Chapter 12: TV, Cable, & Mobile Video

David Sarnoff

Then head of RCA

Kinescope

- an improved picture tube developed by Zworykin

Spot Commericial Sales

- selling individual 60-second spots on a given program to a wide variety of advertisers

Philo Farnsworth

Father of Television. Farnsworth developed key patents for both the image dissector camera tube and the receiving cathode ray tube - American teenage from Idaho who conceived of electronic television while still in high school b

Who invented television? What were the contributions of Philo Farnsworth?

Philo Farnsworth - image dissector (his camera technology)

Time-shifting

taping a show for later viewing

By 1952, how many homes had televisions?

- 17 million television homes

Roughly how many households in the US have cable today? How much does the cable industry earn annually?

- 5208 individual cable systems delivering video to 53 million households, high-speed internet to 61 million, and digital telephone to 31 million - the industry generates revenues of over $108 billion, with 10% of that earned through advertising.

What percentage of American homes have TVs? How much TV does the average American watch per week? How does TV consumption compare to other mediums? How much advertising revenue does TV generate per year?

- 96% of all US homes are TV households - Average American watches TV 32 hours and 1 minute a week - TV reaches more adults each day than any other medium - $80 billion -- 40% of all US ad spending

John Walson

- Appliance sales representative who sold TVs, but also was a powerline worker - invented the CATV which made cable television

When was the first truly public demonstration of television? What company and network were involved? When were the first FCC television licenses granted?

- April 1939 - RCA & NBC - FCC granted the first TV licenses in 1941

CATV

- Community Antenna Television (CATV) - cable television was born

In what ways was "I Love Lucy" influential, and why?

- Filmed reruns were now possible --> this, in turn, created the off-network syndication industry - TV industry moved from NY, with its stage drama orientation, to Hollywood, with its entertainment film mind-set --> more action and more flash came to the screen - weekly series could now be produced relatively quickly and inexpensively

GTAM Meter

- Global Television Audience Metering (GTAM) Meter - actively (requiring viewer input) and passively (automatically reading digital codes embedded in video content) measures viewing as people, with increasing mobility, consume video on a growing array of techniques

Who first created cable television? Where was it, and what circumstances prompted the innovation?

- John Walson - Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania - The Pocono Mountains sat between Walson's town and Philadelphia's three new stations... Walson erected a tower on New Boston Mountain & connected that to his customers TVs

I Love Lucy

- Most popular sitcom of the 1950s, star Lucille Ball: played Lucy, married to Cuban American, Lucy always tried to outthink her husband, she rarely succeeds, but keeps trying - very influential #30!

Paul Nipkow

- Russian scientist living in Berlin who developed the first workable device for generating electrical signals suitable for the transmission of a scene that people could see - made the Nipkow disc

Multiple System Operators

- companies that own several cable franchises

C3 Rating

- counting audiences across three screens TV (original airing plus DVR), Internet, and mobile video - "3" represents the viewing of the commercials that appear in a specific program within 3 days of its premiere telecast

What were the quiz show scandals, and how did they impact television?

- enveloping independently produced, single-advertiser-sponsored programs - content of TV was altered --> 1. reduced high-quality production (individual sponsers did not identify with a show, so they had no stake in how well it was made) 2. reduced the willingness of the networks to try innovative or different types of content

Standard Cable

- every cable system had access to his station, but Turner did not charge consumers for the privilege of accessing it

Sterling Manhattan Cable

- launched a new channel called Home Box Office (HBO)

Iconoscope tube

- the first practical television camera tube, in 1923 - developed by Zworykin

Syndication

- the sale of their programs to stations on a market-by-market basis

John Logie Baird

- was able to transmit moving images using a mechanical disc as early as 1925, and in 1928 he successfully sent a television picture from London to Hartsdale, New York

When did the VCR arrive? What about the DVD? What percentage of American households have a DVD player, and what is the trend in DVD player ownership?

-1976: VCR - videocassette recorders - 1996: DVD - digital video disc - DVD players sit in about 50% of US homes - DVD player ownership is a downward trend

Lucille Ball

-Actress and TV star of the comedy series, "I Love Lucy" - #30 --> caused all the influences on TV

Ted Turner

-Cable TV pioneer and CNN/TNT/Cartoon Network/ Adult Swim/ etc. founder - Made Superstation, standard cable

Superstation

-a local TV station that reaches a national audience by beaming its programming nationwide via satellite to local cable systems - Superstation was the nickname

Nipkow Disc

-first workable device for generating electrical signals suitable for the transmission of a scene - consisted of a rotating scanning disc spinning in front of a photoelectric cell - it produced 4000 pixels (picture dots) per second, producing a picture composed of 18 parallel lines

Home Box Office

HBO

Vladimir Zworykin

RCA engineer - their primary television scientist

Who created the first standard cable station in the country, and what was his motivation for doing so?

Ted Turner - HBO was about to start using satellites to reach an entire national network of cable systems, which intrigued Turner

Zipping

fast-forwarding through taped commercials