1. The two researchers who played the most significant role in the technical development of
television were:
a. David Sarnoff and William Paley.
b. Lee de Forest and Edward R. Murrow.
c. Vladimir Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth.
d. Lee de Forest and David Sarnoff.
ANSWER: c
REFERENCES: Visual Radio Becomes Television
2. About 50 percent of all television stations in the United States are:
a. independent.
b. affiliated with a network.
c. noncommercial.
d. All of these answers are correct.
ANSWER: b
REFERENCES: Television Transforms Daily Life
3. Secretary of Commerce _______ appeared in one of the first experimental television
broadcasts in 1927.
a. John F. Kennedy
b. Herbert Hoover
c. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
d. Dwight Eisenhower
ANSWER: b
REFERENCES: Visual Radio Becomes Television
4. Philo T. Farnsworth:
a. invented the Audion tube.
b. was a TV news pioneer.
c. developed the cathode ray tube to reproduce an electronic image more clearly.
d. turned an electronic signal into a visual image.
ANSWER: c
REFERENCES: Visual Radio Becomes Television
CengageLearningTesting,PoweredbyCogneroPage1
Name: Class: Date:
Chapter 8: Television: Switching Channels
5. ThetwomenwhodevelopednetworkTVandheldthecountry’slargestinterestinradio
were:
a. Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.
b. Philo T. Farnsworth and Vladimir Zworykin.
c. Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch.
d. David Sarnoff and William Paley.
ANSWER: d
REFERENCES: Television Outpaces Radio
6. Theonlytypeoftelevisionprogrammingthatdidn’tcomefromradiois:
a. soap operas.
b. detective stories.
c. quiz shows.
d. talk shows.
ANSWER: d
REFERENCES: Television Outpaces Radio
7. The quiz show scandals of the 1950s:
a. caused the networks to eliminate advertiser-produced programming.
b. caused many stations to leave the networks to be independents with more control of their
programming.
c. led to an increase in advertiser-produced programming with greater network controls.
d. brought more quiz shows to television.
ANSWER: a
REFERENCES: Quiz Shows Bring Ethics Scandals
8. Former FCC chairman Newton Minow in 1961 said that television:
a. wasa“vastwasteland.”
b. hadfulfilledthepublic’sdemands.
c. enriched society.
d. would be dead by the year 2050.
ANSWER: a
REFERENCES: NewtonMinowCriticizesTVasa“VastWasteland”
CengageLearningTesting,PoweredbyCogneroPage2
Name: Class: Date:
Chapter 8: Television: Switching Channels
9. A rating is:
a. the number of people watching a program over a total television season.
b. a comparison of an audience for one show to the audience for another show.
c. the percentage of the total number of households with TV sets tuned to a specific program.
d. the percentage of people in a household watching a program on television.
ANSWER: c
REFERENCES: Ratings Target the Audience
10. Which of the following is not true about public television?
a. Publictelevisionhasbecomecommercialtelevision’sstepchild,withsponsorship
announcements that sound like commercials.
b. National Educational Television began offering some national programming in 1963.
c. Public television started because commercial television refused to air educational shows such
as Sesame Street.
d. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, begun in 1967, collects money from many sources
and distributes it to public TV stations.
ANSWER: c
REFERENCES: Public Television Finds an Audience
11. Inthelast25years,thecommercialbroadcastnetworks’(ABC,CBS,NBCandFox)share
of the prime-time audience has:
a. dramatically increased, thanks to innovative hit shows.
b. dramatically increased as new owners have bought the stations.
c. dramatically decreased because of cable and satellite TV and syndicated programming.
d. remained pretty much the same.
ANSWER: c
REFERENCES: Audiences Drive TV Programming
12. Which of the following is/are true about cable television?
a. The early cable-connected households were part of a CATV (community antenna TV) system.
b. More than half of American homes have basic cable TV.
c. TedTurner’sTNTfirstrelayedprogramsbysatellitein1976,andCNNbeganin1979.
d. All of these answers are correct.
ANSWER: d
REFERENCES: Cable and Satellite Expand Delivery
CengageLearningTesting,PoweredbyCogneroPage3
Name: Class: Date:
Chapter 8: Television: Switching Channels
13. Which of the following is not true of sports programming on TV?
a. Sports is one of the most profitable types of television programming.
b. Television fees fund most of the cost of organized sports.
c. The cost to networks of the rights to broadcast NFL games has not risen since about 1990
because viewership has fallen off.
d. Sports has expanded beyond TV networks to cable channels.
ANSWER: c
REFERENCES: TV Promotes Professional Sports
14. The Telecommunications Act of 1996:
a. allows one company to own TV stations that reach up to 35 percent of U.S. homes.
b. resulted in an increase in the number of companies that own television stations.
c. requires owners to keep a station for three years before selling it.
d. caused a decline in the number of television stations.
ANSWER: a
REFERENCES: Mergers Affect Station Ownership
15. HDTV:
a. is satellite TV providing access to 70 worldwide channels.
b. scans at least 1,125 lines across the screen for a higher resolution picture.
c. merges information from the Web and TV programs on one screen.
d. helped popularize educational programming on television.
ANSWER: b
REFERENCES: DigitalTechnologyBroadensTV’sFocus
16. A hallmark of 21st century television news coverage is:
a. live transmission from sites of conflict.
b. settingthepublic’sissuesagenda.
c. global transmission of images.
d. All of these answers are correct.
ANSWER: d
REFERENCES: Television Changes National and Global Politics
CengageLearningTesting,PoweredbyCogneroPage4
Name: Class: Date:
Chapter 8: Television: Switching Channels
17. Sweeps, the months in which TV ratings services gather their most important information,
occur during which months?
a. September, December, and May
b. May, August, and October
c. June, October, and March
d. February, May, and November
ANSWER: d
REFERENCES: Ratings Target the Audience
18. Which of the following was not true of television in the 1960s?
a. Audiences continued to be satisfied with the same programs they liked in the 1950s.
b. Advertisers came to rely on the Nielsen ratings to help them target a productive audience.
c. Television programming underwent criticism from the chairman of the Federal
Communications Commission.
d. Technological improvements included satellite transmission and color television broadcasting.
ANSWER: a
REFERENCES: NewtonMinowCriticizesTVasa“VastWasteland”
19. Which of the following is notanexampleoftelevision’sroleinAmericanpolitics?
a. the Kennedy-Nixon debates
b. live presidential press conferences beginning in the 1960s
c. praisebytheNixonadministrationoftelevision’sroleinsociety
d. coverage of congressional hearings on the Watergate scandal and the Iran-Contra affair
ANSWER: c
REFERENCES: Television Changes National and Global Politics
20. When American political conventions were broadcast for the first time nationwide, the
development that made that nationwide broadcast possible was:
a. radio announcers adapting to television.
b. AT&T’snationalcoaxialcablehookups.
c. NBC’sexperiencewithtelevision.
d. EdwardR.Murrow’sexperiencewithfieldbroadcasting.
ANSWER: b
REFERENCES: Television Outpaces Radio
CengageLearningTesting,PoweredbyCogneroPage5
Name: Class: Date:
Chapter 8: Television: Switching Channels
21. Which of the following is not true of public television in the United States?
a. The FCC began liberalizing rules for commercial announcements on public television in 1981.
b. A decline in donations by individuals to public television in the past 10 years has led to more
need for corporate funding.
c. PBS, the Public Broadcasting System, was created to distribute programs when the Johnson
administration and foundations added money to the budget of the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting.
d. Federal government support for public broadcasting has increased significantly in recent
years.
ANSWER: d
REFERENCES: Public Television Finds an Audience
22. Network affiliate television stations:
a. pay the network to be an affiliate.
b. send a portion of local advertising revenues to the network.
c. are paid by the network to carry network programming.
d. are usually owned by the network.
ANSWER: c
REFERENCES: Television at Work
23. TV stations that are owned and operated by the networks are called:
a. affiliates
b. broadcast networks
c. O & Os
d. local spot networks
ANSWER: c
REFERENCES: Television at Work
24. AccordingtotheImpact/Profilebox,“EdwardR.Murrow(1908–1965)SetstheStandard
forBroadcastNews,”whichofthefollowingistrue?
a. Murrowwasresponsibleforreportingaboutthe“PentagonPapers.”
b. Murrow was famous for his reporting in the Vietnam War.
c. Murrow started NBC’s news department.
d. It is difficult to recapture the real Ed Murrow from the haze that now shrouds the mythical
Murrow of history.
ANSWER: d
REFERENCES: Television Outpaces Radio
CengageLearningTesting,PoweredbyCogneroPage6
Name: Class: Date:
Chapter 8: Television: Switching Channels
25. Soap operas remain a staple of television programming and have grown in popularity and
number over the years.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
REFERENCES: Television Outpaces Radio
26. John F. Kennedy was the first president to appear on U.S. television.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
REFERENCES: Visual Radio Becomes Television
27. Two early broadcasters that covered the 1956 political convention were Chet Huntley and
David Brinkley.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
REFERENCES: Television Outpaces Radio
28. More than any other media industry, commercial TV exists primarily as an advertising
medium.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
REFERENCES: Television Outpaces Radio
29. Aratings“share”comparestheaudiencesizeofoneshowwiththeaudiencesizeof
another show.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
REFERENCES: Quiz Shows Bring Ethics Scandals
30. ATVstation’sproductiondepartmentmakessurealllocalcommercialsareairedwhen
they are supposed to be.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
REFERENCES: Television at Work
CengageLearningTesting,PoweredbyCogneroPage7
Name: Class: Date:
Chapter 8: Television: Switching Channels
31. Since the FCC rulings in 1981, corporations have been making announcements following
programming on public television which look much the same as advertisements on
commercial television.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
REFERENCES: Public Television Finds an Audience
32. ABC was created when the FCC forced David Sarnoff to sell one of his two networks.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
REFERENCES: Visual Radio Becomes Television
33. Based on audience delivery, television can charge a higher rate for its advertising than
any other American mass medium.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
REFERENCES: TV Delivers an Audience to Advertisers
34. AccordingtotheImpact/Societybox,“HowMuchTimeDoPeopleSpendEachWeek
WatchingTraditionalTVandInternetVideo?,”people50andolderwatchhalfasmuch
total TV per week as do people 17 and younger.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
REFERENCES: Television Transforms Daily Life
35. Explain the role that Edward R. Murrow played in the development of television news.
ANSWER: Answersmayvary.​
REFERENCES: Television Outpaces Radio
36. Discuss the development of programming on television in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s,
including references to its relationship to radio programming in the 1940s and ways
television programming changed as it developed.
ANSWER: Answersmayvary.​
REFERENCES: Television Transforms Daily Life
Name: Class: Date:
Chapter 8: Television: Switching Channels
37. Explain how video streaming could affect consumers and the television industry.
ANSWER: Answersmayvary.​
REFERENCES: Streaming TV Brings a New Vision
38. Discuss the rise in the competitive power of Spanish-language television and its effect on
English-language networks.
ANSWER: Answersmayvary.​
REFERENCES: Audiences Drive TV Programming
39. Discuss the relationship between organized sports, television programming, and
television viewers, and advertisers.
ANSWER: Answersmayvary.​
REFERENCES: TV Promotes Professional Sports
Name: Class: Date:
Chapter 8: Television: Switching Channels