5 Big Ideas about T.V.

1) Way back in the 1940s, when the film industry reigned supreme, they started to lose large chunks of their revenue to the up and coming new medium of Televisons. More and More Americans began to stay home and watch televsion programming for free in the comfort of their own home, rather than go to the movie theatre and spend money. Although in the late 1940s to the early 1950s television sets grew from 172,000 to more then 42 million in the home, media corporations and advertisers were still skeptical that this new medium would be as financially successful as film so therefore they initally hesitated to spend money on T.V.'s development.

2) The first big obstacle for the new medium came during 1948-1952 when the FCC attempted to freeze television development to study the problems of interference and the competition between radio and television for the airwaves. In cities were the television craze was at it's highest, nightclubs and movie theaters struggled mightily. Although the perception of the television industry by the industry exectutives and government officials didn't feel it was a mess medium, the American public by the early 1950s adopted television as the mass medium for the future.

3) Early in television's beginning there was the Three big networks, ABC, CBS and NBC. In 1950, CBS president made a prediction statement, "Television is about to do to radio what the Sioux did to Custer. This is going to be a massacre." This statement proved to be incredibly true because after 1950, Television took off like a rocket, and radio has stayed at a standstill. It was very clear that T.V. had become a formidable threat to challenge the movie industry, threatening to knock off the cinema's position as the dominant entertainment medium in the U.S. On top of all of this, television's growing success and popularity opened up new opportunities for production and distriubtion partnerships. These big three stood atop the T.V. kingdom until 1986 when Fox made the big three into the big four. All of these networks offered a multitude of television content, from news, to prime-time and daytime programming and also to sports programming. From a programming standpoint, very few differences set apart the Big Four Networks.

4) Over the last 25 years the Big Four Networks have not only been in direct competition with one another, but also face the challenge of competing with cable and satallite networks. This competition leads all of these networks to focus on the "Prime-Time" broadcasting which is the viewing hours of 8pm-11pm. The competition between the Big Four networks and also between the Big Four and the major cable or satellite networks, has been responsible for continued improvement in the quantity and quality of television programs. The Nielsen Ratings system is the most widely used system for measuring television audience size and composition. It provides programmers with a daily and even hourly snapshot of the viewing audience by montioring the viewing audience. All of these networks fight 365 days a year for viewer dominance in each timeslot in order to be the most powerful network on television.

5) The Big Four's biggest competition over the years has been cable television. They have grown steadily in propularity and proliferation since their birth in the 1950s and has brought about a sea of change in the number and variety of programming channels available to consumers. The competition for audiences and advertisers by cable and satellite television has seriously challeneged the business models of the major networks and caused significant cultural and stylistic changes in television programming. Premium cable networks such as HBO, Showtime and Cinemax have not only profoundly increaded the number of program options available to consumers, but have also developed new forms of television. Films, series and documentaries that adress controversial topics have all become commonplace on cable and satellite television programs. These controversial type programs have not been able to be produced by the Big Four in content or success.


5 big ideas about commercials coming soon.. aka in about 25 minutes so I'm sorry be somewhat patient with me