Radio and Television Broadcasting

C

Broadcast Journalism

One of broadcasting's original purposes, predating its use as an entertainment medium, was to spread news of maritime weather conditions. Early experimenters and amateurs also delighted in informing far-away listeners of everything from election results to local gossip. As broadcasting developed into a mass medium, its speed and ubiquity made the news—international, national, and local—a natural area for programming. Radio was not only more immediate than the newspaper, but it also could offer its audience live coverage of events. Television’s instant images and video coverage made newspaper photographs outdated before readers saw them and robbed weekly photo magazines, such as Life and Look, of their purpose and popularity. As broadcasting emerged as the primary means of distributing information, print journalism redefined itself as a supplemental medium in American mass communication. The newspapers and magazines that survived the broadcasting era did so by focusing on in-depth analysis of events, editorial opinion, and coverage of the arts and other “soft” news. Other print publications thrived by imitating the brevity and flashy visual style of television.

Just as radio broadcasting pushed the newspaper from its central position as the herald of public events, television had the same general effect on radio. However, the rise of television coincided with the explosion in popularity of the automobile and the development of the suburbs, and this proved a crucial factor in the survival of radio broadcasting. While Americans spent less time listening to their radios for home entertainment, they spent more time listening to the radio in their cars. Accordingly, the so-called drive time—7 to 9 am and 4 to 7 pm, the most popular hours for commuters to travel to and from work—became radio's equivalent of television prime time. Many radio stations introduced frequent traffic bulletins, weather reports, and time checks; some stations adopted news-only formats. This reflected the medium’s need to cultivate specialized audiences as television held the attention of the majority. The success of National Public Radio (NPR), which began network broadcast service in 1970, can be tied to this phenomenon. Two of its most popular daily programs, Morning Edition (1979- ) and All Things Considered (1971- ), were developed to serve audiences that in an earlier era might have read newspapers while commuting on public transportation.

Television offered little news coverage during its early years. In the late 1940s, the networks put together 15-minute daily news summaries that offered a minimum of visual material. In 1956 NBC introduced The Huntley-Brinkley Report, a half-hour national telecast presented in the early evening and featuring an increased number of taped reports of the day's events. The other networks eventually followed this format. With the invention of videotape (Video Recording), the cost of such coverage dropped significantly, allowing individual stations to initiate and expand local news coverage as well.

International news reporting was greatly enhanced in 1961 with the successful launching of Telstar, the first communications satellite. Owned by AT&T and launched into Earth orbit by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under a commercial contract, Telstar enabled the networks to broadcast for the first time same-day moving images of news events from around the world. Network and local news programming, initially considered a nonprofit or barely profitable civic duty, was soon commercially lucrative as broadcast news became an integral part of viewers’ everyday lives. Television broadcasting quickly became society's most popular source of news. Tens of millions of viewers tuned in during gripping national events such as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 or the manned Moon landing in 1969.

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In addition to daily news coverage, the networks also developed weekly prime-time newsmagazine series, such as 60 Minutes (1968- ) and 20/20 (1978- ). Newsmagazine shows tend to consist of cultural reporting, investigative reporting, and human-interest stories. They have proliferated in prime-time broadcasting, while all-news cable channels have proved quicker in supplying viewers with breaking news. Although network news divisions regularly produced hour-long documentary programs during the 1950s, such as CBS Reports, almost all in-depth American documentary programs are now produced by public television stations and aired on the PBS network.

In the United States, television has had a profound effect on electoral politics and public opinion. For example, in 1960 presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy agreed to a series of debates, which were broadcast simultaneously on television and radio. According to surveys, most radio listeners felt that Nixon had won the debates, while television viewers picked the younger, more photogenic Kennedy. Kennedy went on to win the general election that fall. Especially influential was television coverage of the Vietnam War (1959-1975), which helped change the rules of American politics. By the mid-1960s the Big Three networks were broadcasting daily images of the war into virtually every home in the United States. For many viewers, the horrors they saw on television were more significant than the optimistic reports of impending victory issued by government officials and repeated in print accounts. The lessons learned by the American military in the Vietnam War were evident in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, where great emphasis was placed on the orchestration of information for television.

D

Commercialism in Broadcasting

In the United States advertising agencies produced almost all network radio shows before the development of television, and they produced much early television programming as well. Networks often sold time periods to the ad agencies for purposes of full sponsorship of a program. In this arrangement, the sponsor’s name was often placed right in a show's title, as with Palmolive Beauty Box Theater (1927-1937) on radio or Texaco Star Theater (1948-1953) on television. In the late 1950s the networks began to take greater control of programming and full sponsorship was replaced by the sale of spot advertising, in which clusters of ads by various sponsors are presented during commercial breaks. Spot advertising eventually became the dominant form of commercial sponsorship.

The ratings system used in commercial broadcasting arose from the desire of sponsors to know how many people they were reaching with their advertising. In 1929 Archibald M. Crossley launched Crossley's Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting, using telephone surveys to project daily estimates of audience size for the national radio networks. The A. C. Nielsen Company, which had been surveying audience size in radio since the mid-1930s, emerged as the preeminent television ratings service. Nielsen became identified with two information-gathering techniques, both of which are still used: placing devices (so-called black boxes) on television sets in the homes of selected viewers to record their program choices, and asking sample viewers to keep written diaries of what they watch. The size of a given program’s audience is then estimated based on the results. These projections, or ratings, determine the price of advertisements during the show and, ultimately, whether the show is profitable enough to stay on the air.

During the era when the Big Three networks constituted the only choices available to most viewers, the total number of viewers was the most important statistic in determining the value of an audience. As the number of channels rapidly multiplied during the cable television era, the demographic characteristics of a given audience became more significant to advertisers. For example, a company advertising a luxury automobile wants to know not only how many people are watching its commercials, but also how many of these viewers can afford to buy the car and are in the age range of the car’s typical buyers. The company then buys ads on shows (or channels) that are most likely to reach its desired viewers.

E

Noncommercial Broadcasting

Most public television stations produce no more than a weekly interview show or a roundtable discussion of local affairs; many do not produce any programs. A handful of public stations in large cultural centers—such as WGBH-TV in Boston, Massachusetts, WNET-TV in New York City, WETA-TV in Washington, D.C., and KQED-TV in San Francisco, California—create and distribute the bulk of programming to all other PBS affiliates (PBS has no owned-and-operated stations). The few daily programs offered directly by PBS to its affiliates include a one-hour newscast, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (1976- ), and several children’s programs, including Sesame Street (1969- ) and Arthur (1996- ).

Public television and public radio stations are typically licensed to educational institutions, such as universities and local cultural foundations, and are financed by the donations of individuals, corporations, and nonprofit foundations as well as government sources. As in commercial broadcasting, public television stations tend to air a wide variety of program types, while public radio stations are more narrowly formatted. Public radio formats tend to feature less-popular forms of entertainment, such as jazz or classical music. In recent years NPR has expanded its network programming, adding a variety of eclectic music and talk shows as well as foreign news programs from Canada and Europe. Several smaller public radio networks also produce programming that stations can license for broadcast.

F

The Regulation of Broadcasting

Broadcasting has been subject to regulation almost since its inception. Government involvement in the United States, as in most countries, has always been at the national level, primarily because the broadcasting signal moves through the air without regard to political borders. Federal regulatory legislation for broadcasting originated with the Wireless Act of 1910, in which the U.S. Congress required all American ships to carry a radiotelegraph transmitter and a qualified operator while at sea. Formal regulation of commercial broadcasting began with the Washington Radio Conference of 1922, where rules concerning transmission power, use of frequencies, station identification, and advertising were established as law. The growing importance of broadcasting became evident in the Radio Act of 1927, which transferred regulation from the Department of Commerce to a new government agency set up especially for this purpose, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC). The Communications Act of 1934 reorganized the FRC into the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which has retained oversight of broadcasting ever since.

An independent government agency, the FCC has five members (known as commissioners), including a chairperson, who are appointed for five-year terms by the U.S. president with the advice and consent of the Senate. FCC responsibilities include the licensing and regulation of radio and television broadcasters and the oversight of other communications technologies, including telephone systems, cable television, and satellite transmission. All radio and television station licenses are subject to periodic renewal by the FCC, as is the transfer of any license from one owner to another by sale or merger. The commissioners primarily concern themselves with broader policy issues, such as the defining of mature subject matter in programming and the quality of children’s television. Commissioners also have oversight of technical standards for the introduction of industry advances, such as the FM band in the 1940s, color television in the 1950s, stereo radio broadcasting in the 1960s, and high-definition television (HDTV) at the beginning of the 21st century.

United States broadcasters are less closely regulated than their counterparts in most countries, but the FCC has occasionally involved itself in significant issues concerning the role of broadcasting in politics. The Equal Time Rule is one example. Under Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934, broadcasters who permit their facilities to be used by a candidate for public office must provide an equivalent opportunity to any opposing candidates who might request it. In the case of a paid political advertisement, the broadcaster is only required to sell time to an opponent at an equal cost. In the case of an unpaid broadcast appearance, free broadcast time must be given to opponents. The rule is regularly suspended during political elections to allow major-party candidates to engage in broadcast debates without having to include minor-party candidates. Candidate interviews with broadcast journalists are also exempted from the Equal Time Rule so as not to interfere with freedom of the press.

The Fairness Doctrine provides a rare example of the FCC’s actively seeking a role in regulating the character of broadcasting. In 1949, with radio stations at their peak of popularity and television on the horizon, the FCC issued a policy explicitly encouraging stations to broadcast editorial opinions while also requiring them to actively seek responsible opposing viewpoints for rebuttal. The policy was legally challenged but was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1969 as consistent with the free speech requirements of the First Amendment (see Constitution of the United States: Amendment 1). Despite its apparent intent of bringing more political diversity and debate to broadcasting, the Fairness Doctrine seemed to have the opposite effect. Many station owners simply avoided taking controversial positions on the air, thus relieving themselves of any obligation to seek out political opponents for the purpose of giving them free airtime. Modifications to the policy were attempted, but it was discontinued in 1987.

The FCC has been significantly altered since the early 1980s, in accordance with federal government policy favoring deregulation (removal of governmental restrictions) of industries. The number of FCC commissioners was reduced from seven to five. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 set a period of up to eight years between renewal reviews for radio- and television-station licenses, though a significant complaint or violation can bring quicker action. A long-standing policy of reviewing a station’s application for license renewal based on the station’s public service efforts was abandoned, allowing programmers to minimize the time given to low-rated news and public-affairs programming. Some radio stations with music formats dropped news coverage completely. A lottery system was instituted for assigning newly available frequencies, replacing the previous policy of reviewing licensee credentials or statements of purpose. Restrictions on the number of advertising minutes allowable per hour were also dropped.

The 1996 Telecommunications Act cancelled previous limits on the exact number of AM, FM, and TV stations a single company or individual licensee could own. In their place the act set up less restrictive limits, based on a complex formula that takes into account factors such as the percentage of population reached by stations owned by a single company and the cross-ownership of electronic and print media. The effect has been to radically reduce the number of licensed broadcasters. Since the law’s enactment, the number of owners of commercial radio stations has dropped by about 25 percent, from 5,100 to 3,800. Many local owners of television stations have sold them to the networks, which now own and operate more stations than ever before. In 2003 the FCC voted to further ease ownership restrictions. The ruling allowed one company to own television stations that reach up to 45 percent of U.S. households and also ended the ban on one person or company owning a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same city.

The 1996 act also responded to concerns of parents’ groups over explicit broadcasting, requiring that television manufacturers install a computer chip, popularly known as the v-chip, in all sets. This device allows owners of television sets to filter out violent or sexually suggestive programming, which is flagged by a rating system developed by the FCC. With the exception of the v-chip requirement and rating system, regulation of broadcasting has generally lessened since the 1980s.

IV

Current Trends

From the early 1920s through the early 1980s, broadcasting was the only effective means of delivering television and radio programming to the general public. However, functions once exclusive to broadcasting are now shared in industrially advanced societies by two other means of mass communication: (1) cable television and radio systems, such as commercial cable services, pay-per-view channels, and modem-accessible databases, which transmit sounds and images to paid subscribers rather than to the general public; and (2) self-programmable systems, such as the videocassette recorder (VCR), digital video disc (DVD), video game, and digital recording technology, which allow the user more control over content and scheduling. Despite these innovations, in the first years of the 21st century broadcasting remained the single most important component of mass communication, even in countries where the newer systems are available and growing.

It is estimated that about 1.8 billion radios and 800 million television sets are in use worldwide, with more than half concentrated in North America, the European Union countries, and Japan. In developing societies such as China, India, Brazil, and Egypt, nearly all citizens own or have access to a radio; television, on the other hand, remains the privilege of a smaller but expanding class of people.

New broadcast delivery systems continue to be developed. In the increasing number of homes equipped with digital cable systems, broadcast radio stations must now compete against scores of commercial-free digital music channels, each offering round-the-clock delivery of a single style or genre of music. Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) provides television viewers with a personal satellite dish antenna capable of capturing signals without the help of a local cable provider. Subscription fees are charged by DBS providers to unscramble the channels, making the cable and satellite delivery methods competitive. DBS remains at a distinct disadvantage because the antennas cannot capture the signals of local broadcasting stations in most areas, requiring the viewer to put up a separate rooftop or set-top antenna to receive these channels.

The years during which radio and television broadcasting dominated mass communication as the principal means of signal delivery—approximately the 1920s to the 1990s—can be thought of as the broadcast era in American communications. This era will be remembered as a period when vast national populations shared witness to a wide variety of political and cultural events, such as the address of a leader, the performance of an actor or singer, or a sporting event. It is fair to say that this was perhaps the only time in history when so wide a range of economic and social classes constituted a single audience. Although still technically possible, the assembly of enormous, heterogeneous audiences—a common daily occurrence of the broadcasting era—is becoming increasingly rare, as the number of nonbroadcasting alternatives increases and target audiences become narrower.

Its reduced role notwithstanding, broadcasting remains a significant method of mass communication. At any given time, a plurality—if no longer a huge majority—of the audience for television and radio continues to consume entertainment and information conveyed by broadcasting. During times of crisis, such as the September 11 attacks by terrorists against the United States in 2001, a majority of citizens continue to turn to broadcast services as the best way to follow an issue of singular importance.