Television in the USA

MASS MEDIA IN THE USA

The media of the United States consist of several different types of communications media: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based Web sites. The U.S. also has a strong music industry.

Many of the media are controlled by large for-profit corporations who reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted material. American media conglomerates tend to be leading global players, generating large profits as well as large criticism in many parts of the world. Further deregulation and convergence are under way, leading to mega-mergers, further concentration of media ownership, and the emergence of multinational media conglomerates. Critics allege that localism, local news and other content at the community level, media spending and coverage of news, and diversity of ownership and views have suffered as a result of these processes of media concentration.

Radio in the USA

National Public Radio* is the nation’s primary public radio network, but most radio stations are commercial and profit-oriented.

American radio broadcasts in two bands: FM and AM.

AM has shifted mainly to all-news format. Talk radio usually features a host, a celebrity or an expert on some subject, and the opportunity for listeners to call in and ask questions or express opinion on the air.

The call-in format is now heard on nearly 1 000 of the 10 000 commercial radio stations in the US.

FM came to dominate the music side of the programming. Besides the 10 000 comercial radion stations, the USA has 1 400 public radio satations. Most of these are run by universities and other public institutions for educational purposes and are financed by public funds and private donations.

A new form of radio that is gaining popularity is satellite radio. The two biggest subscriptions based radio services are Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio, which have recently both merged together to form Sirius XM Radio. Unlike terrestrial radio music channels are commercial free and other channels feature very minimal commercials. Satellite radio is not regulated by the FCC**.

Television in the USA

Television is one of the major media of the United States. In an expansive country of more than 300 million people, television programs are some of the few things that nearly all Americans can share. Ninety-nine percent of American households have at least one television and the majority of households have more than one.

There are three basic types of television in the United States: broadcast, or “over-the-air” television, which is freely available to anyone with a TV in the broadcast area, cable television, and satellite television, both of which require a subscription to receive.

2.1. Broadcast television.The three major commercial television networks in the U.S. are NBC and CBS, which date to the early days of television (in fact, they both began in the 1920s as radio networks), and ABC, which began its life as a radio network spun off from NBC in 1943.

Major-network affiliates run very similar schedules. Typically, they begin weekdays with an early-morning locally produced news show, followed by a network morning show, such as NBC’s Today, which mixes news, weather, interviews and music. Syndicated programming, especially talk shows, fill the late morning, followed often by local news at noon (Eastern Time). Soap operas dominate the early afternoon, while syndicated talk shows such as The Oprah Winfrey Show appear in the late afternoon. Local news comes on again in the early evening, followed by the national network’s news program at 6:30 or 5:30 p.m., followed by more news.

Saturday mornings usually feature network programming aimed at children (including animated cartoons), while Sunday mornings include public-affairs programs that help fulfill stations’ legal obligations to provide public-service programming. Sports and infomercials can be found on weekend afternoons, followed again by the same type of prime-time shows aired during the week.

2.2. Cable and satellite television. Until the 1970s, cable television was used only to rebroadcast over-the-air TV to areas that had trouble receiving signals. But in that decade, national networks dedicated exclusively to cable broadcasting appeared, along with cable-TV systems that provided service to major cities. 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, ESPN and Versus (sports), MTV (music), Fox News (news), Sci Fi (science fiction), Disney Channel (family), Nick and Cartoon Network (Children’s), Discovery Channel and Animal Planet (documentaries), TBS (comedy), TNT (drama) and Lifetime (women’s).

Today Direct broadcast satellite television services, which became available in the U.S. in the 1990s, offers programming similar to cable TV. Dish Network and News Corporation’s DirecTV are the major DBS providers in the country. Satellites were originally launched and used by the Television networks as a method of distributing their programs from headquarters to local affiliates. In the 1970s individuals in remote locations, without access to Terrestrial television broadcasts, found they could get free television by installing large satellite dishes and aiming them at the various satellites owned by the networks. This had the additional benefit of providing channels that others could not receive. This included programs without commercials, live feeds not intended for broadcast, broadcasts from other countries and eventually cable television programming. To prevent people from receiving pay content for free, satellite transmissions are now scrambled. Newer transmission technology enabled satellite dishes to be much smaller and subscription services were developed.

2.3. Non-commercial television. Public television has a far smaller role than in most other countries. There is no state-owned broadcasting authority. Instead, the federal government subsidizes non-commercial 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 public affairs programming. Most public TV stations are affiliates of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), sharing programs like Sesame Street and Masterpiece Theatre. Unlike the commercial networks, PBS does not produce its own programming; instead, individual PBS stations create programming and provide these to other affiliates. New York City’s municipally-owned broadcast service, NYCTV, creates original programming that airs in several markets. Few cities have major municipally-owned stations.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 2799