Final: Television

Share:

Percentage of tv sets in use that are tuned to a particular show

Sweeps:

4 times during year Nielsen Media Research measures the size of individual tv station audiences

Who invented television?

1927 Philo T. Farnsworth: all-electronic television system -Came up with the idea of breaking a picture into lines of light and dark that would scan across a phosphor-coated screen like words on a page. The electrons would paint the picture on the screen would be manipulated by an electromagnetic field. Age 21, he developed tv, September 7, 1927

Black Entertainment Television

24 hour network reaches 60 million households including 12.5 million black households Started 1980 as local Washington D.C. channel, nation's first black-owned cable network Profitable because major advertisers, General Motors looking for media to reach non-white consumers

Telenovela

A television soap opera

Big three/four networks

ABC, NBC, CBS, fourth network: FOX -1940s: Big Three television networks are the companies that have provided programs to local stations around the country since the start of the television industry. 1980s: Fox added on creating Big Four Networks

What is PBS?

Congress passed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, established Corporation for Public Broadcasting to provide funds for a wide range of noncommercial programs, including public service as well as educational programs Public Broadcasting System: nonprofit broadcast network provides a wide range of public service & educational programs, funded by government appropriations, private industry underwriting, & viewer support At first had small audiences except for daytime children's programming Sesame Street, Nov. 8, 1969 premiered 1990s started attracting a significant audience with programs like Ken Burns documentaries The Civil War and Baseball Led to support from number of large corporations hoped their brief underwriting announcements would reach upscale audiences who watch PBS Announcements not quite commercials, but allow corporations to present a brief message to viewers

Anthology drama

Early American television series format or genre in which each episode was a discrete story/play rather than a weekly return to the same setting, characters, and stars

Ratings and Sweeps PeopleMeter:

Electronic box used by ratings company Nielsen Media Research to record which tv shows people watch

Man of the House

In the post WWII days of American primetime television, the depictions of men at home as being the stable breadwinner who could solve any problem that faced the family was borne out of a need for the American populace to feel safe. The counterculture movement of the 1960's made those depictions seem outmoded and unrealistic. The shows of Norman Lear, most specifically _"All in the Family" (1968)_, broke open that mold, where the men were shown as being independent thinkers often regardless of the needs of the family. By the mid 1980's, these two trends melded with The Cosby Show (1984), where Cliff Huxtable had a very specific point of view with regard to how to raise his often defiant children. In the 1990's and beyond, the post-feminist era made the man at home more undefined, where he could be placed in almost any role, from the self-absorbed shlub (such as Ray Barone or Homer Simpson) to the self-doubting family man (such as Michael Steadman, Tony Soprano or Walter White). And different forms of the family and their associated issues are also now shown, from Modern Family (2009) to Big Love (2006) to The Bernie Mac Show (2001).

Cable TV

Initially cable was designed as a delivery system for broadcast channels Community Antenna TV (CATV): early form of cable tv used to distribute broadcast channels in communities with poor tv reception Connecting to early cable systems was expensive $100-$200 Cable remained a way to serve areas with poor reception FCC devised restrictive rules to keep that way Until 1970s cable was primarily a way to get good TV signal, not additional programming

Syndication

Licensing of the right to broadcast television and radio programs by multiple television and radio stations, without going through a broadcast network

Rating point:

Percentage of the total potential television audience actually watching a particular show. One rating point indicates an audience of approximately 1.14 million viewers

Influence of I Love Lucy

Television program rescued a rocky marriage, bringing forth an emotionally renewed and financially triumphant family 1950s produced by redheaded actress & her Cuban American Husband Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz created in 1951 1) persuaded CBS to let Arnaz play Lucy's husband, since he was Hispanic 2) Most tv shows broadcast live from NY City studios Lucy&Desi wanted to continue to live in Calif Film show before a studio audience, edit program like a movie, ship it NY to be Within a year, show was the most popular show on tv Half-hour comedy filmed with 3 cameras before a live studio audience broadcast

Network affiliate relationship

The affiliate stations require a license from the FCC, equipment, local staff. The local station has the choice of what shows to carry. If a station carries a particular program, the station receives a fee from the network, along with the revenue from selling local commercials during the show. The network makes its money from the national commercials that run during the program. If an individual station decides that it could make more money running a locally produced program, or a program from an independent producer, it can do so. In this case, the station pays for the program, but keeps all the advertising revenue. The only exceptions are the dozen or so stations that each network owns and operates; although they have a certain amount of independence, these stations must please their network owners.

Single sponsorship

only one advertiser that usually sponsored a single program

Amos and Andy

two black characters in old US radio and television programmes, who were played by white actors