US Telecommunication Industry - Essay Example

Commercial Television Vs Public Broadcasting in US Telecommunication Industry 0 Introduction: The best way of expressing the impact of viewing thetelevision programs in the United States was well founded even as back as 1961, by Newton Minow, the then Chairperson of Federal Communications Commission. His usage of the phrase 'Vast Wasteland' in describing the commercial television as existed at that period is fitting absolutely to the current situation prevalent in the US Commercial Broadcasting Industry. With the radical change in the viewing patterns, the commercial programs have made at least a majority of the viewers, slaves to the unworthy programs with no content and value. On close observation it may be found that most of the time the viewers just use their remote controls to surf the various channels, without really being absorbed in any of the programs being beamed over the number of cable TV channels. This shows the general dissatisfaction among the normal viewers about the quality of the programs they watch; but still they would continue to do the 'surfing' instead of watching some meaningful programs which add to the intellect of the people concerned. No amount of technological advancement in the commercial as well as public broadcasting has changed this attitude among the viewers. By public broadcasting this essay denotes the news/public affairs TV productions including educational programs which have been invaded by the so called commercial programs. With this background this paper attempts to present an analytical report on the contradiction prevalent in the US Television industry between the commercial TV programs lacking in content, although technically developed well and also supported by the low cost implements that aid the Television watching and the visual media that helps educating people on the values of the country and the American people in particular. 2.0 Rationale behind the Expression 'Vast Wasteland': Mr. Newton Minow delivered a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters in the year 1961in which he brought out the values of public broadcasting of television programs that hold educational and cultural values as against the commercial programs which lacked content. In this speech, he made his quote of 'Vast Wasteland' which has been cherished by so many scholars and researchers in the field of television broadcasting. He used these words to stress his point that unless the television programs incorporate a high content and quality in their programs, the programs will become a vast wasteland. He observed even at that point of time the programs were a "procession of game shows, violence, audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western badmen, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials--many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom" (Newton Minow 1961) He called upon the broadcasters present to have an idealistic view of producing the programs with content and quality so that the programs of some value to the society. 3.0 Viewers' Behavior: Ballamy and Walker have coined new terms like Zapping, Zipping and Grazing to describe the viewer habits in their book 'Television and the Remote Control: Grazing on a Vast Wasteland'. These terms are used to present the different behaviors of the viewers in segregating the useful contents of the programs from the unwanted and useless addendums to the programs. These viewer's behaviors greatly describe the quality of the contents and value of the programs and also gives rise to questions on the intelligence level of the average American Television Viewer and their rationality. 4.0 Why Public Broadcasting is essential The aspects that distinguishes the commercial television programs with the non-commercial programs which we termed as 'Public Broadcasting' essentially are the underlying the purposes of both the program contents. While commercial programs basically are intended to provide entertainment to the masses, the public broadcasting has the distinct purpose of promoting the education and development of the American Community in general. Marshal Turner (1994) finds the distinction between commercial and non-commercial (public broadcasting) in describing the commercial TV serving a market, while public broadcasting attempts to serve a country. He further opines that at a period of time when the quality of the oral communication among people have deteriorated, all Americans rely only on the television to acquire knowledge and information on the country, its people, history, literature, culture, education and other values of life of which no average American has any clue about. These can be provided only by non-commercial television that serves the 'country'. Whereas the commercial television programs are serving a 'market' that reacts to technological high quality programs that expects just the admiration from the viewers and nothing else so that they become capable of making more money. "For viewers with access to many channels, television may not be a wasteland, but it is a thick jungle of largely undistinguished programs. To be heard in a noisy jungle, one needs to have a distinctive voice" (Marshal Turner 1994) 5.0 What is bad about Commercial Television Programs To make the readers understand the quality of the commercial programs that are being broadcasted over the different channels of the cable network, this report cites the video clip that was broadcasted on You Tube. This video clipping exhibits the 'behind the camera happenings' during the filming of a Hollywood Comedy movie directed by O.Russell and the actress Lily Tomlin taking lead role. This clipping which runs for two and a half minutes shows the outburst of the Director against the actress showing her frustration. The clipping shows the Director Mr. Russell sweeping of the papers from the desk in front of the actress and doing other things to express his anger. The clipping also beams the tirade between the director and actress that was so abusive. In the whole exchange of word only "Act like a grown-up; you're not a baby" is printable. "One version of Mr. Russell's tantrum that was posted on You Tube on Tuesday had been played more than 150,000 times by Saturday, making it one of the week's 50 most viewed videos." (Maria Aspan 2007) The following questions emerge on the broadcasting and viewing of this video clipping for 150,000 times by You Tube: What is the intellectual level of an average American Commercial Television viewer; be it is actual or is as perceived by the commercial TV Channels What is the underlying principle or lesson that the Commercial Television Programs want to impart to the viewers by broadcasting such programs Do the broadcasting of such clippings have no aim other than inculcating and cashing in on the cheap tastes among the television viewers You Tube and the video clipping cited are just examples of the hundreds of such channels and thousands of such clippings and programs which have absolutely no values for anything except for the simple satisfaction of the cheap tastes of the viewers by the commercial television programs. The other disturbing factor about this episode is that You Tube is owned by Google, a search engine that aids knowledge and wisdom for the entire earth. It appears to be a shame on the whole Internet Technology. Virginia Hefferman (2007) aptly describes the characteristic features of the commercial programs of You Tube video channel owned by Google. She severely criticizes the system of presenting awards for commercial programs by You Tube by saying "This value system is not intrinsically worse than the one that determines prime-time television's crisp, white-collar aesthetic; its mainstream politics; and its chronic oscillation between punchy and sappy. It's just that You Tube's not really supposed to have any aesthetic or ideological principles, is it" 6.0 Factors that Encourage the Commercial Programs: One of the important factors that contribute to the increased production of the commercial programs may be cited in the attitude of the viewers and their choices of the channels and the programs. Alex Mindlin (2007) reports "the average American household watched 10.5 channels in 1995, and 15.7 last year" Mindlin further adds that though the number of channels being received by the average American household has doubled in the last 10 years from 41.1 in the year 1995 to 104.2 in the year 2006, there had been no rapid increase in the number of channels that they watch. This accounts for the loyalty of the viewers to their favorite channels and since they are considered favorites the channels continue to produce the same kind of programs with the same type of contents. The next factor is the enormous advertising revenue that the commercial broadcasters make out of the programs that they produce and offer to the viewers. "Video advertising, while less than 5 percent of online spending, is the fastest-growing advertising category online, generating $410 million last year, an increase of 82 percent from 2005, according to eMarketer, an online advertising research firm." (Louise Story 2007) Because of the phenomenal revenue that the companies make, almost all the television networks have seized upon online video and have started minting money without really bothering about the content of the programs being broadcasted. The magnitude of the advertising revenues from online video is evident from the law suit preferred by Viacom on Google to the tune of $ 1 billion. The allegation from Viacom is that Google is adopting a strategy to dominate the online video market "with a massive intentional copyright infringement by allowing users to upload popular shows with threatening ambitions to make You Tube a major entertainment and advertising outlet." (Kenneth Li and Michele Gershberg 2007) Analysts opine that being a seminal event that leads to a large battle between traditional and internet media companies for claiming their share of audience and advertising revenues and in this there will be no place for content or value on the online medium. 7.0 Viewer-ship, Advertising Revenue and Commercial Programs: The main purpose of the commercial programs taking the shelter behind sports programs like 'Super Bowl' is exclusively to net more advertising revenues. Although this program gives importance to Sports from the way the commercials are included in this program one will get a doubt that whether there is any space for sports in this program. In order that the major network companies retain the viewership and at the same time enhance the advertising revenue they have chosen the sports programs which have a larger viewership and sold their spots to the sponsors so that they could maximize their revenues. One of such programs is 'Super Bowl'. "Only the 1996 Super Bowl between Dallas and Pittsburgh, which had 94.1 million viewers, had a bigger audience, according to Nielsen Media Research... Behind that 1996 game and the M-A-S-H series finale, last Sunday's game was the third most-watched program in television history." (CBS SportsLine.com wire reports) Another feature that makes the Super Bowl attractive for the network companies and the ad-sponsors alike is the increase in the viewership of the program due to the fact that important clippings and highlight moments of the game are made available officially through streaming video online. In the past, Super Bowl spots virtually vanished after the game was finished, apart from unauthorized clips posted by some enthusiast Web sites. This year, the commercials are gaining far more visibility because they have officially been made widely available through streaming video online - for watching again, forwarding to friends, adding to personal Web pages and even downloading to video iPods. (Stuart Elliott 2006) The inclusion of current topical issues and policy matters make the commercials more likable for the viewers. Even the Iraq war was a theme in the commercials during the 'Super Bowl' program which attracted the viewer's attention The increasing desire to earn more of advertising revenues, have even spoiled the spirit behind the sports program and such program becomes filled with more commercials than the content. This severely affects the quality of the program. Thus it becomes evident that for the commercial programs and the broadcasting companies producing such commercial programs, only the number of viewership and the advertising revenue that matter. Apart from these nothing else, quality or content of the program does not matter at all. Perhaps this is the 'Vast Wasteland' that Newton Minow referred. 8.0 Effect of the Advancement of Telecommunication Technologies on Commercial TV Production: Present days telecommunication technology has facilitated the TV programming and the broadcasting in a number of ways. "Broadcast video business models today include the infomercial model, the familiar ad-supported programming model and pay-per-view" (David S. Isenberg 2000) Apart from Pay per View, there are other latest versions of broadcasting techniques like TV over Internet Provider are on the anvil. Such facilities will have the technical abilities to send thousands of megabits to the home viewers, but if they are going to follow the same systems of programming and broadcasting techniques like those of Pay per View they may not really create any change in the value of television viewing except giving the comfort to the viewers to watch their programs at their convenient timings and may be on their laptops. 9.0 Recent Trends: The latest trend in combining the good of both the commercial television and public forecasting is found in the announcement of the proposed joint venture between The News Corporation and NBC Universal to "distribute their latest video fare, like episodes of ''24'' and ''The Office'' on AOL, Yahoo, MSN and MySpace, which together reach about 96 percent of the Internet's audience in the United States" (Richard Sikos et al 2007). It was also announced that the content that appears in an embedded media player on these Web sites as well as on a new separate video site that News Corporation and NBC Universal will introduce at a later stage will receive advertising proposals and will be offered free to viewers. Actually this is a welcome change in combining the advantages of technological advancements for the development of mankind instead of beaming the filthy wordy duo between some unimportant film personalities 150,000 times. Hopefully the two big media companies retain at least some ideologies representing their reputation instead of following suit of You Tube and Google for cheap commercial values. 10 .0 Conclusion: Mr. Newton Menow has no doubt made one hundred percent accurate prediction of the future of the American Television industry even at a stage when the technology had not advanced as it is today. The fact remains that the passive viewers have been slowly made addicted to the cheap and thrilling effects of the commercial television programs. The technological advancements have provided the comfort and chances of viewing these senseless programs at any time by recording the programs or by other means. The availability of television sets and other modern gadgets at affordable price levels have in fact increased the viewer network for these unworthy programs. The producers of these contents often put forth the argument that they tend to produce such programs only because they are being viewed and enjoyed by millions of people. They take the weapon of Television Rating Points to combat any criticism on the quality and value of the contents of their programs. While both the viewers as well as the broadcasters can be blamed for this, the fact remains that such commercial programs have clearly permeated into the domain of the news/public affair TV productions either by reducing the time of broadcasting them or not broadcasting them at all in the guise of the TRPs. References: 1. Alex Mindlin Despite Choices on TV, the Favorites Reign The New York Times March 26th 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/business/media/26drill.htmlex=1177473600&en=2650eb87f19f2c97&ei=5070 2. CBS SportsLine.com wire reports Super Bowl XLI attracts near-record 93.2 million viewers http://cbs.sportsline.com/nfl/story/9976386/rss 3. David S. Isenberg The New Vast Wasteland America's Network http://isen.com/papers/edge/wasteland-20.html 4. Kenneth Li and Michele Gershberg (2007) Viacom in $ 1 Billion Copyright Suit Versus Google, You Tube Reuters Mar 13th 2007 http://www.reuters.com/articlePrintarticleId=USWEN535120070313 5. Louise Story (2007) Viacom's Full-Court Press for Online Ads The New York Times March 19th 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/business/media/19viacom.htmlex=1331956800&en=6c8bb147e20f12a6&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss 6. Maria Aspan (2007) Lights, Cameras, Tirade! Hollywood's Elite Seen Online http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/technology/26huckabees.htmlex=1332561600&en=030d6c2e1b86d267&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss 7. Marshal Turner (1994) The Difference is that Public TV Serves a Country and Not a Market Current.Org http://www.current.org/why/why204t.shtml 8. Newton Minow (1961) Vast Wasteland Speech Holds True After All These Years Chicago Tribune April 24th 2001 page 17 http://janda.org/b20/News%20articles/vastwastland.htm 9. Richard Siklos, Miguel Helft and Bill Carter (2007) News Corp. And NBC in Web Deal The New York Times April 23rd 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/technology/23video.htmlex=1177473600&en=9ced33be85450bf6&ei=5070 10. Stuart Elliott 2006 Can You TiVo to See Just the e Ads The New York Times 07th February 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/business/media/07adco.htmlex=1296968400&en=30f2548c3c21e4af&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss 11. Virginia Hefferman (2007) You Tube Awards the Top of its Heap The New York Times March 27th , 2007 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/arts/27tube.htmlex=1332648000&en=a4284b48aa615518&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss Read More