“Television is the medium from which most of us receive our news,
sports, entertainment, cues for civic discourse, and, most of all, our
marching orders as consumers.”
–Frank Rich, New York Times, 1998
• Since replacing radio in
the 1950s as our most
popular medium,
television has sparked
repeated arguments
about its social and
cultural impact. During
the 1990s, for example,
teachers, clergy,
journalists, and others
waged a public assault on
TV’s negative impact on
children.
• In times of crisis, our
fragmented and pluralistic
society has turned to
television as a
touchstone, as common
ground.
• In this age of increasing market
specialization, television is still the
one mass medium that delivers
content millions can share
simultaneously—everything from the
Super Bowl to a network game show
to the coverage of natural disasters.
• In 1948, only 1 percent of America’s households had a
television set;
• by 1953, more than 50 percent had one; and by the early
1960s, more than 90 percent of all homes had a TV set.
• With television on the rise throughout the 1950s, many
feared that radio—as well as books, magazines, and
movies—would become irrelevant and unnecessary.
• What happened, of course, is that both radio and print
media adapted to this new technology.
• In fact, today more radio stations are operating and more
books and magazines are published than ever before;
only ticket sales for movies have flattened and declined
slightly since the 1960s.
Early TV Technology
• “‘There’s nothing on it
worthwhile, and we’re
not going to watch it
in this household, and
I don’t want it in your
intellectual diet.’”
• –Kent Farnsworth,
recalling the attitude
of his father (Philo)
toward TV when Kent
was growing up
• On September 7, 1927, at
age twenty-one,
Farnsworth transmitted
the first TV picture
electronically by rotating
a straight line scratched
on a square of painted
glass by 90°. Finally, in
1930, he patented the
first electronic television.
RCA, then the world
leader in broadcasting
technology, challenged
Farnsworth in a major
patents battle.
• He later licensed these
patents to RCA and
AT&T for use in the
commercial development
of television. Farnsworth
conducted the first public
demonstration of
television at the Franklin
Institute in Philadelphia in
1934—five years before
RCA’s famous public
demo at the 1939 World’s
Fair.
Setting Technical Standards
• In the late 1930s, the National Television
Systems Committee (NTSC), a group
representing major electronics firms, began
meeting to outline industry-wide
manufacturing and technical standards.
• As a result of these meetings, in 1941 the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
adopted a 525-line image, scanned
electronically at thirty frames per second
(fps), which became and will remain the U.S.
analog standard for all TV sets until the new
digital standard phases out old sets in 2009
Fiddling with Frequencies and
Freezing TV Licenses
• In the 1940s, the FCC began assigning certain channels to specific
geographic areas to make sure there was no interference. (One
effect of this was that for years New Jersey had no TV stations
because those signals would have interfered with the New York
stations.) The FCC also set aside thirteen channels (1–13) on a VHF
(very high frequency) band for black-and-white television.
– At this time, though, most electronics firms were converting to wartime
production, so commercial TV development was limited: Only ten
stations were operating when Pearl Harbor was attacked in December
1941.
• However, by 1948, the FCC had issued nearly a hundred television
licenses. Due to growing concern about the allocation of a finite
number of channels and with growing frequency-interference
problems as existing channels “overlapped,” the FCC declared a
freeze on new licenses from 1948 to 1952.
• NTSC conference in 1952 sorted out technical problems,
the FCC ended the licensing freeze and issued a major
report finalizing technical standards, many still in use
today.
– Among its actions, the FCC set aside seventy new channels
(14–83) on a UHF (ultrahigh frequency) band, although few
manufacturers in the 1950s made TV sets equipped with UHF
reception. As a result, UHF license holders struggled for years,
until a 1964 law finally required manufacturers to equip sets with
UHF reception.
• the FCC eventually “took back” channels 70–83 and
reassigned those frequencies (plus VHF’s channel 1) to
other communication services, including new radio
allocations and cellular phones. During this period, most
major cities were assigned four to five VHF signals and
maybe another five to six UHF signals.
• In 1954, RCA’s color
system, which could
also receive black-andwhite images, usurped
CBS to become the
color standard.
Although NBC began
broadcasting a few
shows in color in the
mid-1950s, it wasn’t
until 1966 that all three
networks broadcast
their entire evening
lineups in color.
• By the mid-1950s, there
were more than four
hundred television
stations in operation—a
400 percent surge
since the pre-freeze
era. Today, about
seventeen hundred TV
stations are in
operation, including
more than three
hundred nonprofit
stations.
Sponsorship and Scandal—TV Grows
Up
• Like radio in the 1930s and 1940s, early television
programs were often conceived, produced, and
supported by a single sponsor. Many of the top-rated
programs in the 1950s even included the sponsor’s
name in the title: Buick Circus Hour, Camel News
Caravan, Colgate Comedy Hour, and Goodyear TV
Playhouse. Today no regular program on network
television is named after and controlled by a single
sponsor.
• David Sarnoff, then head of RCA/NBC, and William
Paley, head of CBS, saw the opportunity to diminish
the role of sponsors. Enter Sylvester “Pat” Weaver
(father of actress Sigourney Weaver), who was
appointed president of NBC by Sarnoff in 1953.
•
By increasing program length from
fifteen minutes (standard for radio
programs) to thirty minutes and
longer, Weaver substantially raised
program costs for advertisers.
•
In addition, two new programming
changes made significant inroads in
helping the networks gain control of
content.
– The first strategy featured the
concept of a “magazine” program
that included multiple segments—
news, talk, comedy, music, and the
like—similar to the content variety
found in a general-interest or
newsmagazine of the day, such as
Life or Time. In January 1952, NBC
introduced the Today show, which
started as a three-hour morning talknews program. Then in September
1954, NBC premiered the ninetyminute Tonight Show.
– The second strategy, known
originally as the “spectacular,” is
today recognized by a more modest
term, the television special. At NBC,
Weaver bought special programs,
like Laurence Olivier’s filmed version
of Richard III and the Broadway
production of Peter Pan, again
selling spot ads to multiple
sponsors. The 1955 TV version of
Peter Pan was a particular success,
watched by some sixty-five million
viewers (compare the final episode
of NBC’s Friends, watched by about
fifty million viewers in spring 2004).
The Quiz-Show Scandals Seal Sponsorship’s Fate
Quizmaster Jack Barry questions
contestants on Twenty-One (NBC, 1956–
58), the popular game show that was
struck by scandal in 1958.
• The problem was that
most of these shows
were rigged. To heighten
the drama and get rid of
guests whom the
sponsors or producers
did not find appealing,
key contestants were
rehearsed and given the
answers.
• The most notorious rigging
occurred on Twenty-One,
a quiz show owned by
Geritol (whose profits
climbed by $4 million one
year after deciding to
sponsor the program in
1956).
Implications of the Scandal
• First, the pressure on TV executives to rig the programs and
the subsequent fraud effectively put an end to any role
sponsors might have had in creating television content.
• Second, although many Americans had believed in the
democratic possibilities of television—bringing inexpensive
information and entertainment into every household—this
belief was undermined by the sponsors and TV executives
who participated in the quiz-show fraud.
• The third, and most important, impact of the quiz-show
scandals was that they magnified the separation between the
privileged few and the general public, a division between high
and low that would affect print and visual culture for at least
the next forty years.
Major Programming Trends in the TV
Age
TV Information: Our Daily News Culture
• NBC News
• Featuring in the beginning a
panel of reporters
interrogating political
figures, NBC’s weekly Meet
the Press (1947– ) remains
the oldest show on
television.
– Daily evening newscasts,
though, began on NBC in
February 1948 with the
Camel Newsreel Theater.
Originally a ten-minute Fox
Movietone newsreel that
was also shown in theaters,
this filmed news service was
converted to a live broadcast
one year later.
• Camel News, sponsored
by a cigarette company,
was succeeded by the
Huntley-Brinkley Report
in 1956. With Chet
Huntley in New York and
David Brinkley in
Washington, this coanchored NBC program
became the most popular
TV evening news show.
CBS News
• Walter Cronkite, the most
respected and popular
network newsman in TV
history, anchored the CBS
Evening News from 1962 to
1981. Cronkite ended his
newscasts with his famous
signature line, “And that’s
the way it is,” followed by
the day’s date. (When the
popular anchor took a stand
against the Vietnam War, it
influenced President
Lyndon Johnson’s decision
not to run again for
president in 1968.)
The CBS-TV News with Douglas
Edwards, premiered on CBS in
May 1948. In 1956, the CBS
program became the first news
show videotaped for rebroadcast
on affiliate stations
(independently owned stations
that sign contracts with a
network and carry its programs)
in western time zones.
ABC News
• Over the years, the ABC
network tried many anchors
and formats as it attempted to
compete with NBC in the
1960s and CBS in the 1970s.
• In 1978, he launched ABC
World News Tonight, featuring
four anchors: Frank Reynolds
in Washington, Jennings in
London, Walters in New York,
and Max Robinson in Chicago.
Robinson was the first black
reporter to coanchor a network
news program.
• In 1983, ABC chose
Jennings to return as the
sole anchor. By the late
1980s, the ABC evening
news had become the
most-watched newscast
until, in 1996, it was
dethroned by Brokaw’s
NBC Nightly News.
Contemporary Trends in Network and Cable
News
•
In an effort to duplicate the
financial success of 60 Minutes,
the most profitable show in TV
history, the Big Three networks
began developing relatively
inexpensive TV newsmagazines.
•
This format, pioneered in 1968 by
60 Minutes, usually featured three
stories per episode (rather than
one topic per hour—as was the
custom on Edward R. Murrow’s
See It Now [CBS 1951–59]),
alternating hard-hitting
investigations of corruption or
political intrigue with “softer”
features on Hollywood celebrities,
cultural trends, and assorted
dignitaries.
•
Copying this formula, ABC’s 20/20
and Primetime Live became
moneymakers, and 20/20 aired
three or four evenings a week by
2000. NBC’s newsmagazine
Dateline was appearing up to five
nights a week by 2000—airing so
often that critics accused NBC of
trivializing the formula.
– “If NBC found five more Seinfelds,
there would be two or three fewer
Datelines on the air. That’s not
news. That’s filler.”
Don Hewitt, 60 Minutes
founder and executive producer,
1998
• By 2000, the Fox network had started its own
twenty–four–hour news service on cable, and NBC,
which already operated one cable news channel
(CNBC), had teamed up with Microsoft to launch
MSNBC, the first news channel available
simultaneously on cable and the Web. Both cable
and the Internet, offering twenty–four–hour access
to wire services and instant access to news about
specific topics, continue the slow erosion of the
traditional network news audience
Two important variations on the news have
surfaced in these programs.
• First, daily opinion programs such as MSNBC’s Hardball, starring
Chris Matthews, and Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, starring Bill
O’Reilly, proliferated on cable. Usually touting speculation and
conjecture over traditional reporting based on verified facts, these
programs emerged primarily because of their inexpensive costs
compared to traditional news: It is much cheaper to anchor a
program around a single “talking head” personality and a few guests
than to dispatch expensive equipment and field reporters to cover
stories from multiple locations.
• Second, the demands of filling up time inexpensively during a
twenty-four-hour daily news operation have led to more viewer
participation via studio audiences asking questions and call-in
phone lines. CNN’s long-running Larry King Live program allows
selected viewers to participate in the news while keeping program
costs down.
TV Entertainment: Our Comic and Dramatic
Culture • Televised Comedy:
From Sketches to
Sitcoms
• Television comedy then
(as now) came in three
varieties: the sketch
comedy (the forerunner
of programs such as
Saturday Night Live),
the situation comedy
(or sitcom), and the
domestic comedy.
• sketch comedies: vaudeo, the marriage
of vaudeville and video.
– These programs included singers, dancers,
acrobats, animal acts, and ventriloquists as
well as comedy skits. The shows “resurrected
the essentials of stage variety entertainment”
and played to noisy studio audiences.5
• Situation Comedy. Over the
years, the major staple on
television has been the halfhour comedy series, the only
genre represented in the Top
10–rated programs every year
between 1949 and 2005, when
the rise of dramas and reality
shows made up the Top 10
programs.
– situation comedy, features a
recurring cast. The story
establishes a situation,
complicates it, develops
increasing confusion among its
characters, and then usually
alleviates the complications.7 I
Love Lucy from the 1950s; the
Beverly Hillbillies from the
1960s; Happy Days from the
1970s; Night Court from the
1980s; Seinfeld from the 1990s;
and Will & Grace, The Office,
and HBO’s Curb Your
Enthusiasm from the 2000s are
all part of this long tradition.
The most durable genre in the history of television has been the half-hour
comedy. Until 2005-06, it was the only genre that has been represented in
the Nielsen rating Top 10 lists every year since 1949. Below is a selection
of top-rated comedies at five-year intervals, spanning fifty years.
• domestic comedy: a TV
hybrid of the sitcom in
which characters and
settings are usually more
important than complicated
situations; it generally
features a domestic
problem or work issue that
characters have to solve.
•
Televised Drama: Anthologies vs.
Episodes
anthology drama: a popular form
• The commercial networks
of early TV programming that
brought live dramatic theater to
television; influenced by stage
plays, anthologies offered new
teleplays, casts, directors, writers,
and sets from week to week.
•
• Although any given show
might offer a wacky
situation as part of a
subplot, more typically the
main narrative features a
personal problem or family
crisis that characters have
to solve. There is a greater
emphasis on character
development than on
reestablishing the order that
has been disrupted by
confusion. Domestic
comedies take place
primarily at home (Leave It
to Beaver; Everybody Loves
Raymond), at the workplace
(Just Shoot Me; Spin City),
or at both (Frasier; Friends).
In the 1952–53 season alone,
there were eighteen anthology
dramas competing on the
networks. Programs such as Kraft
Television Theater (1947–58 and
actually created to introduce
Kraft’s Cheez Whiz product),
Studio One (1948–58), Alfred
Hitchcock Presents (1955–65),
Playhouse 90 (1956–60), and the
Twilight Zone (1959–64) mounted
original plays each week.
eventually stopped producing
anthologies for economic and
political reasons.
•
Anthologies often presented
stories that confronted complex
human problems that were not
easily resolved. Chayefsky had
referred to these dramas as the
“marvelous world of the ordinary.”9
– The commercials that interrupted the
drama, however, told upbeat stories
in which problems were easily
solved by purchasing a product: “a
new pill, deodorant, toothpaste,
shampoo, shaving lotion, hair tonic,
car, girdle, coffee, muffin recipe, or
floor wax.” 10 By probing the
psychology of the human condition,
complicated anthologies made the
simplicity of the commercial pitch
ring false. Another aspect of the
sponsors’ dilemma was that these
dramas often cast “non-beautiful
heroes and heroines,” 11 unlike the
stars of the commercials.
Episodic Series. Abandoning anthologies,
producers and writers increasingly
developed episodic series
• The episodic series
comes in two general
types: chapter shows
and serial programs.
• Chapter shows
employ self-contained
stories that feature a
problem, a series of
conflicts, and a
resolution. This
structure can be used
in a wide range of
dramatic genres
• serial programs are
open-ended episodic
shows; that is, in these
series, most story lines
continue from episode
to episode. Cheaper to
produce, usually
employing just a few
indoor sets, and
running five days a
week, daytime soap
operas are among the
longest-running serial
programs in the history
of television.
• In the 1970s, however, with the
popularity of the network
miniseries—a serial that runs
over a two-day to two-week
period, usually on consecutive
nights—producers and the
networks began to look at the
evening serial differently. The
twelve-part Rich Man, Poor
Man, adapted from an Irwin
Shaw novel, ranked number
three in national ratings in
1976. The next year, the eightpart Roots miniseries, based
on writer Alex Haley’s search
for his African heritage,
became the most-watched
miniseries in TV history.
• These miniseries
demonstrated to the networks
that viewers would watch a
compelling, ongoing story in
prime time.
• Another type of contemporary
serial is a hybrid form that
developed in the early 1980s
with the appearance of Hill
Street Blues (1981–87). Mixing
comic situations and grim
plots, this multiple-cast show
looked like an open-ended
soap opera. On occasion, as in
real life, crimes were not
solved and recurring
characters died.
• Hill Street Blues (top, 1981-87)
began the hybrid form of
dramas with its mix of comic
and serious plot lines. Among
the most popular dramas in TV
history, ER (middle) premiered
in 1994 and was the No. 1
rated program for several
years. ER made history in
1998 when NBC agreed to pay
the program’s producers a
record $13 million per episode.
In 2005-06, Grey’s Anatomy
(bottom) emerged as the ER
for a new generation, and in
2007 it finished No. 5 in the
overall ratings and received 10
Emmy nominations.
The Decline of the Network Era
• Two major
technological
developments
contributed significantly
to the erosion of
network dominance: the
arrival of
communication satellite
services for cable
television and the home
video market.
• Then, in December
1976, Ted Turner
beamed, or uplinked,
the signal from WTBS,
his Atlanta-based
independent station
(not affiliated with a
network), to a satellite
where cable systems
and broadcast stations
around the country
could access, or
downlink, it.
• The impact of
videocassettes on the
networks was enormous.
By 1997, nearly 90
percent of American
homes were equipped
with VCRs, which are
used for two major
purposes: time shifting
and movie rentals. Time
shifting occurs when
viewers tape shows and
watch them later, when it
is more convenient.
• By 2007, 20 percent of
U.S. homes had DVRs
(digital video
recorders), enabling
users to find and record
specific shows onto the
computer memory of the
DVR, as opposed to
storage on bulky tapes.
Perhaps more important,
the technology can seek
out specific shows or
even types of shows that
appear on any channel
connected to the DVR
The Economics of Television
• Prime-Time Production
• The key to the television industry’s appeal resides in its ability to
offer programs that American households will habitually watch on a
weekly basis.
– deficit financing: in television, the process whereby a TV production
company leases its programs to a network for a license fee that is actually
less than the cost of production; the company hopes to recoup this loss later
in rerun syndication.
– rerun syndication: in television, the process whereby programs that stay in
a network’s lineup long enough to build up a certain number of episodes
(usually four seasons’s worth) are sold, or syndicated, to hundreds of TV
markets in the United States and abroad.
• Production costs in television generally fall into two categories: belowthe-line and above-the-line.
– Below-the-line costs, which account for roughly 40
percent of a new program’s production budget, include
the technical, or “hardware,” side of production:
equipment, special effects, cameras and crews, sets and
designers, carpenters, electricians, art directors,
wardrobe, lighting, and transportation.
– More demanding are the above-the-line, or “software,”
costs, which include the creative talent: actors, writers,
producers, editors, and directors. These costs account
for about 60 percent of a program’s budget, except in the
case of successful long-running series (like Friends or
ER), in which salary demands by actors drive up abovethe-line costs.
Measuring Television by Ratings and
Shares
• rating: in TV
audience
measurement, a
statistical estimate
expressed as a
percentage of
households tuned to a
program in the local
or national market
being sampled.
• share: in TV
audience
measurement, a
statistical estimate of
the percentage of
homes tuned to a
certain program,
compared with those
simply using their sets
at the time of a
sample.
The Top 10 Highest-Rated TV
Series, Individual Programs (since
1960)
Program
Network
Date
Rating
2
Dallas (“Who Shot J.R.?” episode)
CBS
11/21/1980
53.3
3
The Fugitive (final episode)
ABC
8/29/1967
45.9
4
Cheers (final episode)
NBC
5/20/1993
45.5
5
Ed Sullivan Show (Beatles’ first U.S. TV
appearance)
CBS
2/9/1964
45.3
6
Beverly Hillbillies
CBS
1/8/1964
44
7
Ed Sullivan Show (Beatles’ second U.S. TV
appearance)
CBS
2/16/1964
43.8
8
Beverly Hillbillies
CBS
1/15/1964
42.8
9
Beverly Hillbillies
CBS
2/26/1964
42.4
10
Beverly Hillbillies
CBS
3/25/1964
42.2
1
M*A*S*H (final episode)
CBS
2/28/1983
60.2
The Public, Television, and
Democracy
• As the television industry
works to reimagine itself in
the new century, it is
important to remember that in
the 1950s, television carried
the antielitist promise that its
technology could bypass
traditional print literacy and
reach all segments of society.
• In such a heterogeneous and
diverse nation, the concept of
a visual, affordable mass
medium, giving citizens
entertainment and
information that they could all
talk about the next day, held
great appeal.
• However, since its creation,
commercial television has
tended to serve the interests
of profit more than those of
democracy.
• And networks have proved
time and again that they are
more interested in delivering
audiences to advertisers than
in providing educational and
provocative programming to
citizens and viewers.