Television Programming - Essay Example

Name: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Tutor: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Course: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Task: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx @2010 Introduction Television Programming A program on television may be factual, as in documentaries, news, and reality television, or untrue as in comedies and plays. A program for example in news or in movies shown on television, series of a fictional nature and documentaries both of which are historical. Other programs are basically instructional, the purpose of programming of education nature, or for entertainment purposes as in situation comedies, reality TV, or game shows, or for income as advertisements. Program on drama usually features a set of actors in a somewhat familiar setting. The series usually focuses on their lives and in most cases their activities. Excluding soap operas, many shows especially before the 1980s, remained static without story arcs, the main characters and the premise changed little. (William 2001). Regular broadcasts include TV news, TV series (seasons) or Television miniseries otherwise known as extended films, usually with a small pre-determ. Programs on television may have facts in a number of episodes and a set plot and timeline (William 2001). Majority of authorities around the world have sought to address the problems posed by materials on the television programs that are illegal under their offline laws, and those considered harmful to or unsuitable for minors. Such materials vary substantially, from political speeches, to material promoting or inciting to racial hatred, to pornographic material. Television networks on which television series appears are usually commissioned by the networks themselves; their producers earn greater revenue when the program is sold. The rise of the DVD home video format, the public perception that television programs need to be censored is fruitless. There has been a tremendous change on television throughout the years, from the classic family sitcoms, with the wholesome commercials during the break, to overpopulate reality shows and random commercials. In the world most networks are commercial. They depend on advertising for money or on getting funds from sponsors. The main concern of broadcasting executives in their programming lies on the size of the audience. Distorting of News.  Public service believes that government should distort news if they are made for incitement. Therefore a station will be denied the opportunity to air particular news content if the public deems it unhealthy. Also a station that has the news distorted it is likely not to attract many viewers and this is a way of making losses. Before any news are distorted there will be l an investigation to whether a station ,if it receives documented evidence of such rigging or slanting, such as testimony or other documentation, from individuals with direct personal knowledge that a licensee or its management engaged in the intentional falsification of the news. (William 2001). Political Broadcasting:  there should be free flow of information recognising the specific importance to the public during the electoral process; the Communications Act should impose specific obligations on broadcasters regarding political speech. Access of the stations should be reasonable.  Television stations provide reasonable access to candidates for any elective office. Such accessibility should be available during a station’s entire normal broadcast schedule. This includes prime time on televisions and the drive time of radio stations. Equal Opportunities: There should be provision of equal opportunities when a station provides airtime to a legally qualified person for all public offices, the station must avail equal opportunities when it comes to all such candidates for that office. The Communications Act also provides that the station should have no authority to censor material broadcast by the candidate. Indecent material: The public believes that it is unethical to broadcast identical material because this is also not profitable in the market. The Communications Act of all countries puts in place measures aimed at ensuring that stations do not give identical material. Profane material. The Communications Act has defined such program matter to include language that is both so grossly offensive to members of the public who actually hear it as to amount to a nuisance and is sexual or excretory in nature or derived from such terms.   The history of television and film is so intertwined that one cannot think of them separately and still understand how they operate or how people experience these media in their everyday lives. For instance, in the late 1950s, Hollywood studios started producing substantially long hour films for television (in the form of TV series) as compared to those of movie theaters, and that pattern holds to this day. It has been apparent that feature films since 1960 are merely passing through movie theaters en route to their ultimate destination on home television screens (William 2001). Films which are physical artifacts, reside in studio vaults, although they always remain present in that culture almost fully all the time on television. Despite the fact that the survival of films is deemed to fail on cable channels or on DVD, they rarely appear on any screens other than television screens once they have completed their initial theatrical release. Therefore the significance of television in the film industry and in film culture is great such that they are inseparable. First, when small screen appeared on the scene, there was previously a tradition of defining the films in distinction with other media and art forms. Most of classic film assumption and disapproval, for instance, required to define film as an independent means by comparing it with precedents in theater, painting, and fiction. The main goal was to recognize continuities while stressing the differences that made film only one of its kind. The natural differences between film and television, even as the restrictions between the media distorted and television became the predominant site of demonstration for films produced in Hollywood. An intrinsic uncertainty exists in the way that the term television functions in common usage, and this complicates efforts to delineate the relationship between film and television. The word television serves as convenient shorthand for speaking about at least four different aspects of the medium: such aspects include; Technology which is used to identify the compound structure of analog and digital video technology used to transmit and receive electronic images and sounds (Thompson 2000). Transmissions of electronic signals are received simultaneously; the sounds and images hidden in such signals are either recorded or may be live. Consumer Electronics which refers to the television set, an electronic customer good that is incorporated into the spaces and temporal rhythms of everyday life. Sanctuary being set aside from ordinary life is offered by Movie Theater hence the TV set is embedded in life. To begin with, the TV set was an entity brought into being mainly in the family home; increasingly, television sets of many sizes have already been spread throughout the world and can be found in countless informal social settings (William 2001). Industry which refers also to the particular organization of profitable television, a government-regulated industry dominated by powerful networks that broadcast programs to attract viewers and then charge advertisers for the privilege of addressing those viewers with commercials. Content is usually distributed through the use of airwaves, the television industry initially had no choice but to rely on advertising revenue, which led to the peculiar flow of commercial television—the alternation of segmented programs punctuated regularly by commercials—as well as the reliance on series formats to deliver consistent audiences to advertisers (Thompson 2000). Content which serves as a all-purpose term for the substance of profitable television, particularly when comparing film and television. By the fact that television has vast range of content, this use at times results in facile generalizations, suggesting that there is an inherent uniformity or underlying logic to the programs produced for television. The uncertainty involved in using the term television results in a no sensible or consistent framework for thinking about the relationship of film and television. A feature often serves as the basis for drawing a peculiarity between the two forms, even though it may obscure more significant similarities. The conjecture that television is a means directed at the home, while film is a medium directed at theaters, overlooks the importance of the TV set as a technology for film exhibition. Television's ability for live transmission obscures the fact that most TV programs are recorded on film or videotape and that feature films make up a large percentage of TV programming. The film industry has been enjoying a privilege that just recently was given to television, and this status marker has made people to start viewing film separately from television. Each tradition creates hierarchies of flavor and esteem, and whether clearly stated or completely assumed, film has had a higher cultural status than television (Thompson 2000). An instance of success is evident when an actor or a director moves out of television into movies. Critics in film industry have enjoyed much greater prestige than any critic who has written about television. Rational grounds of film studies were slow to reception of the study of television. The suggestion here is that, an unrecognized, but on the other hand real, speculation in a cultural chain of command that treats film as a more somber and highly regarded pursuit than television, and this hierarchy supported the assumption that film and television are separate media. Cultural values in any hierarchy are bound to change over time. In 1944, an editorial column in the business glossy magazine Televiser questioned whether a motion picture director could come within reach of a new medium like television without cynicism. Film article warned people who have been overtly critical of television production without any appreciation the technique and aesthetics of the small screen. Film and television has had a constant tension for over fifty years, but both forms of art are getting enriched through the normally contentious dialogue. (Thompson 2000). Action picture executives were intensely conscious of the fiscal risk posed by a leisure medium in the home and drew up strategies to challenge this incursion by the broadcast industry. Enthusiastic and inventive minds of television that would create a staged form and then have a major impact on the motion pictures. The production of live dramas was clearly defined by on such collection series as Studio One, Kraft Television Theatre, and Playhouse 90 all in the United States. Those who felt that the nearness of television brought forth an extraordinary bond between the onlooker and the play. The result was orchestrated by an age band of young directors with some training in theater and film.(Thompson 2000). Producers usually employed forgotten Hollywood veterans to give gleam to their corresponding of movies (William 2001). A good example is whereby Fairbanks, a self-employed cameraman and creator of an Academy Award-winning short, hired an already existing Hollywood name, Edmund Lowe, the suave silent film star of What Price Glory for his DuMont series Front Page Detective. Hal Roach, Jr., a former director of Laurel & Hardy, asked Charles Barton, the Universal boss of Abbott & Costello comedies, to oversee the translation of Amos 'n' Andy to a visual medium. A technique of filming using three cameras before a live audience was developed and resulted in a big hit in 1950’s. Employment opportunities in the television field were put into immediate effect by film studios and guilds. (William 2001). The industry became genuinely reputable for the film industry at the time when director Alfred Hitchcock, hosted an anthology series for ten years, beginning in 1955. When Hitchcock took over, he directed eighteen episodes for Presents and two programs for other series. He was working three days with a competent supporting team; he was able to explore his familiar themes of duplicity and murder and employed most of his TV crew to create his cinema masterpiece, Psycho Series of drama, fashioned by Hollywood studios, afforded young talent the means to helm their own productions and, infrequently, develop personal themes. He subverted the prescribed rules he learned in these respective genres when he made the following films in the seventies such as McCabe and Mrs. Miller. The studios worked with networks in mid-1960 to develop movies that are specifically made for television. Conclusion In conclusion good and well structured measure need to be put in to place to respect public service opinions. The programs which have a great effect on the lives of young ones need not to be aired. There is also the need to ensure that no matter which criterion is used to regulate television networks that it obeys market forces of demand and supply. The film industry and the television industry are one thing and that it is impossible to separate them. Despite the many changes that have occurred in these industries there is the greater need to ensure that the work to the greater objective of satisfying consumers needs in entertainment industry. References Boddy, William. 2001 Fifties Television The Industry and Its Critics. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, Frankenheimer, John, with Charles Champlin. John Frankeneimer: 2002 A Conversation with Charles Champlin. Burbank, California: Riverwood Hilmes, Michele. 1999 Hollywood and Broadcasting. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, Lafferty, William. 2001. Television Film and Hollywood: The Beginnings. In, The Museum of Broadcasting's Catalogue: Columbia Pictures Television: The Studio and the Creative Process. New York: The Museum of Broadcasting Thompson, Robert. 2000 .Television's Second Golden Age. New York: Continuum, Read More