Television

1
Television

• Chapter 8 - Vivian

2
Impact of Television

• 98 of American households have at least one TV
  set.
• On average, a TV set is on seven hours per day in
  those households.
• Television is the prime example of how mass media
  bind our society together in common experience.
  (give examples)

3
Michael Novak

• Television is a molder of the souls geography
• it incrementally builds up a psychic structure
  of expectations
• over a long period of time

4
What has TV done to the other media?

• Newspapers steady decline loss of national
  advertisers
• Magazines demassification
• Movies producers plan for the TV aftermarket
  distribution
• Books authors, agents and publishers plan for
  film and TV rights

5
Television technology

• Vladimir Zworkin Russian immigrant in 1920s,
  worked for Westinghouse and developed the
  iconoscope and kinescope tubes
• In 1930s Zworkins team developed the present
  day kind of TV system (RCA)
• 1939 New York Worlds Fair - demo

6
Television technology

• Movies 24 frames per second
• TV 30 frames per second (2 fields per frame)
• c. 1160 commercial TV stations in U.S.
• c. 5000 commercial AM radio stations
• c. 5000 commercial FM radio stations
• c.11000 local cable TV systems

7
TV networks / affiliates

• Local station gets 6 to 8 minutes per hour of
  network programmming time for local ads.
• In addition, the network pays the affiliate 30
  of its local ad rate for network-sold ads during
  network programming.
• In addition, the affiliate can sell national ads
  on their own in adjacencies as well as in local
  programming.

8
Other facts

• 6 out of 10 U.S. households subscribe to cable TV
  
• This represents c. 180 million viewers in 20,000
  communities.

9
Topics

• Edward R. Morrow
• Christine Craft
• Ted Turner
• Walter Cronkite
• Lucille Ball
• Sesame Street
• Gerald Levin