Big Ideas of The Television Industry (ch. 9)

1. The Golden Age of Television (Not so Golden)
2. The establishment of Cable TV
3. Video Recording

From 1948-1958 television experienced a Golden Age of TV programming and good quality shows. However this period brought about the beginnings of a ongoing problem in television: Stereotyping and Non Diversity. Television shows like the widely popular I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best portrayed women as incompetent housewives and incapable of succeeding outside of the household. Most shows at this time didn't have any colored actors in the cast as primary characters; they were only presented as secondary characters such as cook, maids, and chauffeurs. This problem has escalated over the years and programming on TV is still a matter of controversy as more violence, sexual activity, suggestive dialogue, and foul language is shown on TV. In recent years minority groups such as The National Organization for Women (NOW) and the NAACP, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, have pushed for better representation on television. Also, the parental advisory rating have been implemented to programs as a guide of the content.

Cable TV was established in the 1950's as a way to receive clearer reception of TV (network television). However the branching of of pay cable channels has opened a plethora of TV program selection for consumers. As discussed in the textbook, cable providers have a selection of hundreds of channels, but on average the consumers are only watching 15 of the channels: I myself can attest to this fact, i have my primary favorite channels and occasionally will find something good to watch on any other channel, but even then I have Hundreds of channels that i have never watched in my life. SO this leads to my question: Will cable providers eventually bend to the demands of people and offer their channels in a "a la carte" pricing (meaning consumers ail handpick the channels they wants and only pay for those channels)?

Lastly, the entrance of video recording in 1975 in the homes of Americans has started a major problem with television network execs: More than ever people are "time shifting", the term used when individuals tape the programs they want to watch on video recorder in order to watch it later. First the VCR, and not TiVo and DVRs have caused issues in the television industry. This is mainly because people have the ability to fast forward through commercials, which defeats the reason for them because advertisers spend good people for people to see their ads. Now if people aren't watching commercials then advertisers will see no need to spend thousands of dollars to the stations of networks, which is bad because they need that money to produce their programs. So...How will the Tv industry deal with possible decreases in advertisers? Will Advertisers eventually start pulling out or demanding reduced ad space costs?