Television lecture notes
· If you could watch television for only a couple of hours a week, what would you watch?
· Why do you watch television? for information or entertainment or both?
Television
-- medium of impact and immediacy
· everyone has access, just about anywhere – universal
· immediate coverage of important (sometimes not) news events
· highly credible
· part of our shared experience (we think everything else has seen what we have seen, which may not be true)
-- different from print in many ways
-- non-interactive
-- more choices than ever, but still choices are very limited
-- television content is expensive to produce and distribute
Development of television
-- idea of pictures through electromagnetic waves began in 1920s
-- content and technical develop spring from radio in mid 20th century
-- by late 1940s idea of television was far enough along that many could see it was feasible; FCC stopped issuing licenses to television stations for four years from 48 to 52 to resolve technical problems and establish a standard
-- television grew extraordinarily fast in the 1950s
-- programming, industry structure, business model, legal restraints all came from radio
-- television was local – local stations and ownership, diverse voices
-- technically television was local
-- idea of a network came from radio – having local stations join together to broadcast national programming; had an effect on entertainment and news
-- genres of television that we know today come from those developed in the early 1950s, and even from radio:
• news
• variety shows
• game shows
• soap operas (continuing drama – actually comes from 19th century magazine serializations)
Cable television
System of network domination was only two decades old when it began to change in an extraordinary way.
-- cable television originally provided service to areas where over-the-air broadcasting could not reach
-- satellites, which could transmit signals over long distances
-- idea occurred to several entrepreneurs that satellites and cable could be used to get non-network programming into homes:
• Gerald Levin, HBO
• Ted Turner, WTBS superstation phenomenon
BUT, would cities (which didn't NEED cable) buy it and allow companies to string the cable – and at what price?; could the programming be produced; would people want it, and pay for it?
The answer was YES, as we know.
Profound effect: shift from supplier choice to consumer choice and from the purely advertising model to the advertising/subscription model.
Television news
-- emphasis on the visual and sound
-- short – information, not explanation
-- highly credible
Developed in the 1950s (as did other parts of television) and had its beginnings in the radio genres; many of the people who developed radio news – veterans of the WWII news broadcasts – had a hand in developing television news. Chief among these was Edward R. Murrow.
Three events of the 1960s vaulted television into its premier place in news presentation:
-- JFK assassination
-- Civil rights movement
-- Vietnam (still seeing its effects today with the careers of George W. Bush and John Kerry)
Television news genres
-- news show with anchor and reporters
-- interview (Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Larry King Live, etc.)
-- documentary (not around much because it is expensive to produce), morphed into the television magazine show; Sinclair Broadcasting situation in 2004 campaign
-- talk, commentary
Criticism of television news
-- too short, too shallow
-- pictures drive a story
-- superficial over substances; cover what's easy
-- clichés in writing, reporting
Broadcasting regulation
-- First Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of speech
-- idea that the spectrum is owned by the public and the govt should regulate it
-- Federal Communications Commissions and idea of licensing
• issues licenses, controls the spectrum and its allocation
• enforces rules and regs set up by Congress
• has gone through various eras of regulation and deregulation (1980s time of deregulation, but we went back some from that in 1990s)
• concerned with indecent content
• once enforced the equal opportunity rule; tradition still exists but is being torn down by a number of broadcast entities, including Sinclair
In general, Congress and FCC have been careful not to intrude on the First Amendment rights of broadcasters either directly or in the presentation of news; at least, they haven't gone too far with this. The problem remains, however. How much can, should the govt regulate content.
Cable television, in theory, cannot be regulated because it does not use the spectrum; that has not stopped the FCC or Congress from imposing some rules on the cable industry and watching it to some extent.
Television Act of 1996 – gave us V-chip, ratings
Current controversies: how much concentration of the broadcast industry should we allow?
Questions?
http://www.jprof.com/courses/com101/07-television-notes.html
