Television in the United States
The television in the United States is an important part of the local media landscape and is one of the leading media . 96.7 percent of households in the United States have at least one television set .
structure
There are many more television stations in the United States than in European countries. Although the television market is much more fragmented, as hundreds of regional and local television stations broadcast programs in larger cities and counties, the sheer number of channels does not guarantee any content diversity. Most of these broadcasters are connected to one of the five major broadcasting networks and, as its affiliate, take over their news programs - and thus mostly also their political orientation. The commercial networks NBC , CBS , ABC , FOX and, since 2006, the network The CW , which belongs to CBS and Time Warner, traditionally exist . In addition, the public public broadcasting network PBS has partner stations in all states. These networks produce complex and expensive program content and the afilliates usually switch to prime time .
In addition, hundreds of cable channels broadcast mostly special interest programs (news, children's programs, sex, religious programs, non-English language programs, etc.) via satellite or IPTV .
A historical difference is the fact that TV stations, like all other US broadcasters, are perceived as independent radio broadcasting stations . The state regulatory authority FCC licenses the stations with their callsign on a frequency for a region. Channel chains like in Europe do not exist in this form. Although this strict transmitter-frequency link was defacto weakened by digital transmission processes with numerous subchannels, it still applies in principle to new licensing. The broadcasters are also fully responsible for their own broadcast technology and infrastructure.
present
The television market in the United States is very different in content and structure from most European television landscapes. In addition to the traditional main players of broadcasting networks , cable channels and pay TV channels, there are now also major streaming services. Linear television is increasingly mixing up with on-demand offers.
history
From the 1930s - The beginnings of television in the USA
Several modes of transmission for television programs have been developed since the late 1930s. These were made available to a large part of the population in the early 1950s through the radio corporation of America (an NBC company ) and CBS . WBAL-TV from Baltimore , Maryland was the first television station to broadcast its programs in color from 1952 . By the mid-1950s, about half of all US households had a television. Most of these were black and white , as color TVs were still expensive and few channels switched to color TV until the 1960s.
After a flood of applications for new broadcasting licenses at the state telecommunications authority Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ), this initially no longer allowed applications, so that at the end of the 1950s only a few dozen stations broadcast a program, mainly on the areas of the east and west coast . Television's popularity skyrocketed after the FCC reopened the applications.
Many of the broadcasts of the period were television adaptations of well-established radio shows of the 1930s and 1940s. Comedy shows and sitcoms like I Love Lucy , My little Margie and I Married Joan were very popular at the time . They increasingly shifted their focus to television, as it was much easier to present the joke through the use of gestures , facial expressions and situation comedy ( slapstick ). Many short films originally shown in theaters such as Looney Tunes and The Three Stooges were also broadcast. Other popular genres at the time were talk shows ( The Jack Paar Show ) , westerns , suspense thrillers ( The Twilight Zone ) and soap operas . The success of the big band broadcast genre, which was popular in the radio era, could largely not be continued in television. An exception to this was the Lawrence Welk Show , which ran from 1951 to 1982 and is still frequently repeated today. The popular Saturday morning cartoons were also broadcast for the first time at this time.
From the 1970s - Cable television emerges
In the 1970s, cable television emerged across the United States and gave the large media companies the opportunity to establish their own channels, which, unlike the affilates, they could almost completely control. You benefit fully from their income from advertising and cable feed-in fees. The cable channels expanded the US television market considerably in terms of content: from then on there were more specialty offers because the regulation by the FCC was not so strong.
On June 1, 1980, the now best-known news channel in the world, the Cable News Network (CNN) began operations in Atlanta . Up until then, the major American television programs had news almost exclusively on 30-minute evening broadcasts. Founder Ted Turner said in his on-air speech at the launch, "We will turn off until the world ends" in 1983 bought the Turner CNN main competitors, the satellite news channel of ABC .
In the early 1980s, the concept of pay TV became increasingly popular. In 1987, 30 percent of all households had a subscription. However, this also led to difficulties, since a growing number of providers also meant a greater distribution of viewers among them, making it increasingly difficult for the providers to gain a critical mass for themselves. In response, the number of soap operas and game shows popular with viewers increased, while other genres became increasingly displaced and disappeared. The number of "Daily Talk" shows also increased, many of which, however, were discontinued in the late 1990s and replaced by court shows . Around this time, television coverage was also greatest at 98.4 percent.
From the 2000s - competition from streaming services
Since the 2010s, linear television in the United States has been facing increasing competition from streaming services with extensive offerings. The most important, Netflix and Amazon Prime , are supplemented by non-traditional providers such as Warner Media , Twitter and British Telecom , Peloton and the Google subsidiary Youtube with Youtube Red . Netflix has half of its around 120 million subscribers in the USA (as of 2018).
As a result of this development, the broadcasters' advertising revenues are falling. A number of broadcasters developed new strategies to cope with this change. More and more own advertising-free and subscription-independent digital offers such as B. HBO Go created. More and more TV broadcasters are offering almost ad-free subscription channels under the umbrella of Amazon Prime. Some cable broadcasters also set up their own streaming channels ( AMC ( AMC Premiere), the FX Network, etc.) with favorable subscription conditions.
Television program
The television program, at least as far as the daily routine is concerned, is the same for most of the major broadcasters.
On weekday mornings, news programs are mostly shown. Some of the best known are CBS This Morning on CBS , NBC The Today Show and ABC Good Morning America . The news anchors for these programs are prominent among the population and are often known as the “face of the broadcaster”. News magazines like 60 Minutes and 20/20 (ABC) tend to be on the program late in the afternoon.
At this time, other stations often show court shows or reruns of well-known, older programs.
During the day the program is different.
Often game shows are broadcast that have a high priority in the USA and some have also been adapted for German television . The best known are Family Feud ( family duel ), The Price is Right ( the price is hot ) and Match Game ( knickknack , point point point ). Also reruns of popular game shows from the 1950s and 1960s like What's My Line? ( What am I? ) Are shown frequently.
Popular soap operas such as General Hospital (ABC), The Young and the Restless (CBS) and The Bold and the Beautiful (also CBS) can be found predominantly in the stations' late morning programming. These shows are usually very long-lived ( General Hospital first aired April 1, 1963) and are therefore very important for the broadcasters' audience loyalty.
In the late afternoon, the television program is dominated by talk shows . A distinction is made between daytime talk shows such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show , The Wendy Williams Show and The Queen Latifah Show , where a host holds talks with mostly celebrity guests, and lifestyle talk shows like Dr. Oz , Dr. Phil and the Steve Harvey Show , which focuses on giving guests and viewers advice on health, and less often financial, problems.
The prime time (20:00 to 11:00 p.m.) is predominantly of sitcoms determined and one-hour crime novel and hospital series. The best known include The Simpsons , How I Met Your Mother , The Big Bang Theory , Law & Order, and Grey's Anatomy . Reps of sitcoms that have already been canceled such as King of Queens , That 70's Show , Seinfeld , Friends , Cheers , Two and a Half Men and The Cosby Show run daily at this time. Many of these shows are also synchronized in many other countries and have become world famous. Entertainment programs such as Mythbusters are also broadcast at this time.
Late in the evening (11:35 p.m.) the most watched shows are Late Night Shows . The most famous include The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS) and The Tonight Show (NBC).
The program is very different on weekends. Individual popular programs such as Saturday Night Live , Face the Nation and This Week have significantly more viewers than the rest of the television landscape at the time.
regulation
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is responsible for regulating all broadcasters. It grants broadcasting licenses to all terrestrial broadcasters; In addition to television stations, these are radio stations and all other commercial and non-commercial radio applications. According to the law, the FCC should only regulate the transmission modalities. However, the FCC also monitors the content for criteria that would be dubbed the protection of minors in Europe . This includes, among other things, that TV stations are not allowed to broadcast material that shows sexual acts between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Exceptions are pay TV channels such as Playboy TV
Cable television is practically barely regulated by the FCC. The few regulations that these broadcasters have to comply with include encrypted transmission via cable and satellite , and compliance with broadcasting rights to the respective content (since the copyright laws in the USA were comparatively negligent towards the owner until 1976, many broadcasts are now public domain and can be broadcast freely and without special permission). In addition, the providers must also include the public broadcasters in their offer and assign them low program numbers.
All TV channels (and radio channels too) have a four-letter callsign . All television stations east of the Mississippi begin with the letter W and west with the letter K.
See also
Web links
- History of Television (English)
- Robert J. Thompson , Steve Allen : Television in the United States. In: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved January 31, 2018 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Hearst Television History. Retrieved July 24, 2019 .
- ↑ http://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/History%20of%20Television%20page.htm
- ↑ CNN's 25th Anniversary Spiegel , accessed November 17, 2009.
- ^ This Day in History: June 1, 1980. CNN launches. ( Memento of February 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: History.com (English).
- ↑ Aktuell '89, ISBN 3-611-00035-3
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from June 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b US television: How the US networks want to beat their competitors at their own weapons. Retrieved July 24, 2019 .
- ^ Justin Brown: W's and K's - The History of Radio and Television Call Letters. You've noticed that every radio and television station not only has a 4-letter identification but that most of them either start with a W or K. Ever bothered to wonder why? In: Primer. Retrieved August 18, 2016 .
