Television

The world television comes to us from Greek and Latin. The Greek word means Far and the Latin word means to see. Thus, our word television means to see far. Scientific experiments leading up to the development of television began as long ago as the 19th century.

By the 1920s television was a reality, although primitive by our standards today and not widely used. By the 1940s there were many TV stations and much local broadcasting. Today, television is one of our most important means of communication, bringing news and entertainment to hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

Television has enormous influence on politics, sports, science, culture, and how people spend their time and money. In the United States there is hardly a home without one or more television sets, and they are turned on an average of 7 hours a day. There is over the air broadcasting, cable TV, closed circuit TV, DVDs, VCRs, commercial television, public television, and satellite television.

Just after the end of World War II, there were only six TV stations in America. There are now more than 1500. Three quarters of all commercial television stations in the United States are affiliates of the major networks, such as CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX. Cable TV has become so popular that it has reduced the size of the networks’ audience to about two thirds of what it was 25 years ago.

The fastest growing part of the television industry is cable and satellite. Most of their programming is provided by national suppliers called programming services. These services attempt to appeal to certain demographic groups such as women, children, sports fans, minorities, religious groups, and political organizations. Most programming services sell advertising to help cover costs. Some channels run program length infomercials as well.

When a satellite company picks up a programming service, they usually pay a charge per subscriber. This cost is passed onto the customer. Subscribers typically pay a monthly fee plus additional charges for special programming or pay per view.

In the United States, the Federal Communication Commission regulates radio and TV. It also sets standards for broadcasters in order to maintain some semblance of order over the airwaves. Congress may also regulate the industry.

Since 1929, when the first primitive television system was demonstrated, to today and out HDTV technology, progress has been steady and rapid. In the early days of TV broadcasting, screens were no more than 7 to 10 inches, and picture quality was poor. Today it is not surprising to see a 60 inch screen with a color picture of amazing clarity and audio of phenomenal quality.

Let us look at digital television for a moment. Digital TV represents one of the most spectacular changes in viewing since the 1950s when color TV came into being. Digital systems convert TV signals into sequences of ones and zeros. This is the same numerical code used by computers. Each one or zero is a binary bit. Such a system can carry more information, has a stronger more reliable signal, and is less likely to be disrupted by electrical interference.

Digital TV has other advantages such as digital memory and data compression. Memory allows for more information per channel and compression removes unnecessary information from the TV signal. Ten years ago the FCC adopted a new standard for over the air broadcasts in the United States. The new standard delivers 20 million bit of information per second to a local broadcaster’s coverage area. In 2002, the FCC required TV manufacturers to install digital tuners in every TV with a screen of 13 inches or larger, by the year 2007.