1.
Technical standards for product manufacturers
were put in place on order to push TV as a business and elevate it to a mass
medium. In 1941 the Federal Communications Commission adopted an analog
standard (based off radio waves) for all U.S. TV sets. About 30 countries also
adopted this system. In 2009 the US replaced analogs for digital signals. These
translate TV images and sounds into binary codes like computers and allowed for
increase channel capacity and improved image quality and sound. The people preferred
digital because HDTV has a better quality of sound and imaging.
2.
In the 1930’s and 1940’s, early TV programs were
often developed, produced, and supported by a single sponsor. Having a single
sponsor for a snow meant that the advisors could easily influence the program’s
content. In the 1950’s there became growing popularity and cost and the head of
CBS saw an opportunity to diminish the sponsor’s role. Programs became increasingly
longer from fifteen minutes to thirty. Now producers buy programs from
independents.
3.
People are increasingly moving to their
computers and mobile devices instead of the TV and cable industries. These are
nontelevision delivery systems. We can skip a network broadcast and still watch
our favorite shows on DVRs, on laptops, or on mobile devices for free or for a
nominal cost. These options mea that we are still watching TV, but at different
times, places, and on different kinds of screens.
4.
The government put in regulations to temporarily
restrict network control. These regulations were due to concern about the
monopolies and wanted to reduce their power. The first, the Prime Time Access
Rule reduced the networks’ control of prime-time programming from four to three
hours. Second, the FFC created the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules
called fin-syn which “constituted the most damaging attack against the network
TV monopoly in FFC history.” The Department of Justice instituted a third
policy action reacting to a number of
legal claims against monopolistic practices, limiting the network’s production of
non-news shows , requiring them to seek most of their programming from independent
production companies and film studies.
5.
Congress finally rewrote the nation’s
communication laws in the Telecommunication Act of 1996, bringing cable fully
under the federal rules that had long governed the telephone, radio, and TV
industries. This helped to shape the economy and the future of television and
cable industries by allowing regional phone companies, long-distance carriers,
and cable companies to enter one another’s markets. This made it possible to
offer telephone services, and it permits phone companies to offer internet
services and buy or construct cable systems in communities with fewer than
50,000 residents. For the first time, owners could operate TV or radio stations
in the same market where they owned a cable system. Cable and phone companies
have merged operations in many markets, keeping prices at a premium and
competition to a minimum.
6.
Originally, television reached the same programs
to all segments of society. Now, services have fragmented television’s audience
by appealing to viewer’s individual and special needs. This potentially de-emphasized the idea that
we are all citizens who are part of a larger nation and world. To be able to
retain some of their influences, programmers are recycling old television shows
and movies. Although cable is creating more original quality programming, it hasn’t fully become an alternative to
traditional broadcasting!
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