COM62704

INTRODUCTION TO
MASS COMMUNICATION

WEEK 5 – TELEVISION AND FILM

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Outline the history and development of the television, film and its
industries

2. Explain the relationship between television and films and its viewers.

3. Identify new and converging video technologies and their potential

impact on the television and film industries and its audience.

4. Describe the digital and mobile television and film revolution.

 HISTORY
1884 - Paul Nipkow, a Russian scientist living in Berlin, developed
the first workable device for generating electrical signals suitable for
the transmission of a scene that people could see.
His Nipkow disc consisted of a rotating scanning disc spinning in
front of a photoelectric cell.

HISTORY OF4,000 pixels (picture dots) per second, producing a

It produced
TELEVISION
picture composed of 18 parallel lines.

Nipkow demonstrated the possibility of using a scanning system to

divide a scene into an orderly pattern of transmittable picture
elements that could be recomposed as a visual image.
1925 - British inventor John Logie Baird was able to transmit
moving images using a mechanical disc

1928 - he successfully sent a television picture from London to

Hartsdale, New York.
 HISTORY
1923 - Vladimir Zworykin, a Russian immigrant living near
Pittsburgh and working for Westinghouse, demonstrated his
iconoscope tube, the first practical television camera tube.
1929 - David Sarnoff lured him to RCA to head its electronics
research lab, and it was there that Zworykin developed the
kinescope, an improved picture tube.
HISTORY OF
Philo Farnsworth had moved from Idaho to San Francisco to
TELEVISION
perfect an electronic television system, the design for which he had
shown his high school science teacher when he was 15 years old.
1927 - First public demonstration of film clips of a prize fight,
movie scenes, and other graphic images.

Farnsworth and Zworykin’s RCA spent the next decade fighting

fierce patent battles in court. In 1939 RCA capitulated, agreeing to
pay Farnsworth royalties for the use of his patents.
 HISTORY
These black-and-white
1927 - World’s Fair in telecasts consisted of
New York, RCA made the cooking demonstrations,
first true public singers, jugglers,
demonstration of comedians, puppets—just
television in the form of about anything that could
regularly scheduled two- fit in a hot, brightly lit
hour NBC broadcasts. studio and demonstrate
HISTORY OF
People could buy
motion.

TELEVISION
television sets at the RCA
The FCC granted
Pavilion at prices ranging
construction permits to
from $200 for the 5-inch
the first two commercial
screen to $600 for the
stations in 1941, and then
deluxe 12-inch-screen
World War II intervened.
model.

Technical development
and improvement of the
new medium continued, as
a result of the wars.
 DEVELOPMENT

1952 - 108 stations were broadcasting to 17 million

television homes.

TVByIN
theTHE
end of the decade, there were 559 stations, and
nearly 90% of U.S. households had televisions.
1950’S

The technical standards were fixed, stations

proliferated and flourished, the public tuned in, and
advertisers were enthusiastic
 DEVELOPMENT
Carried over from the radio networks, television genres included variety
shows, situation comedies, dramas (including Westerns and cop shows), soap
operas, and quiz shows.

Two new formats appeared: feature films and talk shows, talk shows were
instrumental in introducing radio personalities to the television audience,
TV IN THE
which could see its favorites for the first time.
1950’S -
Television news and documentary remade broadcast journalism as a powerful
CONTENTS
force in its own right, led by CBS’s Edward R. Murrow (See It Now, 1951) and
NBC’s David Brinkley and Chet Huntley.

AT&T completed its national coaxial cable and microwave relay network for
the distribution of television programming in the summer of 1951.

The entire United States was now within the reach of the major television
networks, and they came to dominate the medium.
 The quiz show scandal.

The appearance of I Love Lucy

CHANGES IN
THE McCarthyism
OPERATIONS
OF TV The establishment of the ratings system.

Cable television.
 DEVELOPMENT
IMPACT OF CHANGES

SPONSORSHIPS TV NETWORKS SELLING OF ESTABLISHMENT WEEKLY SERIES

AND INCREASED BROADCAST OF COULD NOW BE
ALTERATION OF QUALITY TO RIGHTS AND HOLLYWOOD, PRODUCED
TV CONTENTS ENSURE BETTER RERUNS OF THE MOVE RELATIVELY
ROI FILMS WERE FROM NEW QUICKLY AND
AVAILABLE YORK INEXPENSIVELY
 Television demonstrated its enormous power as a
vehicle of democracy and freedom.

Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in

Radio and Television, the work of three former FBI
agents operating a company called American Business
Consultants.

Its 200 pages detailed the alleged pro-Communist

IMPACT OF sympathies of 151 broadcast personalities, including
Orson Welles and journalist Howard K. Smith.
CHANGES
The concept of measuring audience through the Nielsen
Ratings

The use of cables improved quality and produced

competition for TV
 TV first started as an entertainment medium.

Immense social and political power of the new

medium forced profound alterations in the
country’s consciousness and behaviour.

TV AND ITS
AUDIENCES Particularly influential were:

• Nixon–Kennedy campaign debates of 1960,

• Broadcasts of the aftermath of Kennedy’s
assassination and funeral in 1963
• 1969 transmission of Neil Armstrong’s walk on
the moon
• The use of television at the end of the decade
by civil rights and anti–Vietnam War leaders.
TV in the
Current Era
• There are more than 123 million
television households in the United
States, 96% of all U.S. homes.
• The average American watches
television 32 hours and 1 minute a
week.
• Television reaches more adults each
day than any other medium, and those
people spend more time with television
than with any other medium (all from
Television Advertising Bureau, 2016).
• Seventy percent of TV viewers admit to
binge viewing, watching five or more
episodes of a series in one sitting
(Sharma, 2016).
 TV AND ADVERTISING
Total annual billings for television are around $80 billion, with
approximately two- thirds generated by broadcast and one-third by cable
television, 40% of US spending ad.

The average 30-second prime-time network television spot costs more

than $300,000

Prime ad time on the February 2017 Patriots–Falcons Super Bowl

broadcast cost a minimum of $5 million for 30 seconds

Advertisers consider the annual Super Bowl broadcast "the single most
important communication channel a marketer can exploit" (Schultz,
2017).
Television has the greatest reach of all ad-supported media, and
consumers cite it as the medium most likely to influence their purchasing
decisions (Television Advertising Bureau, 2016).
TV : THE
INDUSTRY
• Broadcast television is dominated by a few
centralized production, distribution, and
decision-making organizations.
• These networks link affiliates for the purpose
of delivering and selling viewers to
advertisers.
• The large majority of the 1,387 commercial
stations in the United States are affiliated
with a national broadcasting network: ABC,
NBC, and CBS each have over 200 affiliates,
and Fox has close to that number.
• Many more stations are affiliated with the CW
Network, jointly owned by CBS and Warner
Bros.
 FREE-TO-AIR TV

• Television transmitted over the air without charge for the delivery
of the signal to the viewer.
• Free to air TV broadcasting was the first television service, which
was paid for by product advertising.
• FTA channels are free to view which is available through any
standard television set.
• They have been included as part of the offerings of network and
satellite television companies
 Networks control what appears on the vast majority of
local television stations, but they also control what
appears on non-network television, that is, when
affiliates program their own content.

In addition, they influence what appears on independent

stations and on cable channels.

NETWORK TV Why do network and network-type content dominate

PROGRAMS television?
• Availability is one factor. There is 75 years’ worth of
already successful network content available for airing
on local stations.
• Production and distribution mechanisms are well
established and serve the newer outlets just as well
as they did NBC, CBS, and ABC.
• Audience - The formats we are most comfortable
with—our television tastes and expectations—have
been and continue to be developed on the networks.
 PITCHING OF TV PROGRAMS
First, a producer has an idea, or a network has an idea
and asks a proven producer to propose a show based
on it

The producer must then shop the idea to one of the

networks; naturally, an invited producer submits the
proposal only to the network that asked for it.

If the network is persuaded, it buys the option and

asks for a written outline in which the original idea is
refined.

If still interested, the network will order a full script.

 PITCHING OF TV PROGRAMS

If the network approves that script, it will order the production

of a pilot.

Pilots are then subjected to rigorous testing by the networks’

own and independent audience research organizations.

Based on this research, networks will often demand changes,

such as writing out characters who tested poorly or beefing up
story lines that test audiences particularly liked.

If the network is still interested, that is, if it believes that the

show will be a hit, it orders a set number of episodes and
schedules the show.
 In television’s early days, an order might
be for 26 or 39 episodes.

Today, however, because of escalating

production costs, the convention is at
first to order six episodes.
PITCHING OF
TV PROGRAMS
If these are successful, a second order of
nine more is placed.

Then, if the show is still doing well, a

final nine episodes (referred to as the
back nine) will be commissioned.
 PITCHING OF TV PROGRAMS

Most networks have become their

own producers due to syndication’s
income potential, especially when
Syndication - the sale of producers’
coupled with the promise of profits
programs to stations on a market-by-
from digital downloads, the sale of
market basis.
DVD collections, and pick up by
streaming services like Hulu and
Netflix
 During cable’s infancy, many over-the-air
broadcasters saw it as something of a friend.

It extended their reach, boosting both audience

size and profits.

CABLE AND November 1972 - Sterling Manhattan Cable

launched a new channel called Home Box Office.
SATELLITE
TELEVISION
Premium cable was eating into the broadcasters’
audience by offering high-quality, nationally
produced and distributed content.

The public enthusiastically embraced cable,

which, coupled with the widespread diffusion of
fiber optic cable (the transmission of signals by
light beam over glass, permitting the delivery of
hundreds of channels), brought the medium to
maturity.
 The other dominant multichannel service is
direct broadcast satellite (DBS).
CABLE AND
SATELLITE
TELEVISION First available to the public in 1994, it has
brought cable’s subscriber growth to a
standstill because, from the viewer’s
perspective, what is on a DBS-supplied
screen differs little from what is on a
cable-supplied screen.
 Video cassette recorders (VCR)

Digital Video Discs (DVD)

TRENDS AND Digital Video Recorder (DVR)

CONVERGENCE
Streaming video
IN TV
Interactive TV

Online TV
OTT TV
 HISTORY OF FILMS

1877 - Eadweard Muybridge horse pictures

 1888 - Edison quickly saw the scientific and
economic potential of the zoopraxiscope and
set his top scientist, William Dickson, to the
task of developing a better projector.

Dickson combined Hannibal Goodwin’s

HISTORY OF newly invented celluloid roll film with George
Eastman’s easy-to-use Kodak camera to
FILMS make a motion picture camera that took 40
photographs a second.

He used his kinetograph to film all types of

theatrical performances, some by unknowns
and others by famous entertainers such as
Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill Cody
 1816 - The process of photography was
first developed by French inventor
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce around, he was
the first person to make practical use of
a camera and film.

DEVELOPMENT He photographed natural objects

and produced colour prints but
OF unfortunately his images would last
only a short time.
PHOTOGRAPHY

Louis Daguerre joined with him to

perfect the process.
 1839 - introduction of the daguerreotype, a
process of recording images on polished
metal plates, usually copper, covered with a
thin layer of silver iodide emulsion.

DEVELOPMENT
When light reflected from an object passed
OF through a lens and struck the emulsion, the
PHOTOGRAPHY emulsion would etch the image on the
plate.

The plate was then washed with a cleaning

solvent, leaving a positive or replica image.
 DEVELOPMENT OF PHOTOGRAPHY

William Henry Fox

Talbot introduced a The final steps in the
paper film process, a development of the
process more photographic
The calotype
important to the process necessary for
(Talbot’s system)
development of true motion pictures
used translucent
photography than were taken, as we’ve
paper, what we now
the metal film just seen, by
call the negative,
system, but the Goodwin in 1887
from which several
daguerreotype and Eastman in
prints could be
received widespread 1889 and were
made.
attention and acclaim adapted to motion
and made the public pictures by Edison
enthusiastic about scientist Dickson.
photography.
 • Edison built the first motion picture studio
near his laboratory in New Jersey called Black
Maria. It had an open roof and revolved to
follow the sun so the performers being filmed
would always be illuminated.
• The completed films were not projected.
• Instead, they were run through a
kinetoscope, a sort of peep show device.
THOMAS
• Often, they were accompanied by music
EDISON provided by another Edison invention, the
phonograph.
• Patented in 1891 and commercially available
three years later, the kinetoscope quickly
became a popular feature in penny arcades,
vaudeville halls, and big-city Kinetoscope
parlors.
• This marked the beginning of commercial
motion picture exhibition.
 The Lumière brothers made the next advance. Their initial
screenings demonstrated that people would sit in a
darkened room to watch motion pictures projected on a
screen.

The brothers from Lyon envisioned great wealth in their

ability to increase the number of people who could
simultaneously watch a movie.

In 1895 they patented their cinématographe, a device

THE LUMIÈRE that both photographed and projected action.

BROTHERS
Within weeks of their Christmastime showing, long lines of
enthusiastic moviegoers were waiting for their makeshift
theater to open.

Edison recognized the advantage of the cinématographe

over his kinetoscope, so he acquired the patent for an
advanced projector developed by U.S. inventor Thomas
Armat.

On April 23, 1896, the Edison Vitascope premiered in

New York City, and the American movie business was
born.
 1908 - Thomas Edison,founded the Motion
Picture Patents Company (MPPC), often simply
called the Trust.

This group of 10 companies under Edison’s

control, holding the patents to virtually all
existing filmmaking and exhibition equipment,
MOVIE ran the production and distribution of film in
STUDIOS the United States with an iron fist.

Anyone who wanted to make or exhibit a

movie needed Trust permission.

In addition, the MPPC had rules about the look

of the movies it would permit: They must be
one reel, approximately 12 minutes long, and
must adopt a “stage perspective”; that is, the
actors must fill the frame as if they were in a
stage play.
MOVIE
STUDIOS

Many independent film

companies do not agree with
Trust

These companies moved as

far away as they could to
California, a place with better
weather & longer shooting
seasons.

Free of MPPC interference,

the group of film makers
explore the potential of films
longer than 12 minutes and
with imaginative use of the
camera.
 We talk of Hollywood as the “dream factory,”
the makers of “movie magic.”

We want our lives and loves to be “just like in

the movies.”
MOVIES AND
ITS The movies are “larger than life,” and movie
stars are much more glamorous than television
AUDIENCE stars.

Movies, like books, are a culturally special

medium, an important medium. Just as people
buy books, they buy movie tickets.

Because the audience, rather than advertisers,

is in fact the true consumer, power rests with
the audience in film more than it does in
television.
 Three component systems in the movie
industry
• Production – the making of movies,
technology has helped the industry grow
• Digital and green screen technology
• Cloud computing - the storage of
system-operating software, including
ECONOMICS OF sophisticated and expensive digital and
special-effects programs, on off-site,
MOVIES third-party servers hosted on the
Internet that offer on-demand, for-lease
access.
• Access to the cloud frees moviemakers,
particularly smaller independent
producers, from financial and technical
limitations that might otherwise have
stymied their productions.
 Three component systems in the movie industry
(cont’d)
• Distribution - supplying of movies to television
networks, cable and satellite networks, makers
of DVDs, Internet streaming companies.
ECONOMICS OF • Exhibition at movie theatres

MOVIES A film festival is an organized, extended

presentation of films in one or more cinemas or
screening venues, usually in a single city or
region.
• Film festivals are now an exceptional tool for
crossing the communication channels from the
most distant places.
 • The heart of the movie business, and it’s
the studios that come to mind when we
talk about Hollywood.
• There are major studios, corporate
independents, and independent studios.
• The majors, who finance their films
primarily through the profits of their
own business, include Warner
ECONOMICS OF Brothers, Columbia, Paramount, 20th
Century Fox, Universal, MGM/UA, and
MOVIES- Disney.
The Studios • The corporate independent studios
produce movies that have the look
and feel of independent films include
Sony Pictures Classics, New Line
Cinema (Warner), Fox Searchlight, and
Focus Features (Universal)
• Independent studios, companies that
raise money outside the studio system
to produce their films
 Concept movies – E.g: Harry Potter, Godzilla,
Transformers

Audience research - script, concept, plot, and

characters are subjected to market testing. Often
multiple endings are produced and tested with
TRENDS IN sample audiences by companies such as National
Research Group and Marketcast
MOVIE MAKING
Sequels, remakes & franchises

TV, comic-book and video game remakes

Products placement
The Future
 Summary

• In conclusion, the future of TV is set to be a thrilling ride,

with emerging technologies transforming the way we consume and
interact with content. From the integration of streaming services into
smart TVs to the use of VR, AI, and 5G technology, the possibilities
are endless.

• Advancements in technology like virtual reality, augmented reality,

and 3D will likely change the way movies are made and experienced.
Filmmakers may experiment with new ways of storytelling and
immersion, which could lead to more interactive and immersive
movie experiences.
Further Reading
Meley, C. (2023, September 25). What Is The Future Of Cinema?
https://www.businessbecause.com/news/insights/7806/future-of-cinema
Question? Opinion?