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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