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Chapter 6
Television and Cable: The Power of Visual Culture
In this chapter, we examine television and cable’s cultural, social, and economic impact. We will:
• Review television’s early technological development
• Discuss TV’s boom in the 1950s and the impact of the quiz-show scandals
• Examine cable’s technological development and basic services
• Explore new viewing technologies, such as computers, smartphones, and tablets
• Learn about major programming genres: comedy, drama, news, and reality TV
• Trace the key rules and regulations of television and cable
• Inspect the costs related to the production, distribution, and syndication of programs
• Investigate the impact of television and cable on democracy and culture
Preview Story: The tense relationship between broadcast networks and cable television has quieted down,
and a new battle is playing out as television converges on smaller screens such as smartphones and
tablets.
I. The Origins and Development of Television
A. Early Innovations in TV Technology.
B. Electronic Technology: Zworykin and Farnsworth.
1. Setting Technical Standards.
2. Assigning Frequencies and Freezing TV Licenses.
3. The Introduction of Color Television.
C. Controlling Content—TV Grows Up.
1. Program Format Changes Inhibit Sponsorship.
2. The Rise and Fall of Quiz Shows.
3. Quiz-Show Scandal Hurts the Promise of TV.
II. The Development of Cable
A. CATV—Community Antenna Television.
B. The Wires and Satellites behind Cable Television.
C. Cable Threatens Broadcasting.
D. Cable Services.
1. Basic Cable Services.
2. Premium Cable Services.
E. DBS: Cable without Wires.
III. Technology and Convergence Change Viewing Habits
A. Home Video.
B. The Third Screen: TV Converges with the Internet.
C. Fourth Screens: Smartphones and Mobile Video.
IV. Major Programming Trends
A. TV Entertainment: Our Comic Culture.
B. TV Entertainment: Our Dramatic Culture.
1. Anthology Drama and the Miniseries.
2. Episodic Series.
C. TV Information: Our Daily News Culture.
1. Network News.
2. Cable News Changes the Game.
D. Reality TV and Other Enduring Genres.
E. Public Television Struggles to Find Its Place.
V. Regulatory Challenges to Television and Cable
A. Government Regulations Temporarily Restrict Network Control.
B. Balancing Cable’s Growth against Broadcasters’ Interests.
1. Must-Carry Rules.
2. Access-Channel Mandates.
3. Cable’s Role: Electronic Publisher or Common Carrier?
C. Franchising Frenzy.
D. The Telecommunications Act of 1996.
VI. The Economics and Ownership of Television and Cable
A. Production.
B. Distribution.
C. Syndication Keeps Shows Going and Going...
1. Types of Syndication.
2. Barter versus Cash Deals.
D. Measuring Television Viewing.
1. The Impact of Ratings and Shares on Programming.
2. Assessing Today’s Converged and Multiscreen Markets.
E. The Major Programming Corporations.
1. The Major Broadcast Networks.
2. Major Cable and DBS Companies.
3. The Effects of Consolidation.
F. Alternative Voices.
VII. Television, Cable, and Democracy
Case Study: ESPN: Sports and Stories
Media Literacy and the Critical Process: TV and the State of Storytelling
Tracking Technology: Binging Gives TV Shows a Second Chance—and Viewers a Second Home
Digital Job Outlook: Media Professionals Speak about Jobs in the Television Industry
LECTURE IDEAS
I. The Origins and Development of Television
• Early television’s black-and-white tubes were so primitive that to create the proper contrast under
studio lights, actors had to wear green face makeup and purple lipstick.
• Discuss the ways in which corporate sponsorship of news and entertainment programming affected
the content of those programs in the early days of broadcasting (e.g., the smoking news anchors, the
quiz show scandals), and discuss whether things have changed since then.
To illustrate the corporate sponsor’s power over newscasts in the days when single corporations
sponsored entire programs, consider this: During the Camel News Caravan programs, news anchor
John Cameron Swayze smoked while delivering the news, and a pack of Camel cigarettes and a
Camel ashtray were always in sight. Another stipulation was that no person on the program,
including the news anchors, could be shown at any time smoking a cigar. The only exception was
Winston Churchill, the British prime minister, who was a famous cigar smoker. No Smoking signs
were also forbidden. As other news programs were established, it was considered undignified not to
smoke while delivering television news. Anchors sometimes took the ultracasual/suave approach,
sitting on the front of the news desk (instead of behind it) with a cigarette in one hand and the news
copy in the other. Sometimes the anchors would also pace back and forth as they read the news (see
Barnouw, 1990, p. 170).
• Television, like the Internet today and radio before it, was sold as a “world university” that would
collapse spatial boundaries and bring knowledge and democracy to all. Advertisements for
television in the early 1950s positioned TV sets in front of scenic backdrops to convey the
exploratory potential of television, which brought the world to the home. In 1953, Emerson TV
even placed an ad in publications like Better Homes and Gardens that showed a TV set with a
channels such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.
• Play a clip from Quiz Show (1994, dir. Robert Redford) or from the documentary The Quiz Show
Scandals (1991, dir. Julian Krainin and Michael Lawrence) to illustrate the impact of the quiz-show
scandals on American television. Compare the early quiz shows and their ethical problems to the
potential ethical problems of today’s quiz shows and reality TV programming.
• Here’s a prescient quote from Robert Pinsky, the U.S. poet laureate from 1997 to 2000 that can just
as easily apply to reality programming:
Television’s great moments have had to do with presence, immediacy, and
unpredictability: Oswald wincing at Ruby’s bullet; Carlton Fisk dancing his home run
onto the right side of the Fenway foul pole; Joseph Welch shaming Joseph McCarthy;
Richard Nixon and Charles Van Doren sweating; athletes in agonies and ecstasies of
struggle; funerals; congressional hearings; men on the moon or in a white Bronco;
political conventions in the days before they were scripted and rehearsed. . . . The quiz
show, no matter how banal the form, no matter what scandals taint its history, cannot die
because—like sports programming—it offers predictable unpredictability.
—Robert Pinsky, “Creating the ‘Real’ in Bright Yellow and Blue,”
New York Times, November 5, 2000, pp. 12, 17
• FCC head Newton Minow’s famous “vast wasteland” speech to the National Association of
Broadcasters in 1961 about the state of television programming had an impact on the public
consciousness and is still often quoted. Minow asked listeners to sit in front of a TV set for an
entire day’s worth of programming and “discover” the vast wasteland of broadcast television. This
wasteland is, he said,
Public Broadcasting. Minow published a book in 1995 titled Abandoned in the Wasteland: Children,
Television, and the First Amendment. Minow’s speech is available at
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm.
II. The Development of Cable
• Consolidation has been a constant feature of the cable television industry. In 2015 alone, the
following cable and broadcast mergers or acquisitions were announced (pending regulatory
approvals): Media General bought Meredith Corp. (the combined company has eighty-eight
television stations); Gray Television has coverage in forty-nine markets with its acquisition of
Schurz Communications; Altice, a French company, will purchase Cablevision; Atlantic Broadband
purchased MetroCast, becoming the twelfth largest U.S. cable operator; and Charter
Communications announced its plans to buy Bright House Networks and Time Warner Cable (after
Comcast withdrew its bid to buy Time Warner Cable). In addition, AT&T’s purchase of DirecTV
was finalized in 2015.
• The employees of cable channel Comedy Central probably don’t like to think of their network as
the channel that was saved by Mr. Hankey, The Talking Christmas Poo. Yet it was the gross-out
humor of the animated series South Park (especially fan favorites like the “Mr. Hankey, the
Christmas Poo” episode) that secured Comedy Central’s position on cable systems across the
United States in the late 1990s. But sustaining a competitive schedule was difficult, and the second-
largest cable operator in the United States, TCI, dropped Comedy Central from millions of
households on cable systems around the country. From its debut in the summer of 1997, South Park
quickly gained a huge share of the eighteen- to twenty-four-year-old audience, and a year later it
broadcast TV as host of The Late Show on CBS.
• MTV started airing more than music videos in the 1990s. By 1997, its regular programming had
begun to lean more toward in-house productions, with shows like The Real World, the Jenny
McCarthy Show, Singled Out, Oddville, MTV Sports, Road Rules, Beavis and Butt-Head, Daria,
Loveline, and MTV’s Spring Break extravaganzas. The channel was no longer an exclusive
showcase for videos, a development that tweaked both the music industry and music video viewers.
III. Technology and Convergence Change Viewing Habits
• In some ways, the proliferation of third-screen technologies has contributed to bringing back the
viewing technology of the 1950s—antennas. Because viewers can now watch popular shows and
films online, many consumers are combining a set-top box like Roku (where they can access
Amazon OnDemand, Hulu Plus, and Netflix) with a digital antenna for the broadcast channels. This
option is becoming increasingly attractive to consumers as cable subscriptions get more expensive
and the variety of online viewing options increases. Although the growing popularity of services
like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu Plus, and devices like the Roku and Apple TV, has led to
speculation of mass “cord cutting” (consumers giving up their cable subscriptions for streaming
options), a 2011 Ad Age survey suggests that consumers are actually fairly evenly split on whether
or not they would drop their pay TV service. In fact, it seems that consumers would prefer to add
more and different options for watching television rather than eliminating services. Recent
developments have focused on consumers increasingly accessing television content via OTT (over-
the-top) platforms like Apple TV, Roku, and Netflix.
Cable providers like Time Warner are countering the new streaming options by offering streaming
While time shifting might not be good news for advertisers, it can mean excellent exposure for the
TV shows themselves. A 2007 Nielsen Media Research study of eighteen- to forty-nine-year-olds
watching The Office confirmed TV advertisers’ fears. Viewers who watched the episode in real
time skipped 6.2 percent of the commercials; viewers who watched the episode on a DVR skipped
51 percent of the commercials. More recent studies have confirmed these behaviors. This news,
however, was not entirely disheartening for network executives, for although DVR viewers skipped
half the commercials, they also watched half of them. Still, compared with real-time viewing, the
difference is drastic.
Ironically, the technology that seemed to be hurting advertisers is also valuable to them: Digital set-
top boxes, video-on-demand, and digital video recorders can tell advertisers who we are and what
we watch. They can track viewers’ choices as effectively as clicks through the Web. One idea
advertisers are experimenting with is the swapping of new commercials into shows taped on a
DVR: If a user tapes a show using a DVR but doesn’t watch it until a few days later, commercials
2. Entertaining “shorts” within commercial pods. In 2007, NBC hired Jerry Seinfeld to appear in
some of these shorts.
3. “Back loading” commercials: Shows will run without ads at the beginning but will contain
extra ads in the second half.
Another piece of information related to these developments: For the first time, Nielsen will release
ratings for commercial minutes. The ratings encompass viewings of a program and its commercials
for three days after the program is first broadcast. Some TV executives want ratings over seven
days after the first broadcast, to accommodate more viewers’ preferences (and increase ratings
reported to advertisers).
IV.Major Programming Trends
• Today, TV’s successful comedies—Modern Family, for example—tend to be shot with a single
camera, like film. There is no studio audience or canned laughter, and there is no common, shared
environment such as a living room, a couch, or a set of stairs in the background leading up to an
unseen second floor.
• A number of people in the television industry saw Home Improvement’s final episode in 1999 as the
end of an era. Domestic comedies, which tend to celebrate family and appeal to a broad audience,
are no longer attractive to television executives looking for younger and more affluent audiences.
One domestic comedy, Everybody Loves Raymond, faced enormous resistance from network
1960s. He was an impressive news reporter who quickly accelerated through CBS’s ranks as one of
the network’s young stars and became one of television journalism’s more colorful characters. He
was the first to get the scoop on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination; he expertly handled the
pressure of that event with a good deal of diligence and clarity and moved on to cover the Nixon
White House. Soon Rather landed a coveted spot on 60 Minutes, where the focus was investigative
journalism. In 1981, Rather was chosen over Roger Mudd to become anchor for CBS Evening
News, and he was one of the first to garner an enormous salary—$2.2 million a year for ten years—
that would be typical of network news anchors to follow. Even as television news depended more
and more on stars, Rather, who was paid to be one, never did attract the highest ratings of the three
network news broadcasts.
• Although other countries regard CNN as having an unmistakably American perspective, the
network has tried to avert these perceptions by several means. In the 1980s, Ted Turner announced
that writers using the word foreign to mean “outside the United States” would have to pay a $50
fine. Turner also promoted a unique TV show, CNN World Report, which shows news reports
produced by broadcasters from around the world. In addition to providing an international flair for
CNN’s programming, World Report contributors have sometimes become key sources on
international stories, giving CNN an edge over the competition. Its newsroom is a mixed bag of
• Although CNN set new standards in TV news, it is no longer the most-watched twenty-four-hour
cable news network. It first started to get competition in 1996, when two other news networks were
launched: Fox News Channel and MSNBC. In the wake of the 2001 AOL–Time Warner merger,
CNN came under heavy pressure to cut costs, even though the network had been turning a profit
since 1985. It let go of four hundred people out of its workforce of four thousand, including many
senior employees, thereby relieving the budget of their high salaries but also depleting the
newsroom of the people with the most experience. During this period, CNN lost a third of its
viewers, and Fox News jumped ahead in cable ratings. In 2015, Fox News was the most watched
cable channel for news, with more than two and a half times the number of people watching CNN
and three times the number of people watching MSNBC. Fox News ranked fifth among all basic
cable channels; by comparison, CNN was twenty-fourth, and MSNBC was thirty-first.
• CNN still has a powerful presence worldwide, but it is not the only big name on the international
news stage. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has a powerful international presence (not
Writers Guild of America notes: “Reality-based television is not new, of course. Allen Funt, with
his 1948 TV series Candid Camera is often credited as reality TV’s first practitioner. In fact, he
started a year earlier with Candid Microphone on radio. Truth or Consequences started in 1950 and
frequently used secret cameras. Both of these two pioneering series created artificial realties to see
how ordinary people would respond; the reality series of today borrow a lot from these precedents”
(http://writersguildtheater.org/organizesub.aspx?id=1099).
Reality shows first became a force in the television industry because they were cheap to produce.
But because reality shows are among the most-watched television programs and because reality TV
personalities are becoming stars, they are demanding higher salaries. The cast of Jersey Shore
shared $25,000 for the whole first season; for the fourth season, they reportedly earned $100,000
per episode. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post has summarized the long-term downside of reality
programming. In his article “TV’s New Reality: Hit Shows Are Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”
(Washington Post, February 17, 2003, p. A01), Farhi points out that the primary reason reality
writers on reality shows. The networks at first tried to promote the idea that these shows were
unscripted and completely spontaneous, with no writers involved. When that argument failed, they
maintained that writing for reality shows—which includes plotting story lines, editing interviews,
and in many cases creating dialogue—is still not really writing. To maintain this idea, reality show
writers are called “story editors,” “story producers,” and “post producers.” With barely any
legitimacy, reality TV writers have consequently been unable to unionize, and without
unionization, they earn shockingly low wages ($800 a week on some shows) and have to endure
Millionaire?), reversing a long-standing trend of American entertainment exports. The Dutch-based
entertainment group Endemol, for example, brought Big Brother and Fear Factor to the United
States, and the UK’s Syco TV (Simon Cowell’s company) brought The X Factor to the United
States in September 2011.
For manufacturers, reality TV has been wonderfully successful in terms of selling their products.
Scripts often feature anything from a sponsoring toothpaste to automobiles, and manufacturers are
integrations surpassed $4 billion in 2014, accounting for more than two-thirds of total US product
placement revenues” (http://www.pqmedia.com/about-press-20150615.html).
• Discuss the history and role of public broadcasting. Consider its place in the current climate of
television, and explore how it might compete in this era of evolving technology.
• It’s likely that many students grew up with Sesame Street. Created in 1969, Sesame Street aimed to
boost literacy across the country, but especially in America’s poorer inner cities. By communicating
“a vision of the world as it might be,” Sesame Street was also positioned as a tool for greater
democracy. The program became an antidote to Minow’s charge that television was a “vast
wasteland.” (See Minow’s speech, available at
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm, as well as an op-ed piece, “A
Glimmer in the Vast Wasteland,” that Minow wrote for the New York Times in 2012, available at
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/opinion/a-glimmer-in-the-vast-wasteland-of-television.html.)
In January 2016, Sesame Street’s new season debuted on HBO for the first time. The deal ensures
Sesame Street’s viability for at least five years. Episodes of Sesame Street will still air on PBS, but
nine months after they are first broadcast on HBO. This type of public-private media partnership
reflects the challenges that public broadcasting faces in the twenty-first century. (See Austin
Siegemund-Broka, “B Is for Broke: Why ‘Sesame Street’ Is Moving to HBO,” Hollywood Reporter,
August 19, 2015, available at http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/b-is-broke-why-sesame-
816105.)
V.Regulatory Challenges to Television and Cable
• Discuss the retransmission battles between broadcast networks and cable providers, including the
motivations behind these battles, what they mean for consumers, and what role (if any) the federal
government and/or the FCC should play in these negotiations. How does the availability of "reruns"
on YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, etc., change the landscape?
The cable companies argue that higher programming costs have pushed up their rates. ESPN alone
was charging $4.08 per subscriber in 2009 and was the costliest cable network. The increase in cable
• Large telecommunications companies, threatened by municipal plans to start their own cable
utilities, have gone to great lengths to demolish local government efforts to provide inexpensive
access to cable and broadband service.
Consider Iowa: In 2005, thirty-one towns and cities were planning on forming municipal
telecommunications facilities. In the case of Waterloo, Iowa, the state’s third-largest city after Des
Moines and Cedar Rapids, telecommunications giant Mediacom went to work convincing Waterloo
residents that municipal cable was bad. Mediacom funded an opposition group called Project
Taxpayer Protection, which raised $941,610 to plaster antimunicipal messages on TV, on radio, and
in newspapers saying that municipal cable would drastically increase residents’ taxes. Mediacom
also contributed an additional $409,000 in in-kind contributions all in the form of thirty-second
television commercials. Qwest Communications also contributed $100,000 to the statewide effort
to ban municipal initiatives. In Waterloo, municipal groups raised $16,429 to combat this media
machine. In the end, however, Waterloo approved its own telecommunications utility, and the plan
passed in seventeen other cities that year.
• Discuss whether and how the Telecommunications Act of 1996 ought to be updated to reflect
conditions in the second decade of the 21st century.
VI.The Economics and Ownership of Television and Cable
• Explore the possible consequences of the increasing audience fragmentation and the proliferation of
third and fourth screens on television programming, advertising, and television as a culture industry.
• When Seinfeld was sold into syndication in 1998 for $1.7 billion, both Jerry Seinfeld and his
collaborator, Larry David, made a fortune: $267 million and $242 million, respectively. They made
so much, in fact, that they vaulted to the top of Forbes magazine’s list of highest-earning celebrities
worldwide, easily eclipsing Steven Spielberg ($175 million), Oprah Winfrey ($125 million), and
Titanic director James Cameron ($115 million) for that year.
• Cable conglomerates have become key players in Internet telephony. Comcast, the biggest cable
operator in the United States, promotes voice telephony using its existing coaxial cables. The new
Charter Communications company (formed by the merger of Charter, Time Warner Cable, and Bright
House Networks), and Cox Communications—the second- and third-largest U.S. cable groups,
sometimes struggling to exceed 30,000 viewers.” The channel shut down in 2016. (See John
Koblinjan, “Al Jazeera America to Shut Down by April,” New York Times, January 14, 2016, p.
B1.)
VII. Television, Cable, and Democracy
• Discuss the role that television has played in presidential elections.
• Discuss the role of television in society by showing how Fred Rogers secured $20 million for public
television by testifying to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications (5/1/1969; 6:50
long): http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fredrogerssenatetestimonypbs.htm.
• Discuss how our culture and democracy have been affected by our selectively exposing ourselves
to only the television content that matches our preferences and how our democracy is affected by
the fragmentation of viewers and the end of an era when television viewing provided the public
with common experiences (even if only because there were so few options).
MEDIA LITERACY DISCUSSIONS AND EXERCISES
WHAT IS "TELEVISION" IN THE SECOND DECADE OF THE 21ST CENTURY?
Is YouTube “television?” What about Netflix? Discuss how changing technologies (both to delivery and
access content) have changed the nature and definition of these media?. Television viewing has shifted
from taking place entirely in front of a television “set” to a media environment in which many students
rarely view television on a “TV.” In the Fall of 2015, Amazon Instant Video (directing and lead actor for
Transparent) and Netflix (supporting actress for Orange is the New Black) won primetime Emmy awards
from the Television Academy; FunnyOrDie.com and LouisCK.net were also winners. Should these
platforms be considered “television”? Is YouTube really just a new form of “television” (similar to the
way many think of Pandora or Spotify as “radio”)? What are the implications for our culture and for the
“television" industry of such shifting behaviors, definitions, and categories? (You can point students to
the data about the top video subscription services in Table 6.2 of the textbook.)
UNITY IN CULTURE THROUGH TELEVISION
Do you think television plays a greater role in uniting us as a culture or in separating us as individuals?
Make two lists of examples on the board (or in groups) that support your point, and discuss them in class.
TELEVISION AND SOCIAL MEDIA
How have social media changed television viewing? Does live tweeting or posting bring people back to
“real-time” viewing of television shows? Will the successes of Talking Dead or Scandal be replicated and
make live TV viewing more popular again?
DESIGNING A NEW TELEVISION CHANNEL
Working alone or in a group, propose a new broadcast, cable, or Internet television channel that will do
two things: (1) find a unique market niche, and (2) be successful (i.e., it should satisfy the demands of the
television industry by drawing an audience that appeals to advertisers). Keep in mind that few new
channels succeed. Consider the following while creating your proposal: What kinds of programs would
run each day? What audience would the channel try to reach? Why would this market be attractive to
advertisers?
FAILED TELEVISION PROGRAMS: A CRITICAL PROCESS EXERCISE
Pick a fairly recent TV program that failed to survive for more than a year, and examine the reasons for
your program’s demise. Write a four- to five-page paper on your findings.
1. Description. Do as much research as you can on the program (use databases like LexisNexis to check
reviews). In your paper, give a brief description of the program, including its story line and major
characters. Also describe the history of the program, such as when it aired, for how long, who was
involved in its production, and ratings information. Discuss why you picked this program.
2. Analysis. After reviewing your research, identify specific problems that may have contributed to your
program’s failure to stay on the air. Discuss whether they were problems with the program itself or
problems with the industry in general.
3. Interpretation. What does it all mean? Why do you think the program failed? What’s your
interpretation of all the information you’ve examined? What might the failure tell us about our culture
or the state of the television industry?
4. Evaluation. Try to go beyond conventional “TV executive” thinking to offer some fresh insights. Was
your program a good one that deserved better? What made it good? Was it a weak program that
deserved to fail? What made it weak? Or was it a mixture?
5. Engagement. Write a letter to one or more network executives. Ask them what qualities they look for
in a successful program. Ask them if they bear a responsibility to improve the cultural landscape.
Alternatively, write a synopsis for a more successful “sequel,” and see if you can find someone in the
industry to critique it.
CREATING A TELEVISION SHOW
Pre-Exercise Questions: What do you think of most prime-time comedy shows on television? Do you
sometimes think you could create a better show?
This exercise illustrates the difficulty in creating a television show that is interesting, entertaining, and
commercially successful.
1. Divide the class into groups of three to five students. Each group should invent a prime-time show—a
thirty-minute situation or domestic comedy—for one of the four major networks. Each show proposal
should include major characters, setting, and typical plot situations. The creative groups should also
explain the financial viability of each show, including characteristics of the target audience.
2. Record each group’s proposals, outlining the major elements on a blackboard or overhead.
3. Discuss the new show proposals. Were the ideas distinct and original? If derivative, why did students
model their shows after certain other ones? (Note: Students of homogeneous backgrounds often tend
to create surprisingly similar proposals.) Did financial considerations put constraints on creativity?
Do the shows’ characters, settings, and plotlines have the potential to sustain a run of at least three to
five years so that the show may be sold into syndication and provide a good return to the producers?
Do you think the show would appeal to the target audience? What are some of the program ideas that
the groups rejected in this process? Why? What target audiences are not served by the programs
created? Why?
Option: This exercise could also work as an individual writing assignment.
CABLE’S FRAGMENTED AUDIENCE: A CRITICAL PROCESS EXERCISE
Pre-Exercise Questions: Are you more aligned with a particular channel or just with types of shows?
What television channels do you enjoy watching with friends from your age group? Can you enjoy those
same channels with people a generation older than you?
The purpose of this exercise is to determine if people who grew up with network television are still
predisposed to watching it and if those who grew up on cable are not. To do the exercise, each student
needs to have a copy of the local cable-channel chart in his or her area for reference. Have students
independently interview one person from each of the following five age groups (for a paper, we
recommend two or three individuals per age group): (a) 12–17, (b) 18–24, (c) 25–34, (d) 35–49, and (e)
50–65. The students should ask each individual to rate his or her top five networks or cable channels and
then return to class with their data.
1. Description. In class (if the class is small) or before class (if the class is large), compile the students’
survey data in a table or chart. List all the channels down the far left column, list all the different age
groups along the top, and fill in the information accordingly.
2. Analysis. As the chart evolves, start looking for viewing patterns among the different age groups.
Where are the younger groups situated in relation to the older groups? Do you have any hypotheses
about why certain age groups gravitate toward certain networks or channels? Did anyone find it
difficult to rate his or her top five networks or cable channels?
3. Interpretation. What can be said about these patterns? Do the younger viewers have more eclectic
viewing habits than older viewers? Are there any surprises? How has cable affected this spectrum of
ages? Do you think cable has had a profound cultural impact? Do you think this chart is
representative? Is it problematic to make such a generalization? What might these patterns tell us
about our culture or the state of the television industry?
4. Evaluation. Do cable choices fragment American culture? Is it possible to discuss television among
different age groups? Is there anything besides television that creates a common cultural thread? Is
specialized TV ultimately good or bad for democracy?
5. Engagement. Read the cable industry magazine Broadcasting & Cable
(http://www.broadcastingcable.com; you can sign up for temporary access) to get a sense of the main
issues affecting the cable industry. Contact a journalist at the magazine to see what she or he thinks of
your interpretation and evaluation.
TRACKING RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE TELEVISION INDUSTRY: A SEMESTER-
LONG CRITICAL PROCESS EXERCISE AND PAPER
In this exercise students discover the most recent developments in the industry, and they become familiar
with industry trade sources. The paper they produce is due in sections, which correspond with the steps in
the Critical Process.
1. Description. Read industry trade sources to get a sense of the main issues affecting the television
industry. Look at the Web sites of industry trade associations and professional societies. (Links to
Web sites of some industry trade sources are given in the Classroom Media Sources below.) Take
notes on topics that have multiple stories or mentions in the current year. What issues or
developments in the industry have received a lot of recent attention, discussion, or commentary in
industry sources? (Focus only on information from the current year—and only from trade sources.)
Write a one-page synopsis of the information you found about current topics in the industry. Cite your
sources properly.
2. Analysis. Look for one development or pattern that has received significant attention on trade sites
and from trade journalists in the current year. Choose one specific trend, and write one or two pages
with details about the information you found about that trend. Continue to track news about your
topic as the semester progresses. Cite sources properly.
3. Interpretation. What does the trend mean for the state of the industry? Is it evolving? How? What
does it tell you about media in general at the current time? What might it say about our culture or our
society? Can your information help us interpret the role of the industry in our lives? Write up your
interpretation in a five-page paper. (The first page should be a synopsis of the trend, with proper
citations.) You might not have to provide information from your sources for the next four pages
because this section is your interpretation of the trend. (Save any ideas you have about whether the
trend is “good” or “bad” for the Evaluation step of the Critical Process.) Cite any sources properly.
4. Evaluation. Is the trend “good” or “bad?” For the industry? society? culture? democracy? us? What
do you think might happen in the future?
5. Engagement. Are there any actions you can take (related to your trend and the industry)? Possibilities
include posting your views on social media, creating a petition, contacting people in the industry to
see what they think of your interpretation and evaluation, or going to an industry event if any are held
nearby. (This step need not be required if students are not motivated to take action.)
Note: This exercise works well if each step of the Critical Process is due two weeks after the prior step is
due. Limiting students to only trade sources and only information from the current year helps keep them
on track. Your institution's librarians should be able to provide students with information on how to
access industry trade sources.
CLASSROOM MEDIA RESOURCES
LAUNCHPAD FOR MEDIA & CULTURE: http://www.macmillanhighered.com/mediaculture11e
Television Networks Evolve (2009, 2:37 minutes). Producers, insiders, and experts discuss how cable and
satellite delivery have changed the television market and how even the basic concept of a network is
also evolving.
What Makes Public Television Public? (2010, 3:54 minutes). Television executives and media critics
explain how public television is different from broadcast and cable networks and what services public
TV stations provide for their communities.
Changes in Prime Time (2009, 4:44 minutes). Television industry professionals and experts discuss shifts
in television programming, including the fading influence of prime time. Features Terry Curtis, Jeff
Goodby, Harvey Nagler, and Robin Sloan.
Wired or Wireless: Television Delivery Today (2010, 3:35 minutes). This video explores how television
delivery is changing after the switch to digital signals in 2009, including third-screen technologies
and mobile digital television.
VIDEOS/DVDS/CDS
Bill Moyers on Big Media (October 10, 2003). Moyers offers his insights into media consolidation and
what it means for democracy. You can view the video online at
http://www.pbs.org/now/commentary/moyers27.html.
Broadcast News (1987, 131 minutes). This feature film dramatizes the goings-on in a Washington, D.C.,
television newsroom. It depicts fairly accurately the pressures on producers and anchors as well as the
tensions between traditional journalism values and the commercial constraints of a television station.
Stars Holly Hunter, William Hurt, and Albert Brooks.
Color Adjustment (1991, 88 minutes). Directed by Marlon Riggs, this film traces the networks’ reluctant
and selective integration of African Americans into network television and prime-time family
representations.
Current Events, 1950s (and ’60s) Style, Vol. 2 (1952–61, 110 minutes). Historical television programs,
including Plymouth News Caravan (1955) with John Cameron Swayze from New York and David
Brinkley from Washington, D.C.; You Can Change the World (1952), a morning show; and The
White House Story (1961), a White House tour narrated by Jacqueline Kennedy. Distributed by
Shokus Video, 800-SHOKUS-1; http://www.shokus.com.
Dreamworlds III (2007, 60 minutes). In this film, some two hundred clips from MTV are expertly
combined with an incisive narrative about the impact of sexual imagery in music videos. Distributed
by Media Education Foundation, 800-897-0089; http://www.mediaed.org.
Game Show Program, Vol. VIII (1955–58, 115 minutes). This compilation includes Chance of a Lifetime
(1955), Bingo at Home (1955), Tic Tac Dough (1957, and obviously rigged), and To Tell the Truth
(1958). Commercials are included. Shokus Video, 800-SHOKUS-1; http://www.shokus.com.
Quiz Show (1994, 133 minutes). Robert Redford directs the story of the quiz-show scandals of the mid-
1950s. Stars Ralph Fiennes, John Turturro, and Rob Morrow.
Vintage Commercials, III (1950s, 60 minutes). Besides early commercials, this tape features a 1939
newsreel depicting America’s first glimpse of television at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Shokus
Video, 800-SHOKUS-1; http://www.shokus.com.
WEB SITES
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences: http://www.emmys.org
BBC: http://www.bbc.com
Broadcast Education Association: http://www.beaweb.org
Broadcasting & Cable: http://www.broadcastingcable.com
C-Span: http://www.c-span.org
Corporation for Public Broadcasting: http://www.cpb.org
Deadline Hollywood: http://deadline.com/v/tv
Museum of Broadcast Communications archive: http://archive.museum.tv
National Association of Broadcasters: http://www.nab.org
National Cable and Telecommunications Association: http://www.ncta.com
Nielsen: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en.html
Radio Television Digital News Association: http://www.rtdna.org
SAG-AFTRA: http://www.sagaftra.org
Satellite Broadcasting & Communications Association: http://www.sbca.com
Satellite Industry Association: http://www.sia.org
SES (satellite program): http://www.ses.com/4232583.en
TV Insider: http://www.tvinsider.com
TVWeek: http://www.tvweek.com
Variety: http://variety.com/v/tv
FURTHER READING
Anderson, Kent. Television Fraud: The History and Implications of the Quiz Show Scandals. Westport,
CT: Greenwood, 1978.
Barnouw, Erik. Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1990.
Fiske, John. Television Culture. London: Methuen, 1987.
Johnson, Steven. Everything Bad Is Good for You. New York: Riverhead, 2005.
Kisseloff, Jeff. The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920–1961. New York: Penguin, 1995.
Kubey, Robert. Creating Television: “Conversations with the People Behind 50 Years of American TV”.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2003.
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.
Minow, Newton N., and Craig L. LaMay. Abandoned in the Wasteland: Children, Television, and the
First Amendment. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.
Slater, Robert. This . . . Is CBS: A Chronicle of 60 Years. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1988.
Spigel, Lynn, and Denise Mann, eds. Private Screenings: Television and the Female Consumer.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992.
Sterling, Christopher H., and John M. Kittross. Stay Tuned: A Concise History of American Broadcasting.
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1990, 1998.
Thumim, Janet. Inventing Television Culture: Men, Women, and the Box. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2004.
