CHAPTER ESSENTIALS

• In the development stage of television, early inventors (Zworykin and Farnsworth) competed to establish a patent for the first electronic TV. In the entrepreneurial stage, TV developed technical standards and turned into a business; the FCC adopted analog (broadcast signals made of radio waves) for all U.S. TV sets. In the mass medium stage, the FCC began assigning channels throughout the country and later introduced the color standard (pp. 228–230).
• Television soon became a big business, and broad-cast networks competed for control over its content, mainly by setting out to diminish sponsors’ influence on and ownership of programming. Spot advertising developed (pp. 230–231).
• In the late 1950s, the rigging of quiz shows, in particular Twenty-One, tainted TV’s reputation and caused networks to further minimize the control of sponsors. For the next forty years, quiz shows were kept out of prime time, the all-important 7–11 P.M. (EST) time slot with large audiences (pp. 231–232).
• The introduction of cable provided access for communities that couldn’t receive airwave-based broadcast signals, but it also posed a major competitive threat to broadcast television. The first small cable systems—CATV, or community antenna television—originated in the late 1940s (pp. 232–233).

• In the 1950s broadcast networks began specializing in different types of programming. Information, in the form of news, became popular with the major networks: ABC, NBC, and CBS (the first to run a news show videotaped for rebroadcast on affiliate stations, which contract with a network to carry its programs) (pp. 233–234).
• The networks also experimented with entertainment programming—sometimes preserving shows with kinescopes made by using a film camera to record live shows off a monitor. Comedies became popular and came in two varieties: sketch comedy and situation comedy (sitcom) (pp. 234–235).
• Drama arose as another genre of entertainment programming. Anthology dramas brought live dramatic theater to viewers; episodic series showed central characters appearing every week. Episodic series come in two types: chapter shows and serial programs (pp. 235–237).
• Other programming genres that have arisen in TV’s history include talk shows, TV newsmagazines, reality TV, and public television (pp. 237–238).

• With the advent of satellite TV, cable companies could excel at narrowcasting—delivery of specialized programming for niche viewer groups (thereby cutting into broadcasting’s large audiences) (pp. 238, 240).
• Basic cable is composed of local broadcast signals, nonbroadcast access channels, a few regional PBS stations, and a variety of cable channels (including superstations—independent broadcast stations uplinked to a satellite). Premium channels include movie channels and interactive services, such as pay-per-view (PPV) and video-on-demand (VOD) (pp. 239, 242–243).

• From the late 1950s to the end of the 1970s—the network era—CBS, NBC, and ABC dominated prime-time TV programming. To undercut the networks’ power, the FCC passed a series of regulations, such as the fin-syn rules in 1970 that banned the networks from running their own syndication companies. (This was in response to the networks’ acquisition of syndicated shows and infotainment programs—those that package human-interest and celebrity stories.) These rules have since been eliminated (pp. 243–244).
• Through the must-carry rules, the FCC required all cable operators to assign channels to and carry all local TV broadcasts on their systems. It also mandated access channels, requiring cable systems to provide free nonbroadcast channels for education, local government, and the public; and leased channels, on which citizens could buy time. In response, cable operators maintained they operated like electronic publishers (and, as such, they should carry whatever channels and content they wanted); however, some FCC officials claimed cable should be treated like common carriers—services like traditional phone companies that do not get involved in channel content. The Midwest Video case settled this in 1978, declaring cable operated like electronic publishers. Congress eventually rewrote the nation’s laws in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, bringing cable fully under federal jurisdiction (pp. 244–246).

• Home-video technologies challenged traditional television, starting with the introduction of videocassette recorders (VCRs) in 1975–1976. Today, viewers turn to DVDs, high-definition DVD players, cell-phone services, Internet downloading, and DVRs (digital video recorders), which let users download specific shows to the DVR’s computer memory (pp. 246–247).
• Direct broadcast satellite (DBS) allows individual consumers to downlink hundreds of satellite channels and services for a monthly fee (pp. 249–250).
• Cell phones, mobile video, and wimax, which conveys data through traditional cell-phone connections to services that link mobile phones to traditional mass media, change how visual content is delivered (pp. 250).

• Both broadcast networks and cable programmers make money from syndication—leasing rights to air reruns or first-run programs during fringe time. The networks and cable programmers also make money from advertising, which is based on ratings and shares; only cable and DBS earn revenue from subscriptions (pp. 250–252).
• Broadcast networks and cable companies spend money on production and distribution of programs. This often involves deficit financing, in which the company leases the show to a network for a license fee that is less than the cost of production (pp. 253–254).
• Cable systems are being bought up by multiple-system operators (MSOs)—large corporations eager to cash in on the infrastructure of high-bandwidth wires connecting households across the country; this trend suggests a move toward oligopoly, in which a handful of megafirms control programming (pp. 254–256).

• Many people argue that cable hasn’t fully realized its potential and that its specialization has frayed the common shared experiences network programs once offered. Questions of access emerge as cable giants control content and cost (pp. 256–257).
• Regardless, television provides a forum where people gather to participate in cultural or sociological events like the Super Bowl, which can have both positive and negative effects on broadcasting and society p. 257).