Theatre 7th
The American Television Industry Test
Unit One: The American Television Industry
VOCABULARY
Electromagnetic Waves: One of the waves that are propagated by simultaneous periodic variations of electric and magnetic field intensity and that include radio waves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma rays.
Television Transmitter: An electronic device that radiates radio waves that carry a video signal and a synchronized audio channel, which is received by television receivers ('televisions' or 'TVs') which display the image on a screen.
Television: A device that receives television signals and reproduces them on a screen.
Television Station: An organization transmitting television programs.
ABC: American Broadcasting Company.
NBC: National Broadcasting Company.
CBS: Columbia Broadcasting System.
Pre-Production: The process of planning some of the elements involved in a film, television show, play, or other performance. Pre-production ends when the planning ends and the content starts being produced.
Principal Photography: The actual filming of the episode. Director, actors, and crew gather at a television studio or on location for filming a scene.
Post Production: Once principal photography is complete, producers coordinate tasks to begin video editing. Visual, digital, sound, and special effects are added to the film. Often music is performed with the conductor using the film as a time reference and added at the end.
Sitcom: Situation Comedy. It focuses around one cast in one primary setting each episode.
Escapism: Shows that emphasized fantasy and science fiction as a way for the audience to ‘escape’ from the every day life.
New Escapism: Shows of the 70’s that focused on ‘the good old days’ in American History as a way for the audience to ‘escape’ from the every day life.
Reality Show: A television program in which ordinary people are continuously filmed (some designed to be entertaining, other to be informative).
Mini Series: A show with a few episodes that concludes the entire series over the course of a week or so.
Series: A show with several seasons and about 22-24 episodes per season.
HISTORY OF RADIO
1820: Discovery of electromagnetic waves by Hans Christian Oersted.
1830: English physicist Michael Faraday confirmed Oersted's theory and established the principle of electromagnetic induction.
1864: James Clerk Maxwell, an experimental physics professor at Cambridge University, published a theoretical paper stating that electromagnetic currents could be perceived at a distance and travel at the speed of light.
1880s: German physicist Heinrich Hertz tested Maxwell's theory and succeeded in producing electromagnetic waves at the speed of light.
1899: Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian inventor, telegraphed the results of the America's Cup yacht races from a ship at sea to a land-based station in New York.
1901: Marconi founded his own commercial wireless company and broadcast the first transatlantic signal.
1906: Canadian physicist Reginald Fessenden sent the first long-distance transmission of human voice and music from his station in Massachusetts. His signal was received as far away as Norfolk, Virginia. The stage for commercial voice and music broadcasts was set.
1907: American inventor Lee De Forest introduced his patented Audion signal detector--which allowed radio frequency signals to be amplified dramatically.
1910: Entertainment broadcasting began and included De Forest's own program, which he aired from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City.
1918: American inventor, Edwin Armstrong, developed the super heterodyne circuit and in 1933 discovered how FM broadcasts could be produced.
1920: First Radio Station, KDKA a entertainment broadcasting venture based in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, became the first commercial radio station.
The period between the late 1920s and the early 1950s is considered the Golden Age of Radio, in which comedies, dramas, variety shows, game shows, and popular music shows drew millions of listeners across America.
ABC, CBS, and NBC began as radio stations.
First television set was created in 1927.
How Television is Possible
Radio waves do more than just bring music to your radio. They also carry signals for your television and cellular phones.
The antennae on your television set receive the signal, in the form of electromagnetic waves, that is broadcasted from the television station. ... The signal is then sent through a cable to your house.
When you listen to the radio, watch TV, or cook dinner in a microwave oven, you are using electromagnetic waves. Radio waves, television waves, and microwaves are all types of electromagnetic waves. They only differ from each other in wavelength. Wavelength is the distance between one wave crest to the next.
Antennas on the roof of the home sent a signal to the television set.
TV channels were free to watch with an antennae!
Culture Impacts the Arts: The values of a nation (no matter what country someone is living in around the world) will always have an impact on what is 'permissible' or 'not permissible' in entertainment.
Examples of the Historical Influence of Judeo-Christianity on American Society and the Entertainment Industry from the 1620's through the late 1960's:
Examples of Judeo-Christian Influence in American History (1620's-1950's)
1620: Mayflower Compact…The Pilgrims leave England for America and create a rule of law which included an adherence to the Christian faith.
1647: Establishment of the Public School System. The purpose of the act as written by the early settlers was to teach the children of the colonies to read so they could understand the Bible for themselves in order to live a life that pleased God and to become productive citizens.
1647-1962/63: From that time forward, prayer to God and Bible readings/devotionals were regularly conducted in various public schools all across the United States. Children learned the alphabet, reading, etc. in school using Bible verses and concepts.
July 2-4, 1776: The Declaration of Independence was written and signed by many of the Founding Fathers. It stated that all men are ‘created’ equal and endowed by their ‘Creator’ with certain inalienable rights.
The entire concept of inalienable rights in the Declaration hangs on the belief many of the Founders had in the existence of God, as declared in the Bible, and that He is the true source of mankind's freedom (rights).
Many of the Founders reasoned that if God gave a human being their rights, than no human (including a king) had the right to take away those freedoms from another (Example: King George unjustly removing freedoms from the American colonists).
Many of the Founding Fathers were outspoken about their Christian faith in public life and in their writings.
Historically, over 95% of the population of the US identified as belonging to a Christian denomination from 1620-1950's. (In 1970 that dropped to 90%. In 2020 that dropped to 65%.)
The Bible is the most quoted book by the Founders and other American leaders throughout the history of our nation.
The 10 Commandments were placed as monuments and plaques at the US Supreme Court and in other courthouses across the country.
September 12, 1782: Congress authorizes the first printing of the Bible in North America by Philadelphia publisher, Robert Aitken. This Bible has been called the "Bible of the Revolution."
1954: In response to the Communist threat of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.
Entertainment Industry Responds to Christian Influence in America from Early 1900's-Late 1960's
As a result of the influence of Christianity in American life, Radio, Television, and Hollywood executives chose to self-regulate programming and film content in order to not offend 95+% of the American audience that followed the Judeo-Christian faith at the time of their inception (1920's through the 1950's). This was thanks to the establishment of the Production Code which began to be enforced in 1934 by Hollywood.
Film was mostly family friendly or non-offensive to most Americans. The content that was made more for adults still had to follow strict morality guidelines as outlined in the Production Code.
Film often showed American families engaging in prayer, going to church, and treating each other with love. The Bible was often quoted , faith was encouraged, and God was often mentioned (always in a positive light).
Entertainment is a business...if your audience is offended by your content they will not:
Listen to a radio broadcast
Watch television programming
Pay money to see a film
This would all eventually change beginning in the 1960s.
American Culture Shift of the 1960's to the present. Standards in the Arts change for Radio, Television, and Film beginning in the 1970's forward.
Over the last 60 years, America has experienced a culture shift away from her early Judeo-Christian roots.
Some historians point to the ruling of two critical court cases that contributed greatly to the culture shift as well as the events that followed in our nation's history.
1962: Supreme Court removes prayer in schools.
1963: Supreme Court removes the Bible from schools.
Late 1960's-1970's: The Hippie counterculture movement began . The movement that started on college campuses and spread throughout the nation departed from all forms of Christianity, American patriotism, societal norms, etc. The influence of that movement made its way into schools, homes, music, television programming, and Hollywood films.
1966: Censorship standards changed in film with the collapse of the Production Code allowing content to be shown and heard that previous generations of Americans would have found inappropriate, vulgar, and offensive.
The culture shift made its impact in Hollywood films beginning in the early 70's and in some television programming of the same decade. Radio would follow with more relaxed censorship standards in music.
The American public at the time (and some still today) responded in one of two ways to the change in content which was a reflection of the culture shift:
Some had no problem with the change and continued to listen to radio and watch television programming and films.
Others resisted the change in content by changing the radio station, not watching certain television programming, and/or not attending certain movies. Today, some people have taken to cancelling cable and streaming services as well as not attending movies in the theatre because of the content.
Overall television ratings in modern times have been significantly low for many years as a result of changes in content and the presence of streaming services.
Hollywood has also experienced low ticket sale revenue for most movies with the exception of films considered more family friendly, action/adventure, or patriotic. Rated G films are among the highest grossing at the box office today while Rated R films (with a few exceptions) usually do not perform well financially.
1948: Television Broadcasts Begin…
TV sets used to cost $400 (that was a lot of money for that time).
Four Networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, and DuMont Television Network (ended in 1955).
By the Fall of 1948, most evening programming schedules had been filled for prime time (8pm -11 pm).
Before 1948, regularly scheduled programming was scarce.
In 1948, fewer than 2% of American households had a TV…by 1956, 70% of households had a TV.
Variety Shows like the Ed Sullivan Show was the popular programming of the day.
1950’s saw Anthology Dramas (adaptations of plays and original works into a weekly series).
Western TV Shows (Hop along Cassidy and the Lone Ranger) came on the air in the 1950’s.
Crime Shows came on the air at this time as well.
Game Shows.
Sitcoms
Situation Comedy usually built around a family
30 minute shows with the same cast in the same location
Live audience or laugh track used
The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy aired at this time.
1952: First political campaign commercials (Disney Studios created animated elephants and donkeys singing and dancing to a song by Irving Berlin called, “I Like Ike.”)
1953: President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s inauguration was the first to be carried from coast to coast on live television.
By mid-1950’s, Hollywood studios began producing programming to air on television (live programming was replaced by westerns and adventure programs)
Only news and sports were regularly broadcast live by the 1960’s.
1950s: Murder/Suspense Shows
1955-1965: Alfred Hitchcock Presents
1960s: Escapism shows began.
1952-1958: Adventures of Superman
1959: Twilight Zone
1966-68: Batman
1966-69: Star Trek
1960’s & 70’s : New family sitcoms (ex. The Brady Bunch)
1960: The Flintstones animated show began (through 1966).
1960s: More cartoons followed from Hannah Barbera, Warner Brothers, and Disney.
1962: Satellite TV technology started in 1962 when NASA launched Telstar into orbit.
1969: PBS was founded and Sesame Street officially began.
Cartoon Companies
1957: Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio and production company founded by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
Prominent presence in American animation for five decades with a variety of animated series, including The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Flintstones, The Yogi Bear Show, The Jetsons, Wacky Races, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and The Smurfs.
2001: Absorbed into Warner Bros. Animation. Since the studio's closure, Warner Bros. has continued to produce new programming and material based on Hanna-Barbera's classic properties
1930-1931: Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising originated the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated shorts.
1933: Warner Bros. Cartoons was founded as Leon Schlesinger Productions and it was the in-house animation division of Warner Bros. during the Golden Age of American animation. Became one of the most successful animation studios in American media history.
1944: Leon Schlesinger sold the studio to Warner Bros.
1960-2000: Warner Bros. Cartoons branched out into television.
ABC TV premiered The Bugs Bunny Show, which was a package program featuring three theatrical Warner Bros. cartoons, with newly produced wraparounds to introduce each short. All versions of The Bugs Bunny Show featured Warner Bros. cartoons released after July 31, 1948.
1951: Christmas special, The Walt Disney Christmas Show.
1954–2008: Anthology series, The Wonderful World of Disney (which was Disney's first regular series as a whole), the children's variety show The Mickey Mouse Club,
1957-1959: Zorro adventure series.
NEWS COVERAGE
1960’s: Live television news coverage of major events in the United States and the world kept Americans informed.
The Cold War
Civil Rights Movement
Viet-Nam War
American Politics
ERA OF TURMOIL
Era of Turmoil in the 1960’s and 1970’s: Created a negative impact on the American culture and placed the country in a depressed state.
(1947-1991) The Cold War.
(1962) Cuban Missile Crisis.
(1963) JFK assassination.
(1960’s-1970's) Hippie counterculture movement.
Widespread drug use.
Widespread rebellion against authority including parents.
Anti-American and anti-patriotism sentiment.
Rebellion against societal norms.
(1955-1975) Viet-Nam War.
(1968) Bobby Kennedy assassination.
(1968) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassination.
(1972) Watergate Scandal.
(1973) Energy Crisis: Oil embargo imposed by members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) led to fuel shortages and sky-high prices throughout much of the decade.
(1974) Nixon Impeachment.
Television programming responded to the crisis by creating new genres in programming called Escapism and New Escapism to help Americans cope with scary realties.
Positive Events in the Era of Turmoil
The following impacted programming in the 1960’s and beyond:
Civil Rights Movement
Roots Mini Series
More African American actors and shows bases on African American families on television.
More minority inclusion on television.
NASA Moon Landing (1969).
SPORTS
•1961: ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
•60’s and 70’s: ABC began covering the Olympic Games.
•1967: First Super Bowl aired.
•1970: Monday Night Football on ABC began.
1970's through the Present
1970’s: New Escapism programming (America was in a depressed state due to many national tragedies.).
1976-77: Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Little House on the Prairie, Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman, etc.
1977-79: The Era of the Miniseries began (Roots).
Cable Television
1972: HBO begins offering subscribers recently released movies to watch at home.
1970’s: 8% of Americans had cable
1980: 23% of Americans had cable
1989-90: 60% of Americans had cable
1980’s: Cable TV takes off! (Showtime, TBS, Nickelodeon, ESPN, Lifetime, USA Network, MTV, The Weather Channel, AMC, CNN.)
1990’s: More channels added! added (ex. Fox News)
1980's: Cartoons (G.I.Joe, Transformers, Spiderman and His Amazing Friends, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The INcredible Hulk The Super Friends, He-Man, etc.).
Toy lines that have made billions of dollars around the world
Movies.
Spinoff cartoon series that have lasted almost 40 years.
1990's: (Batman the Animated Series, Superman the Animated Series, Iron Man, Spiderman, X- Men)
Toy lines that have made billions of dollars around the world
Movies.
Spinoff cartoon series that have lasted almost 30 years.
Reality TV and Game Shows (America's Got Talent, So You Think You Can Dance?, Wheel of Fortune, America's Most Wanted, COPS, Fear Factor, Jeopardy).
Technology: 1970's and 1980's.
More Advanced Television Sets with higher resolution.
VCRs.
Digital tech.
Hollywood Home Entertainment Begins: VHS vs Betamax
VCR Players (Video Cassette Recorders)
1980: Average price to dealers was $771 a unit.
1982: $640
1983: $528
1971: U-matic System (first VCR) became available for television production use.
1972: First consumer VCR released by Philips (N1500 VCR).
1975: War between Sony's Betamax and JVC’s VHS format began.
Betamax: Superior recording (resolution 250 vs. 240 lines); Slightly superior sound; More stable image; Higher-quality construction; Shorter recording time; High price.
VHS (Video Home System):
Licensing to other manufactures caused competition that brought down the price; Increased resolution to 250; Longer recording time.
1980: VHS favorable among consumers (60% of US market).
1981: Sales of Beta machines sunk to 25% . Movie studios, video studios, and video rental stores turned away from Betamax.
1987: VHS accounted for 90% of the VCR market in the US.
1988: What won the war:
VHS machines had a lower retail price and longer recording time (Sony Betamax: 60 minutes/ JVC's VHS: 120 minutes).
1977: Projector TVs ($1,900…$8,000 in today’s money.)
1978: Laser Disk Players and movies.
Video Stores emerge:
(1985) Blockbuster Video
VHS Cassette Tapes for VCR Systems
For most of the 1980s, movie studios charged anywhere from $79.95 to $89.95 retail price for most videotapes,
In most cases, consumers wouldn't buy VHS tapes at this price.
Instead, retail sales were few, and most VHS tapes were sold to independent video rental stores for approximately $50-$55 wholesale.
1990's Tech.
Large Television sets (32” and above).
DVD Players and DVDs.
DVD (Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc)
A digital optical disc data storage format. Can store any kind of digital data. Widely used for software, computer files, and video programs watched using DVD players.
DVDs offer higher storage capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions.
Those discs had 480 lines of vertical resolution.
Made the picture clearer then VHS.
Movie and home entertainment distributors adopted the DVD format to replace the VHS tape as the primary consumer video distribution format.
DVD produced higher quality video and sound, provided superior data lifespan, could be interactive, and low cost. Retailers would sell their players for under $200, and eventually for under $50.
1995-1996: DVDs formating war!
1963: Optical recording technology invented by David Paul Gregg and James Russell (patented in 1968).
1978: LaserDisc was developed in the US. High cost of players and discs made low sales.
1980: The CD (Compact Disc) was created by James Russell.
1982: Sony creates the first CD Player (music only).
1983: The CD made its way to the public.
1987: CD Video developed and used analog video encoding on optical discs. Video CD (VCD) became one of the first formats for distributing digitally encoded films in this format.
1993. War in Formatting! (Philips/Sony vs Toshiba/everyone else):
Philips and Sony: Multimedia Compact Disc (MMCD)...changed name to DVD.
Toshiba, Pioneer, and JVC.: Super Density (SD) Disc.
1995: Technical Working Group (TWG,) formed to give advice on the disc file system and support on the best format for storing computer data (Reps. from IBM, Apple, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Dell, HP, etc.). The group issued a press release stating that they would only accept a single format. Voted to boycott both formats unless the two camps agreed on a single, converged standard.
1995: Philips and Sony decided to end the format war and agreed to unify with companies backing the Super Density Disc with technologies from both.
1996: Samsung announced it would start mass-producing DVDs.
Sega and The 3DO Company) announced plans to design a gaming console with DVDs.
Sony had no plans to use DVDs in their gaming systems…yet!
Game consoles such as the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Xbox 360 used DVDs as their source medium for games and other software. Contemporary games for Windows were also distributed on DVD.
The Format Wars: Blur-ray vs. HD DVD
2006-2008: Biggest format war to hit store shelves since VHS vs. Betamax.
2007: Representatives from Sony’s Blu-ray and Toshiba’s HD DVD spoke to movie studios:
Benefits of Blu-ray: Greater storage capacity of 25 gigabytes, 10 more than HD DVD.
Benefits of HD DVD: Easier conversion of factories already making standard DVDs.
Toshiba: Spent millions developing high-resolution home video…it was an opportunity to expand their market.
Sony: Opportunity to wash out the sour taste of seeing their Betamax hardware sent to landfills in the early 1980s. They were determined to make sure that didn't happen again.
Manufacturers realized that blue lasers could pick up data using a shorter wavelength—allowing more information to be packed into a standard optical disc.
DVDs had 480 lines of vertical resolution;
The newer HD television sets could display up to 1080 lines.
As many as 16 million U.S. households were renting or buying movies that were inferior to the monitor they were being screened on.
Toshiba: Wanted to dominate a lucrative licensing arrangement with other manufacturers.
HD DVD had exclusive agreements with Paramount and Universal.
Sony: Potential for profits in exploiting their own entertainment library by reissuing catalog titles on the new format.
Sony issued titles like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man exclusively to Blu-ray.
Sony had a secret weapon…PlayStation 3!
Some studios—Paramount and Warner Bros. among them—refused to choose sides, releasing their titles on both formats; Netflix shipped movies in whichever format the customer preferred.
2006: HD DVD titles had outsold Blu-ray virtually every week.
2007: Moved roughly 578,000 HD DVD players with 370,000 Blu-ray players coming in a distant second…but…
Toshiba: HD DVD was looking to be in 750,000 total homes in the U.S.
Sony had moved 2.4 million PlayStation 3s worldwide, they had created over 10.5 million households that had the ability to play Blu-ray films!
2008: War over! Warner Bros. announced they would be backing Blu-ray exclusively. Studio’s choice made retailers fall in line. Walmart, Best Buy, and Target dropped HD DVD hardware and software. War over!
STREAMING WARS
Mid 2000’s: Streaming Services
Netflix
Hulu
Amazon Prime
YouTube TV
Disney+ (2019)
AppleTV (2019)
Discovery+
Paramount+
Peacock Television
Gaming Enters Television
TV technology begins to merge with gaming and computer technology!
1971: Arcade Gaming begins…
You had to go somewhere to game!
1977: Atari 2600 Gaming system for TV released
1982: Commodore 64
1985: Nintendo
1989: Sega Genesis
1990: Super Nintendo
1990’s: PC Gaming
IBM (1911, 1970’s)
Sony (1946)
Microsoft (1975)
1991: Internet goes public!
1997: Windows 95!
Gaming consoles, computers, internet, and television tech begin to merge!
1994-Present: PlayStation
1996: Nintendo64
1996: Nintendo GameCube
2001-Present: XBOX
2006: Nintendo Wii
2017: Nintendo Switch