Television in the United States
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Television is one of the major mass media of the United States. Ninety-nine percent of American households have at least one television and the majority of households have more than one. As a whole, the television networks of the United States are the largest and most syndicated in the world.[1]
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[edit]Television channels and networks
In the United States television is available via broadcast ("over-the-air"), unencrypted satellite ("free-to-air"), direct broadcast satellite, cable television, and IPTV (internet protocol television).
Over-the-air and free-to-air TV is free with no monthly payments while cable, direct broadcast satellite, and IPTV require a monthly payment that varies depending on how many channels a subscriber chooses to pay for. Channels are usually sold in groups, rather than singly.
[edit]Broadcast television
The United States has a decentralized, market-oriented television system. The United States has a national public broadcast service known as the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Local media markets have their own television stations, which may be affiliated withor owned and operated by a TV network. Stations may sign affiliation agreements with one of the national networks. Except in very small markets with few stations, affiliation agreements are usually exclusive: If a station is an NBC affiliate, the station would not air programs from ABC, CBS or other networks.
However, to ensure local presences in television broadcasting, federal law restricts the amount of network programming local stations can run. Until the 1970s and '80s, local stations supplemented network programming with a good deal of their own produced shows. Today, however, many stations produce only local news shows. They fill the rest of their schedule with syndicated shows, or material produced independently and sold to individual stations in each local market..
[edit]Major broadcast networks
See also: Big Three television networks, Fourth television network, and Dayparting
The five major U.S. networks are NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and The CW. The first three began as radio networks: NBC and CBS in the 1920s, and ABC was spun off from NBC in 1943. Fox is a relative newcomer that began in 1986, although it is built upon the remnants of the former DuMont Television Network, which was an earlier "fourth network" that operated from 1948 to 1956. The CW was created in 2006 when UPN merged with The WB.
Weekday schedules on ABC, CBS and NBC affiliates tend to be similar, with programming choices sorted by dayparts (Fox does not air network programming outside of prime time other than weekend sports programming). Typically, they begin with an early-morning local news show, followed by a network morning show, such as NBC's Today, which mixes news, weather, interviews and music. Network daytime schedules consist of talk shows and soap operas, with one network (CBS) still carrying game shows and a handful of other games airing in syndication; local news may air at midday. Syndicated talk shows appear in the late afternoon, followed by local news again in the early evening. ABC, CBS and NBC offer network news, generally at 6:30 or 7:00 in the Eastern Time zone and 5:30 or 6:00 in other areas. Local newscasts or syndicated programs fill the "prime access" hour or half-hour, and lead into the networks' prime time schedules, which are the day's most-watched three hours of television.
Typically, family-oriented comedy programs led in the early part of prime time, although in recent years, reality television like Dancing with the Stars has largely replaced them. Later in the evening, dramas like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, House M.D., and Grey's Anatomy air.
At the end of prime time, another local news program comes on, usually followed by late-night interview shows, such as Late Show with David Letterman or The Tonight Show. Rather than sign off for the early hours of the morning (as was standard practice until the early 1970s in larger markets and until the mid 1980s in smaller ones), TV stations now fill the time with syndicated programming, reruns of prime time television shows or the local late news o'clock news, or 30-minute advertisements, known as infomercials, and in the case of CBS and ABC, overnight network news programs.
Saturday mornings usually feature network programming aimed at children (including animated cartoons), while Sunday mornings include public-affairs programs. Both of these help fulfill stations' legal obligations, to provide educational children's programs and public-service programming respectively. Sports and infomercials can be found on weekend afternoons, followed again by the same type of prime-time shows aired during the week.
[edit]Other over-the-air commercial television
 | This section does not cite any references or sources. (October 2010) |
From 1955 until 1986, all English-language stations not affiliated with the big three networks were independent, airing only locally produced and syndicated programming. Many independent stations still exist in the U.S., usually historically broadcasting on the UHFband. Syndicated shows, often reruns of old TV series and old movies, take up much of their schedule.
In 1986, however, the Fox Broadcasting Company launched a challenge to the big three networks. Thanks largely to the success of shows like The Simpsons, as well as the network's acquisition of rights to show National Football League games, Fox has established itself as a major player in broadcast television. However, Fox differs from the three older networks in that it does not air daily morning and nightly news programs or have network-run daytime or weeknight late night schedules (though late night shows do air on Saturday nights), its nightly prime-time schedule is only two hours long (three hours on Sundays), some of its big-city affiliates used to broadcast on UHF before the transition to digital, many of its smaller-market affiliates outsource news production to Big Three affiliates rather produce their own newscasts, and its flagship stations in New York and Los Angeles do not include the network's name within their callsigns (Fox's New York and Los Angeles stations instead use the callsigns WNYW and KTTV, respectively). Its only scheduled news program is Fox News Sunday, on Sunday mornings; special news coverage on Fox comes from the staff of cable's Fox News Channel, though not all affiliates carry breaking news bulletins from Fox News outside of primetime presidential addresses. Most Fox affiliates now have local newscasts, in primetime usually airing an hour earlier competing with network dramas, rather than other local newscasts, and in the morning for two additional hours.
In the 1990s, three new networks -- The WB (1995), UPN (1995) and PAX (1998; which later became i: Independent Television in 2005 and then Ion Television in 2007) -- launched. The fledging WB and UPN merged into The CW in fall 2006, while News Corporation'sMyNetworkTV, created to replace UPN programming on Fox's O&Os, debuted in fall 2006 as well.
Ion broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week (though only eleven hours of its schedule on Saturday through Tuesdays and twelve hours on Wednesday through Fridays consist of entertainment programming, with infomercials and religious programming making up the remainder of the schedule), making the Ion network the largest English-language commercial television network to be totally responsible for its affiliates' programming, although it mostly airs infomercials outside its prime time. MyNetworkTV broadcasts eight hours a week, Monday through Friday. The CW broadcasts ten hours a week in prime time and five hours in daytime, all airing on Monday through Fridays only.
[edit]Broadcast television in non-English languages
Univision, a network of Spanish language stations, is the fifth-largest TV network behind NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox. Its major competition is Telemundo, a sister network of NBC. Univision-owned TeleFutura, aimed at a younger Hispanic demographic, Azteca América, the American version of Mexico's TV Azteca, and Estrella TV are other popular Spanish-language over-the-air networks.
French programming is generally limited in scope, with some locally produced French and creole programming available in the Miami area (serving refugees from Haiti) and Louisiana, along with some places along the heavily populated Eastern Seaboard. French-speaking areas near the eastern portion of the Canada-United States border generally receive their television broadcasts from French Canadian channels, which are widely available over the air and on cable in those areas.
Especially after the transition to digital television, many large cities have Asian-language broadcast stations, such as KYAZ in Houston.
There have also been a few, local stations in American Sign Language accompanied by closed captioned English. Prior to the development of closed captioning, it was not uncommon to see some public television broadcasts translated into ASL by an on-screen interpreter.
[edit]Non-commercial television
Public television has a far smaller role than in most other countries. There is no federal state-owned broadcasting authority directed at U.S. audiences because of prohibitions set forth in the Smith–Mundt Act. However, a number of states, including Wisconsin, Maryland, Minnesota, and South Carolina, among others, do have state-owned public broadcasting authorities which operate and fund all public television stations in their respective states. <apt.org> The Alabama Educational Television Commission, licensee for the nine Alabama Public Television stations, was established by the Alabama Legislature in 1953. In January of 1955, WCIQ on Mount Cheaha began operation as the nation's ninth non-commercial television station. Four months later, with the sign-on of WBIQ in Birmingham, Alabama became the first state in the nation with an educational television network. Alabama Public Television made its first broadcast as a network in April 1955.
Alabama Public Television was a model for other states in the nation and for television broadcasters in other countries. Twenty-five other states copied Alabama's system of operation to provide service through multiple, linked television stations. The federal government does subsidize non-commercial educational television stations through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The income received from the government is insufficient to cover expenses and stations rely on corporate sponsorships and viewer contributions.
American public television stations air programming that commercial stations do not offer, such as educational, including cultural and arts, and public affairs programming. Most (but by no means all) public TV stations are affiliates of the Public Broadcasting Service, sharing programs like Sesame Street and Masterpiece Theatre. Unlike the commercial networks, PBS does not officially produce any of its own programming; instead, individual PBS stations, station groups and affiliated producers create programming and provide these through PBS to other affiliates; there are also a number of syndicators dealing exclusively or primarily with public broadcast stations, both PBS and independent stations; additionally, there are a number of smaller networks feeding programming to public stations, including World, Create, and MHz Worldview; the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle has also provided blocks of programming to a variety of affiliates in the US, and increasingly feeds from other national broadcasters have been playing through digital channels belonging to public stations in the US. New York City's municipally-owned broadcast service, NYCTV, creates original programming that airs in several markets. Few cities have major municipally-owned stations.
Many religious broadcasting networks and stations exist, also surviving on viewer contributions and time leased to the programming producers, including Trinity Broadcasting Network, Three Angels Broadcasting Network, Hope Channel, Amazing Facts Television,Daystar Television Network, The Word Network, The Worship Network, Total Christian Television, and INSP.
[edit]Cable and satellite television
While pay television systems existed as early as the late 1940s, until the early 1970s cable television only brought distant over-the-air TV to rural areas without local stations. This role was reflected in the original meaning of the CATV acronym: community antenna TV. In that decade, national networks dedicated exclusively to cable broadcasting appeared along with cable-TV systems in major cities with over-the-air TV. By the mid 1970s some form of cable-TV was available in almost every market that already had over-the-air TV. Today, most American households receive cable TV, and cable networks collectively have greater viewership than broadcast networks.
Unlike broadcast networks, most cable networks air the same programming nationwide. Top cable networks include USA Network(general entertainment), ESPN and Fox Sports (sports), MTV (music), CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC (news), Syfy (science fiction),Disney Channel (family), Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network (Children's), Discovery Channel and Animal Planet (documentaries), TBS(comedy), TNT (drama) and Lifetime (women's).
The national cable TV network became possible in the mid 1970s with the launch of domestic communication satellites that could economically broadcast TV programs to cable operators anywhere in the continental US. (Some domestic satellites also covered Alaska and Hawaii with dedicated spot beams.) Until then, cable networks like HBO had been limited to regional coverage by expensive terrestrial microwave links leased from the telephone companies (primarily AT&T). Satellites were generally used only for international (i.e., transoceanic) communications; their antennas covered an entire hemisphere, producing weak signals that required large, expensive receiving antennas. The first domestic communications satellite, Westar 1, was launched in 1974. By concentrating its signal on the continental United States with a directional antenna, Westar 1 could transmit to TVRO ("TV, receive only") dishes only a few meters in diameter, well within the means of local cable TV operators.
Cable system operators now receive programming by satellite, terrestrial optical fiber, off the air, and from in-house sources and relay it to subscribers' homes. Usually, local governments award a monopoly to provide cable-TV service in a given area. By law, cable systems must include local over-the-air stations in their offerings to customers.
Enterprising individuals soon found they could install their own satellite dishes and eavesdrop on the feeds to the cable operators. The signals were transmitted as unscrambled analogFM that did not require advanced or expensive technology. Since these same satellites were also used internally by the TV networks they could also watch programs not intended for public broadcast such as affiliate feeds without commercials and/or intended for another time zone; raw footage from remote news teams; advance transmissions of upcoming programs; and live news and talk shows during breaks when those on camera might not realize that anyone outside the network could hear them.
Encrypting was introduced to prevent people from receiving pay content for free, and nearly every pay channel was encrypted by the mid to late 1980s. (This did not happen without protest; see Captain Midnight (HBO)). Satellite TV also began a digital transition, well before over the air broadcasting did the same, to increase satellite capacity and/or reduce the size of the receiving antennas, and this also made it more difficult for individuals to intercept these signals.
Eventually the industry began to cater to individuals who wanted to continue to receive satellite TV (and were willing to pay for it) in two ways: by authorizing the descrambling of the original satellite feeds to the cable TV operators and with new direct broadcast satellite television services using their own satellites.
These latter services, which began in the mid 1990s, offer programming similar to cable TV. Dish Network and DirecTV are the major DBS providers in the country.
Although most networks make viewers pay, some networks are broadcasting unencrypted feeds. After broadcast TV switched to all digital, new channels became available on unencrypted satellites to bring more free TV to Americans some of these are available as adigital subchannel to local broadcasters, this reason may be for the expensive costs of the DVB-S equipment. NASA TV, Pentagon Channel, ABC News Now, ThisTV, TheCoolTV, and Retro Television Network (through its affiliates) are examples, international news channels like Al Jazeera English are commonly watched this way as a result to the lack of availability on Cable, DBS and IPTV.
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