The World of Television

1
The World of Television
2
Contents

• Television programs
• Famous TV presenters
• Popular dramas and soap operas
• Vocabulary list

3
Television programs
Scripted entertainment

• GENRES

Unscripted entertainment
Informational
4

• Dramatic television series (including police
  procedural, serial drama, science-fiction, or
  soap operas) or Television comedy (typically
  situation comedy or sketch comedy)
• Animated television series
• Miniseries and TV Movies
• Award show

5

• Talk shows
• Reality television
• Game shows

6

• News programs
• Documentary
• Television news magazine, dealing with current
  affairs
• TV infomercials, which are advertising paid spots

7
Famous TV presenters
8
Bob Barker

• Robert William "Bob" Barker (born December 12,
  1923) is a nineteen-time Emmy Award-winning
  former American television game show host. He is
  best known for hosting CBS's The Price Is Right
  from 1972 to 2007, making it the longest-running
  daytime game show in North American television
  history.
• After holding the job for nearly 35 years and
  having been in television for 50 years, Barker
  retired in June 2007.

9
Carol Burnett

• Carol Creighton Burnett (born April 26, 1933) is
  an American Emmy Award-winning actress, comedian,
  singer, dancer, and writer. Burnett started her
  career in New York. After becoming a hit on
  Broadway, she debuted on television. After
  successful appearances on The Garry Moore Show,
  Carol moved to Los Angeles and began an
  eleven-year run on the highly acclaimed The Carol
  Burnett Show which was aired on CBS television
  from 1967 to 1978.
• With roots in vaudeville, The Carol Burnett Show
  was a variety show combining comedy sketches,
  song, and dance. The comedy sketches ranged from
  movie parodies to character pieces which featured
  the many talents of Burnett herself who created
  and played several well-known and distinctive
  characters.

10
Kelly Ripa

• Kelly Maria Ripa (born October 2, 1970) an
  American Daytime Emmy Award-winning actress,
  television personality and talk show host. Since
  February 2001,1 she has served as the co-host
  of Live with Regis and Kelly. Earlier in her
  career, Ripa played Hayley Vaughan Santos on All
  My Children she also played Faith Fairfield on
  Hope Faith. Both are television series on ABC.
• Television workLive with Regis and Kelly
  (2001-present)
• It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie
  (2002)
• Hope Faith (2003-2006)
• Kim Possible A Sitch in Time (2003) (voice)
  
• Kelly Ripa's E! True Hollywood Story (2006)

11
Denise van Outen

• Denise van Outen (born May 27, 1974, Basildon,
  Essex) is an English television hostess and stage
  actress of partially Dutch descent. Her most
  notable roles to date were as a presenter on The
  Big Breakfast, and as Roxie Hart in the musical
  Chicago on both the West End and on Broadway.

12
Nichola Theobald

• Nichola "Nikki" Theobald is an English actress,
  voice-over, television presenter and fashion
  model. Voice-over roles include radio promotions
  for Sky Travel, Top Up TV and narration for a
  series of audio books of children's stories.
• Nichola Theobald began her career in the modeling
  industry and appeared in a shopwindow worldwide
  campaign for French Connection and then went on
  to appear in many editorials in magazines
  including Esquire and FHM.
• Following a second successful advertising
  campaign for French Connection her status as a
  model grew and she was featured in a variety of
  editorials in popular magazines such as Men's
  Health, Mixmag, Front, Loaded and Zoo.
• She appeared on the cover for the British feature
  film Triggerman which starred Pete Postlethwaite,
  Adrian Dunbar, Neil Morrissey, Donnie Wahlberg
  and Michael Rapaport.

13
Simon Amstell

• Simon Marc Amstell (born 29 November, 1979) is a
  BAFTA nominated, award-winning English comedian
  and television presenter. In 2007, Amstell was
  nominated for "The Times Breakthrough South Bank
  Show Award".
• His first professional television appearance was
  in 1998, as a presenter on the UK children's
  channel Nickelodeon.
• From 2000 to 2006 he presented Popworld on
  Channel 4 with Miquita Oliver. He voiced the
  characters "Timothy the Popworld melon" and
  "Richard the Popworld horse".
• Amstell also performs as a stand up comedian.

14
Famous dramas and soap operas
15
The Bold and the Beautiful
Format Soap opera

• The Bold and the Beautiful (often called BB or
  less commonly, Bold) is a popular American
  television soap opera, first broadcast on CBS on
  March 23, 1987. It was created by William J. Bell
  and Lee Phillip Bell as a sister show to their
  other soap opera The Young and the Restless. BB
  centers around the Forrester family and their Los
  Angeles fashion house business Forrester
  Creations.
• The show is the only American daytime soap opera
  currently on the air that runs for 30 minutes
  (the other shows run for an hour), and the only
  one to simulcast in a Spanish language track for
  Hispanic viewers in the United States (under the
  title Belleza y poder).
• BB is also unique to other American soaps in
  that it has a very strong worldwide audience.

16
CSI
Format Crime drama

• CSI Crime Scene Investigation (commonly referred
  to as CSI) is a popular, Emmy Award-winning CBS
  television series that trails the investigations
  of a team of Las Vegas forensic scientists as
  they unveil the circumstances behind mysterious
  and unusual deaths and other crimes.
• The show follows the cases of the Crime Scene
  Investigation division of the Las Vegas Police
  Department, usually referred to by officers as
  the "Las Vegas Crime Lab".

• The producer chose to set the series in Las Vegas
  because that city's crime lab is the second most
  active in the United States, after the Federal
  Bureau of Investigation lab in Quantico,
  Virginia.
• The division solves crimes almost entirely
  through forensics evidence, which may or may not
  come to conclusion of a murder or accidental
  death. The bizarre conclusions of these cases
  often force one to question morals and beliefs
  and possibly human nature in general.

17
Desperate Housewives
Format Comedy- drama

• The setting of the show is the street of Wisteria
  Lane in the fictional American town of Fairview,
  Eagle State. It follows the lives of a group of
  women, seen through the eyes of their dead
  neighbor, as they work through domestic struggles
  and family life, while facing the secrets, crimes
  and mysteries hidden behind the doors of their
  at the surface beautiful suburban neighborhood.
  
• Since its premiere on ABC on October 3, 2004, the
  show has been well received by the critics as
  well as the audience. The show is a multiple
  Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award
  winner, and in April 2007 it was reported to be
  the most popular show in its demographic
  worldwide, with an audience of approximately 115
  to 119 million viewers.

18
Melrose Place
Format Soap opera

• It is an American primetime soap opera that ran
  between 1992 and 1999, created by Darren Star for
  the FOX network and executive produced by Aaron
  Spelling. A spinoff from Beverly Hills 90210,
  though not featuring any permanent cast members
  crossing over, Melrose Place is set in a small
  apartment courtyard complex in the West Hollywood
  district of Los Angeles, where several young
  individuals reside, each with their own dreams
  and drives. The show's popularity led to a rash
  of similar nighttime serials about sexy, powerful
  women, such as Models, Inc., Pacific Palisades,
  and Central Park West, all of which were
  short-lived.
• Like its predecessor, the show struggled in its
  first season with low ratings. However, with the
  arrival of more interesting characters and
  over-the-top storylines, ratings increased. The
  show was cancelled after its seventh season.

19
Alf
Format Sitcom

• ALF is a 30-minute television sitcom that
  originally ran on NBC from 1986 to 1990. The plot
  involves the title character Gordon Shumway, an
  alien nicknamed ALF (for Alien Life Form)
  portrayed by Paul Fusco and Michu Meszaros, who
  crash lands in the garage of the suburban middle
  class Tanner family.
• The series stars Max Wright as father Willie
  Tanner, Anne Schedeen as mother Kate Tanner, and
  Andrea Elson and Benji Gregory as their two
  children, Lynn and Brian Tanner.

20
The Avengers
Format Spy - fi

• The Avengers was a British television series
  featuring secret agents in 1960s Britain. The
  programmes were made by TV company Associated
  British Corporation, and created by its Head of
  Drama Sydney Newman. It was an early example of
  the spy-fi genre, combining secret agent
  storylines with science fiction elements. Running
  from 1961 to 1969, it is the longest running
  espionage series produced for English-language
  television, though the American series Mission
  Impossible had more episodes (171).
• During the course of its run, The Avengers was
  marked by different eras as different co-stars
  came and went. The only constant was John Steed,
  played by Patrick Macnee.

21
Millennium
Format Drama, horror

• Millennium is an American television series
  produced by Chris Carter (creator of The
  X-Files), set during the years leading up to the
  dawn of the new millennium. It aired from 1996 to
  1999 on the Fox Network.
• Genre actor Lance Henriksen starred in the series
  as investigator Frank Black, a freelance forensic
  profiler and former FBI special agent with a
  unique ability to see the world through the eyes
  of serial killers and murderers, though he was
  not psychic. Black investigated the most horrific
  crimes and dealt with the mysterious Millennium
  Group, whose power and sinister intentions become
  more clear throughout the series. Black's
  character may have been inspired by the stories
  of real life FBI agents and criminal profilers
  such as John E. Douglas, the one-time head of the
  FBI's Behavioral Science Unit. While the series
  started out as a crime investigation series, it
  became more and more supernatural, like The
  X-Files, with which it later had a crossover
  episode.

22
Vocabulary list

• TV programme - something that you watch on
  television or listen to on the radio.
• TV presenter (TV hostess/host) - someone who
  introduces the different parts of a television
  show someone who gives a speech or gives someone
  a prize at a ceremony.
• Game show - a television programme in which
  people play games or answer questions to win
  prizes.
• Dramedy (Comedy-drama) - a style of television
  and movies in which there is an equal, or nearly
  equal balance of humor and serious content.

23

• Infomercial - a long television advertisement
  that provides a lot of information and seems like
  a normal programme.
• Vaudeville - a type of theatre entertainment,
  popular from the 1880s to the 1950s, in which
  there were many short performances of different
  kinds, including singing, dancing, jokes etc.
• Variety show - a television or radio programme or
  a performance that consists of many different
  shorter performances, especially musical and
  humorous ones.
• Voice-over - information or remarks that are
  spoken on a television programme or film by
  someone who is not seen on the screen.
• Spin - off - a television programme involving
  characters that were previously in another
  programme or film.
• Sitcom (a situation comedy) - a funny television
  programme in which the same characters appear in
  different situations each week.

24

• Spy-fi - a genre of spy fiction that includes
  elements of science fiction.
• It often showcases wild plots for world
  domination, gadgets and fast
• vehicles. Spy-fi does not present espionage as it
  is practiced in reality. It
• is escapist fantasy that emphasizes glamour,
  adventure and derring-do.
• Police procedural - a sub-genre of the mystery
  story which attempts
• to convincingly depict the activities of a police
  force as they investigate
• crimes. Unlike typical detective novels, which
  concentrate on one crime,
• police procedurals frequently show how police
  officers work to solve
• multiple crimes simultaneously.
• Sketch comedy consists of a series of short
  comedy scenes or vignettes,
• called "sketches," commonly between one and ten
  minutes long. Such sketches
• are performed by a group of comedic actors,
  either on stage or through an audio
• or/and visual medium such as broadcasting. Often
  sketches are first improvised
• by the actors and written down based on the
  outcome of these improv sessions,
• however improvisation is not necessarily involved
  in all sketch comedy.