b. Approximately 7 million people will binge watch an entire season of a popular Netflix series
the week it is released.
c. Somewhere between 3 and 5 million viewers a week watch episodes of Orange is the New
Black on Netflix.
d. Only Netflix knows, and they aren’t telling.
True/False
1. Ed Sullivan came to be known as “Mr. Television.”
2. Cable television has grown steadily in popularity in the United States from 1990 to 2010.
3. Ted Turner helped reinvent cable television by repackaging programming for distribution over
several separate networks.
4. When the VCR first came out, broadcasters and movie studios saw it as a great opportunity to
expand their markets.
5. When the VCR first came out, broadcasters and movie studios saw it as threat and tried to
make home recording illegal.
6. Television networks cannot require their affiliates to carry all of the network’s programs.
7. The Fox broadcast network today is largely irrelevant because all of its shows are poorly rated
and get fewer viewers than the Big Three networks.
8. The Fox Network first went on the air in 1975.
9. A single rating point represents one percent of the total potential television audience.
10. According to Ken Auletta, the “earthquake in slow motion” that shook up the television
industry was when the networks started broadcasting in color.
11. Spanish-language television stations such as Univision can attract nationwide audiences that
approach those of the Big Four networks.
12. Started in 1980 as a local channel in Washington, D.C., BET was the nation’s first all-horse
racing cable network.
13. Television content ratings were introduced the same year as movie ratings.
14. On the Dick Van Dyke Show in the 1960s, Mary Tyler Moore and Van Dyke played a
married couple but still had to sleep in separate beds in order to meet the decency standards of
the day.
15. Joshua Meyrowitz believes the very nature of television influences society because it breaks
down barriers.
16. Cable companies are replacing copper wire cable with fiber optic cable.
17. The Internet and television are becoming increasingly separate media.
18. The ABC show Scandal, which went on the air in 2012, was one of five network television
show in the 2000s that had an African American woman as the lead character.
Essay
1. Who received the first patents for all-electronic television broadcasting?
2. The Big Three networks were ______.
3. Name one of three technologies that have started to replace the VCR in the last five years.
4. Why do DVRs scare broadcasters?
5. When did digital television replace all-analog broadcasting in the United States?
6. What are the two formats for digital television broadcasting in the United States?
7. Name two reasons that the rate of growth of DVR adoption has slowed.
8. What is a PeopleMeter?
9. The Big Four networks are ______.
10. In a brief essay, why are cable networks like MTV or ESPN more profitable than the
broadcast networks?
11. List two different reasons a child might watch television.
12. In a brief essay, explain how Univision journalist Jorge Ramos approaches the conflict
between journalistic objectivity and advocacy on behalf of immigrant issues.
13. Media journalist Ken Auletta writes that television has been undergoing an “earthquake in
slow motion.” In a brief essay, explain what Auletta means by that, what initially caused the
“earthquake,” and what keeps it going today.
14. In a brief essay, discuss how television has become more diverse over the past ten years.
What are the reasons that have driven this move to diversity? How have television networks
gone about becoming more diverse in what they present?
15. In a brief essay, explain what it means to you to “watch television.” In your essay, discuss
what your sources of video programming are, what device or devices you use to watch TV with,
and how your understanding of what television is has changed over the last five years.
