcast rights to National Football League games, Fox was earning more money per program than CBS or ABC, and, was quickly catching up to NBC. (WB) and (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 CBS-Warner).

17 A Brief History of Television 16 Adapting to New Technologies Broadcast television networks compete with newer technologies, including cable, satellite, on-demand video, video games, and the Internet. The broadcast television industry is preparing for its changeover to (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.

18 A Brief History of Television 17 Adapting to New Technologies 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. Some experts believe that video on demand (VOD) through these types of downloads will be the wave of the future.

19 A Brief History of Television 18 Adapting to New Technologies The cultural effects of the VCR were many: (DVDs) reached the market in 1996 (DVRs), specialized computers with oversized hard discs onto which video signals are saved, were introduced in 1999.

20 Today s TV Industry 19 Basic Cable By 2007, the average cable subscriber received 96 channels but only actually watched 15 of them. Cable companies generally charge for or packages of programming that include many channels that individual subscribers don t use. The cable industry has so far resisted legislators calls for a a la carte pricing model that would allow people to receive only the channels they want.

21 Today s TV Industry 20 Superstations The first superstation, a local station delivered to cable systems via satellite, was created in 1976 when Ted Turner sent the signals of, his Atlanta UHF station, for distribution throughout the country. Turner raised advertising rates and turned what had been the lowest-rated station in Atlanta into a financial success.

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23 Today s TV Industry 21 Premium Cable Premium cable channels such as (HBO),, and 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. channels allow customers to order recent feature films, sporting events, concerts, an other special events on a set schedule.

24 Today s TV Industry 22 Satellite TV Satellites were an integral part of the success of cable television, originally being used for point-topoint communications since the 1960s. In the 1970s satellites were made geostationary, parked 22,300 miles above one section of the earth s surface. (DBS) systems deliver television programming to individual homes. By 2007, satellite companies claimed to have subscribers in almost 25% of television homes making DBS a serious competitor with cable.

25 Today s TV Industry 23 Satellites in Geostationary Orbit A geostationary satellite orbits the earth at the same speed that the earth rotates on its axis, making it essentially parked in space. In orbit at 22,300 miles, three satellites can cover almost the entire earth.

26 Today s TV Industry 24 Public Television The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which, in turn created the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), an organization made up of public stations that solicit from corporations and viewers. PBS acts like a network but differs greatly in that it does not produce programming, rather, it helps member stations share programs. Today s PBS stations are owned by four groups.

27 Today s TV Industry 25 v Today s PBS stations are owned by four groups.

28 Ratings 26 The Ratings is the percentage of all homes equipped with TVs that are tuned to a particular station at a particular time. A.C. Nielsen collects ratings for network and local stations, syndicated programs, cable channels, and World Wide Web sites.

29 Ratings 27 The Ratings Overnight ratings are most important to networks while local stations set advertising rates based on ratings during : November, February, May, and July., 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. 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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31 Controversies 28 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 programming damages viewers intellectually and emotionally. Most critics agree that TV entertainment is too particularly when the violence goes unpunished or when a program ignores the real life consequences of violent acts. TV producers counter that pleasing the critics would impede storytelling.

32 Controversies 29 Extensive research into television indicates that exposure to televised material can the acceptance of ethnic, racial, and gender stereotypes. Producers point out that stereotyping allows writers to establish characters quickly and get on with the plot. The FCC requires stations to air three hours of educational programming per week but critics insist that this is not enough.

33 Controversies 30 The Telecommunications Act of 1996 required that new television sets contain V- chips, an that can be set to recognize and block programs with particular parental advisory rating. Critics say too much time in front of the TV keeps viewers from productively. Defenders of television insist that TV is no more addicting than any other form of pleasurable activity.