Television


Broadcasting
Thank you for helping us expand this topic!
Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article.
Once you are finished and click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review.
This topic is discussed in the following articles:
  • advertising

    advertisement
    ...advertisements popularized jingles and slogans, offered the latest fashions, and guaranteed cures with patent medicines. Advertising media expanded with the development of radio in the 1920s and television in the 1940s, and advertisements became more influential and complex, often based on the results of motivational research. In the second half of the 20th century, television was rivaled...
  • article on television in the United States

    • effect on

      • American culture

        United States: Television
        If the Martian visitor beloved of anthropological storytelling were to visit the United States at the beginning of the 21st century, all of the art forms listed and enumerated here—painting and sculpture and literature, perhaps even motion pictures and popular music—would seem like tiny minority activities compared with the great gaping eye of American life: “the box,”...
      • Civil Rights Movement

        Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference
        ...reached its zenith. Handsome, eloquent, and doggedly determined, King quickly caught the attention of the news media, particularly of the producers of that budding medium of social change—television. He understood the power of television to nationalize and internationalize the struggle for civil rights, and his well-publicized tactics of active nonviolence (sit-ins, protest marches)...
      • Hollywood

        Hollywood (district, Los Angeles, California, United States)
        After World War II, film studios began to move outside Hollywood, and the practice of filming “on location” emptied many of the famous lots and sound stages or turned them over to television show producers. With the growth of the television industry, Hollywood began to change, and by the early 1960s it had become the home of much of American network television entertainment.
        California: The arts
        ...the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, when real estate boomed and riches were extravagantly displayed. The studios were ill prepared, however, for the revolution that they faced as a result of competition with television beginning after World War II. Those working in the movie industry found that millions of Americans were staying home, preferring to watch anything on television rather than go out to the...
    • Public Broadcasting Service

      Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)
      private, nonprofit American corporation whose members are the public television stations of the United States and its unincorporated territories. PBS provides its member stations with programming in cultural, educational, and scientific areas, in children’s fare, and in news and public affairs but does not itself produce programs; the programs are produced by the member stations, independent...
    • quiz shows

      quiz show
      American television adopted the quiz show in the early 1950s and further increased its popularity. In place of the merchandise awards that outstanding radio contestants received, television used large cash awards. An indication of the quantum increase was the escalation from one radio program’s highest prize, $64 on Take It or Leave It, to the spectacular top prize...
    • violence

      Albert Bandura: Testimony on the effects of televised violence
      In the late 1960s, prompted by the media’s graphic coverage of the assassination of U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy together with increased reports of children incurring serious injuries during attempted replications of dangerous behaviours depicted in television advertisements, the potential effects of television violence on children became a growing public concern. Owing to his related research,...
    • work of

      • Carson

        Johnny Carson
        ...Carson had an unprecedented influence on a generation of television viewers, and his decision in 1972 to move his show from New York to California was instrumental in shifting the power of the TV industry to Los Angeles. He created such memorable characters as Aunt Blabby and Carnac the Magnificent, as well as a large number of classic skits, and became one of the most beloved performers...
      • Goodson

        Mark Goodson
        American radio and television producer who helped develop many successful radio and television game shows, including the early television game show What’s My Line? (1950–67).
  • broadcasting history

    Television in the United States
    the body of television programming created and broadcast in the United States. American TV programs, like American popular culture in general in the 20th and early 21st centuries, have spread far beyond the boundaries of the United States and have had a pervasive influence on global popular culture.
    broadcasting: Television broadcasting
    Television broadcasting
  • critique by Postman

    Neil Postman
    ...contributions to the discipline of media studies, the critical analysis of technology, and the philosophy of education. He is best known for his social critique of mass communication, especially television, with respect to its effects on the developing minds of children.
  • directing

    motion picture: Motion-picture directing
    Despite these exceptions, most directors labour under great restrictions, particularly in the age of the television industry. A conventional television series rotates directors episode after episode so that the producers, actors, and production crew, who work continuously on the show, have much greater control over the product. Each scene of a television program is typically filmed from three...
  • distance learning

    distance learning: Technological aides to education
    Instructional television courses began to be developed in the 1950s, first at the University of Iowa. By the 1970s community colleges all across the United States had created courses for broadcast on local television stations. Various experiments in computer-based education also began in the 1950s, such as programmed or computer-assisted instruction, in which computers are used to present...
  • effect on

    • baseball

      baseball (sport): The postwar period
      ...Albert B. (“Happy”) Chandler (1945–51), assured the soundness of the pension fund in 1950 by signing a six-year contract for broadcasting World Series and All-Star games; the television portion alone amounted to $1 million a year, with a large proportion earmarked for the pension fund. Radio and television rights for regular-season games remained with each club. Later...
      baseball (sport): Rise of the players
      ...was raised from two to three. Fan interest continued to rise, and major league attendance records were broken six times in the 1985–91 seasons. The major source of revenue, however, was television. The combined revenue from network television in 1984 was $90 million; one network purchased the rights to televise games in the 1990–93 seasons for $1.1 billion.
    • child development

      effects of television viewing on child development
      highly contested topic within child development and psychology involving the consequences for children from the content of and the duration of their exposure to television (TV) programming. The effects of television viewing on child development have aroused a range of reactions from researchers, parents, and politicians that has fueled a debate that extends back to the medium’s inception in the...
    • diplomacy

      diplomacy: New styles of diplomacy
      ...the communist bloc; proselytizing Christian churches and so-called “national liberation movements” capitalized upon transistor radios to spread their messages to other areas. In cities, television became crucial, as images provided an immediacy that words alone could not convey. Statesmen lost no opportunity to be filmed, and ambassadors emerged from the shadows to appear on news...
    • Hungarian culture

      Hungary: Media and publishing
      After World War II, radio ownership and listening became common. Television appeared only in the late 1950s, but it soon spread throughout the country. By the early 1980s, almost every household had a television. During the communist period there were only two radio stations and two state-run TV channels. In the decade following, however, the number of radio and TV stations—including...
    • Indian culture

      India: Media and publishing
      ...it was given its current name, All India Radio, and since 1957 it also has been known as Akashvani. The union government provides radio service throughout the country via hundreds of transmitters. Television was introduced experimentally by Akashvani in 1959, and regular broadcasting commenced in 1965. In 1976 it was made a separate service under the name Doordarshan, later changed to...
    • Italian culture

      Italy: Media and publishing
      ...legalization of local, independent broadcasting stations in 1976 radically changed the media landscape. Since then the number of newspapers and magazines published has declined, while commercial television and radio channels have mushroomed. The broadcasting sector is dominated by the three state channels of RAI and by three major commercial channels—Canale 5, Italia 1, and Rete 4. The...
    • local culture

      cultural globalization: Entertainment
      The power of media conglomerates and the ubiquity of entertainment programming has globalized television’s impact and made it a logical target for accusations of cultural imperialism. Critics cite a 1999 anthropological study that linked the appearance of anorexia in Fiji to the popularity of American television programs, notably Melrose Place and ...
    • Soviet culture

      Russia: Media and publishing
      Radio and television from the time of their appearance in the Soviet Union were heavily dominated by the Communist Party apparatus and were seen as primary tools for propaganda. Until the mid-1980s most television programming consisted of either direct or indirect propaganda spiced with high art (e.g., filmed concerts and plays) and occasional grade-B thriller motion pictures.
    • Swiss culture

      Switzerland: Media and publishing
      Much of modern cultural life has been influenced by television. Both television and radio are dominated by the private nonprofit Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (Société Suisse de Radiodiffusion et Télévision), which has three distinctive networks for the German (including Rhaeto-Romanic), French, and Italian parts of Switzerland. While representing their respective...
    • Thai culture

      Thailand: Changing rural and urban lifestyles
      ...Government programs in the 1970s and ’80s brought electricity to most villages in Thailand. This, along with economic growth and rising incomes, has made it possible for most households to purchase televisions and, increasingly, other electronic equipment. The arrival of television—and the urban-based culture that it offers—has drawn rural audiences away from older local forms of...
  • electrooptic materials

    electronics: Flat-panel displays
    ...of elements corresponding to those in the display permit the formation of colour images of a quality rivaling that of colour cathode-ray tube displays. Such displays are used as viewing devices for television sets, computers, and video and digital cameras.
  • guerrilla warfare

    guerrilla warfare: Popular support
    ...the Algerians by newspaper and radio, thereby enforcing Lawrence’s dictum that the press is the greatest weapon in the army of a modern commander. The printed word has since been supplemented by the television camera, which has been defined as “a weapon lying in the street, which either side can pick up and use—and is more powerful than any other.” Today images of guerrilla and...
  • literature

    • drama

      dramatic literature: The range of dramatic forms and styles
      The media of radio and television both depend upon words in their drama to an extent that is not characteristic of the motion picture. Though these mass media have been dominated by commercial interests and other economic factors, they also have developed dramatic forms from the special nature of their medium. The writer of a radio play must acknowledge that the listener cannot see the actors...
    • satire

      satire: Motion pictures and television
      In the mid-20th century, television proved itself erratically receptive to satire. That Was the Week That Was, a weekly satirical review started in England in 1962, had remarkable success for a time but succumbed to a variety of pressures, some of them political; when a version of the program was attempted in the United States, it was emasculated by restrictions imposed by sponsors...
  • makeup innovations

    makeup (performing arts)
    The arrival of television created new makeup problems. Light complexions looked ghostly, and dark complexions dirty. Street makeup on women either disappeared or looked dark or dowdy. Some of the colour makeup mixtures that had been developed for motion-picture makeup proved satisfactory, but others had to be modified. New problems arose when colour television came into use. A green dress might...
  • media convergence

    media convergence: Technological convergence
    The technological dimension of convergence is the most readily understood. With the World Wide Web, smartphones, tablet computers, smart televisions, and other digital devices, billions of people are now able to access media content that was once tied to specific communications media (print and broadcast) or platforms (newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and cinema).
  • motion pictures

    history of the motion picture: Decline of the Hollywood studios
    ...decrees,” which forced the studios to divest themselves of their theatre chains and mandated competition in the exhibition sector for the first time in 30 years. Finally, the advent of network television broadcasting in the 1940s provided Hollywood with its first real competition for American leisure time by offering consumers “movies in the home.”
    history of the motion picture: The threat of television
    The film industry believed that the greatest threat to its continued success was posed by television, especially in light of the Paramount decrees. The studios seemed to be losing their control of the nation’s theatres at the same time that exhibitors were losing their audiences to television. The studios therefore attempted to diminish television’s appeal by exploiting the two obvious...
    motion picture: Newsreels and documentaries
    ...movement cinema verité made films that are much closer to journalism than to the careful compositions of the English documentary school. Though often untidy, they are fresh and realistic. Television deeply affected the development of the documentary film in two major ways: by providing a training ground for documentary directors and by building a supply of news film that could be...
  • music

    incidental music
    But most important to the expansion of incidental music in the 20th century has been the development, first, of the motion picture and, second, of television, both mediums that rely heavily on fragmented music to aid in story development or in setting a mood. For example, Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001: A Space Odyssey blended the opening bars of Richard Strauss’s symphonic poem Also...
    theatre music: Music for television
    The screen medium’s first law, that the visual element must come first, has been intensified by television. On the home screen, the experience of music performed for its own sake customarily operates under a double disadvantage. First, it runs the risk of being swamped by its visual presentation, which may range in character from the matching of nonmusical images in varying degrees of relevance...
    Rock and television
    Think of rock and television as one of those couples plainly destined to get together but often at odds until the shotgun wedding arranged by MTV (Music TeleVision) finally got them to the altar in 1981. From the start, which in this case means Elvis Presley, TV in the United States and Britain functioned—or tried to—as a taming influence on the music’s unruly streak. Famously,...
  • newscasts

    newscast
    radio or television summary of news events read by a newscaster or produced with a combination of reading and audio tape for radio or a combination of reading and film or video tape for television. It ranges from the one-minute dateline radio summary (usually a reading of five or six brief news items, each preceded by the city, state, or country in which it occurred) to the 15-minute newscast...
  • Open University

    Open University (British education)
    ...for enrollment in Open University, the aim of which is to extend educational opportunities to all. Courses, centrally organized by a distinguished faculty, are conducted by various means, including television, correspondence, study groups, and residential courses or seminars held at centres scattered throughout Great Britain. The correspondence course, however, is the principal educational...
  • political campaigning

    communication: Effects of mass communication
    ...to social, educational, and economic determinants, middle-of-the-road voters often hold the balance of power that determines the outcomes of elections. Politicians have become sensitive to their television images and have devised much of their campaign strategy with the television audience in mind. Advertising agencies familiar with television techniques have been brought into the political...
  • popular art

    popular art
    ...people in a literate, technologically advanced society dominated by urban culture. Popular art in the 20th century is usually dependent on such technologies of reproduction or distribution as television, printing, photography, digital compact disc and tape recording, motion pictures, radio, and videocassettes. By the late 20th century, television (q.v.) had unquestionably become...
  • propaganda role

    propaganda: Signs, symbols, and media used in contemporary propaganda
    ...propaganda could cover many pages. Written media include letters, handbills, posters, billboards, newspapers, magazines, books, and handwriting on walls and streets. Among audiovisual media, television may be the most powerful for many purposes. Television can convey a great many types of signs simultaneously; it can gain heavy impact from mutually reinforcing gestures, words, postures,...
  • public opinion

    public opinion: The mass media
    Newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet—including e-mail and blogs—are usually less influential than the social environment, but they are still significant, especially in affirming attitudes and opinions that are already established. The news media focus the public’s attention on certain personalities and issues, leading many people to form opinions about them. Government...
  • publishing

    history of publishing: Forms of copyright
    Book club rights are also among those the publisher can exploit; the fees received from the clubs are also shared with the author. Broadcast and television rights in books interest a publisher primarily for the possibility of bringing a book and its author to the attention of a large segment of the public, rather than for the amounts paid. As a rule, there must be direct quotation from the text...
    history of publishing: Nonprofessional types
    ...their stars appeared, beginning with Photoplay (1911–77) and Picture Play (1915) and later others, such as Movie Mirror (1930) and Movieland (1942). When radio and television became popular, similar magazines sprang up centring on programs and their personalities. One of their functions was to provide a weekly timetable of programs.
  • puppetry

    puppetry: Puppetry in the contemporary world
    ...means of performance beyond the children’s theatre. There are cruise ships and nightclubs, which provide an opportunity for short turns but obviously no scope for serious drama. And there is television. At first sight, television would seem an ideal medium for puppetry, and many puppet shows have in fact appeared on it, but initially the great possibilities that it seemed to offer were...
  • science fiction

    science fiction: SF cinema and TV
    In contrast to earlier decades, traditional science fiction of the late 1960s and early ’70s reached unprecedented popularity on television and in film. American SF television series, such as Star Trek (1966–69; founded by Gene Roddenberry), may have primed film producers and audiences alike for cinema adaptations of “serious” science fiction. ...
  • SPECIAL FEATURE

  • sports coverage

    sports: Photography, radio, and television
    However evocative sportswriting might be, it lacks the immediate impact of a striking visual sports image. As newspapers have developed their design appeal, sports photography has enhanced the attractiveness of the sports pages and of general current-affairs magazines such as Time, Newsweek, Paris-Match, and ...
    • basketball

      basketball (sport): U.S. high school and college basketball
      Nothing influenced the college game’s growth more than television, however. The NCAA championship games were televised nationally from 1963, and by the 1980s all three major television networks were telecasting intersectional college games during the November-to-March season. Rights fees for these games soared from a few million dollars to well over $50 million by the late 1980s. As for...
    • boxing

      boxing: Professional boxing
      After World War II television took on an increasingly important role in professional boxing. Because of its popularity and relatively low production costs compared with other sports, professional boxing became a regular feature of network programming throughout much of the 1950s and early ’60s. The televising of boxing led to the demise of many boxing clubs, which had been the training ground...
    • football

      gridiron football: The era of television
      Together with the racial integration of the game at all levels, the coming of television in the 1950s marked a new era in the development of American football. The 1950s were a boom time for professional football but a bad time for the colleges, yet intercollegiate football, too, emerged from the decade not only intact but on the verge of unprecedented prosperity.
    • Olympic Games

      Olympic Games: Rome, Italy, 1960
      The 1960 Olympics were the first to be fully covered by television. Taped footage of the Games was flown to New York City at the end of each day and broadcast on the CBS television network in the United States. Eurovision provided live television broadcasts throughout Europe. An Olympic Stadium, home to the opening and closing ceremonies and the track-and-field competition, and a Sports Palace...
      Olympic Games: Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, 1956
      ...tripped and fell during the opening ceremony—they were a resounding success. Even the threat of insufficient snow proved a needless worry as a heavy snow fell on the first day. An Italian television network carried live coverage of the Games—a first in the history of the Winter Olympics.
      Olympic Games: Berlin, Germany, 1936
      ...in media coverage. It was the first Olympic competition to use telex transmissions of results, and zeppelins were used to quickly transport newsreel footage to other European cities. The Games were televised for the first time, transmitted by closed circuit to specially equipped theatres in Berlin. The 1936 Games also introduced the torch relay by which the Olympic flame is transported from...
    • rugby

      rugby: The modern era
      In rugby league, television became crucial to the wider promotion of the game. In the late 1980s and ’90s the premier rugby league competition in Australia expanded from Sydney to include teams from other parts of Australia and then a team from New Zealand. In 1980 the State of Origin competition between New South Wales and Queensland began, and it soon became one of the most-watched sporting...
  • tap dance

    tap dance: Television and Las Vegas
    The introduction of television and the rise of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a popular tourist attraction saved tap dance from a slow death. Variety shows, which included tap dancers along with their other acts, were among the most popular programs in the early decades of television, including The Colgate Comedy Hour, Your Show of Shows, ...
  • technology

    In television technology
  • work of

    • Brown

      George Harold Brown
      American electrical engineer who made major contributions to the development of radio and television broadcast antennas.
    • Disney

      Walt Disney: Major films and television productions
      The Disney studio was among the first to foresee the potential of television as a popular entertainment medium and to produce programs directly for it. The Zorro and Davy Crockett series were very popular with children, and a weekly showcase (known by several titles, including Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of...
    • Truffaut

      François Truffaut: Early works
      ...script was often treated less as a ground plan for a dramatic structure than as merely a theme for improvisation. Improvised scenes were filmed, deploying the visual flexibility of newly developed television equipment (e.g., the handheld camera) and techniques (e.g., extensive postsynchronization of dialogue). The minimization of costs encouraged producers to gamble on unknown talents, and the...
MLA style:
"television". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 05 Sep. 2015
<http://www.britannica.com/topic/television-broadcasting>.
APA style:
television. (2015). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/topic/television-broadcasting
Harvard style:
television. 2015. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 05 September, 2015, from http://www.britannica.com/topic/television-broadcasting
Chicago Manual of Style:
Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "television", accessed September 05, 2015, http://www.britannica.com/topic/television-broadcasting.

While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies.
Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:
Editing Tools:
We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles.
You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind:
  1. Encyclopaedia Britannica articles are written in a neutral, objective tone for a general audience.
  2. You may find it helpful to search within the site to see how similar or related subjects are covered.
  3. Any text you add should be original, not copied from other sources.
  4. At the bottom of the article, feel free to list any sources that support your changes, so that we can fully understand their context. (Internet URLs are best.)
Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval. Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions.
MEDIA FOR:
television
Citation
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Harvard
  • Chicago
Email
You have successfully emailed this.
Error when sending the email. Try again later.
(Please limit to 900 characters)

Or click Continue to submit anonymously:

Continue