When was television common in households

That documentary, broadcast on Feb. President Johnson was watching Cronkite's report. In color broadcasting began on prime-time television. During the s and s a country increasingly fascinated with television was limited to watching almost exclusively what appeared on the three major networks: CBS, NBC, and ABC.

In the larger cities, there might also be a few independent stations mostly playing reruns of old network shows and perhaps a fledgling public broadcasting channel. Programming on each of the three networks was designed to grab a mass audience. Network shows therefore catered, as critics put it, to the lowest common denominator. Daytime television programming consisted primarily of soap operas and quiz shows until the s, when talk shows discussing subjects that were formerly taboo, such as sexuality, became popular.

The three major networks have always been in a continual race for ratings and advertising dollars. CBS and NBC dominated through the mids, when ABC, traditionally regarded as a poor third, rose to the top of the ratings, largely because of shrewd scheduling. A Carnegie Commission report in recommended the creation of a fourth, noncommercial, public television network built around the educational nonprofit stations already in operation throughout the United States see television, noncommercial.

Congress created the Public Broadcasting System that year. Unlike commercial networks, which are centered in New York and Los Angeles, PBS's key stations, many of which produce programs that are shown throughout the network, are spread across the country.

PBS comprises more than stations, more than any commercial network. Some of the most praised programs on PBS, such as the dramatic series Upstairs, Downstairs , have been imports from Britain, which has long had a reputation for producing high-quality television. Among the many special series produced for public broadcasting, The Civil War , a five-part historical documentary, was particularly successful and won some of the largest audiences ever achieved by public TV.

PBS funds come from three major sources: congressional appropriations which suffered substantial cuts beginning in , viewer donations, and private corporate underwriters. None of these types of contributions are problem-free. Government funding brings the possibility of government interference. Conservatives, dating back to the Nixon administration, have pressured PBS to make its programming less liberal.

The search for viewer donations has led to long on-air fundraising campaigns. And some critics contend that the need to win corporate support discourages programming that might challenge corporate values.

Large antennas erected in high places gave everyone connected the chance to receive all the channels available in the nearest city. It soon became apparent, however, that the "television deprived" were not the only viewers who might want access to additional channels and additional programming. In New York City, cable operators contracted to broadcast the home games of the local basketball and hockey teams. By cable had more than 80, subscribers in New York. Then networks specifically designed to be distributed by the cable system began to appear: Time Inc.

Television's development followed different patterns in other countries. Often government, not private corporations, owned some, most, or all of the major networks. In Great Britain the British Broadcasting Corporation, the country's dominant radio broadcaster, established and retained dominance over television. The BBC, funded by a tax on the sale of television sets, established a worldwide reputation for producing quality programming. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, also freed by government support from many commercial pressures, was praised by some observers for the seriousness of much of its news and public-affairs programming.

France's major television networks were also supported by the government; however, in France that support was seen as encouraging a tilt in news coverage toward the side of whatever party happened to be in power.

By the late s and s, as cable and direct-satellite television systems increased the number of channels, the hold of these government-funded networks began to weaken. Most countries around the world began moving more toward the U. By the s politicians and government leaders were familiar enough with the workings of television to be able to exploit the medium to their own ends. Reagan's skilled advisors were masters of the art of arranging flags and releasing balloons to place him in the most attractive settings.

They also knew how to craft and release messages to maximize positive coverage on television newscasts. The Persian Gulf War in provided further proof of the power of television, with pictures of U. Both Iraqi and U. However, the U. Defense Department, armed with lessons learned in Vietnam, succeeded in keeping most reporters well away from the action and the bloodshed. Instead, pictures were provided to television by the military of "smart" bombs deftly hitting their targets.

In the s, home videocassette recorders became widely available. Viewers gained the ability to record and replay programs and, more significantly, to rent and watch movies at times of their own choosing in their own homes. Video games also became popular during this decade, particularly with the young, and the television, formally just the site of passive entertainment, became an intricate, moving, computerized game board.

The number of cable networks grew throughout the s and then exploded in the s as improved cable technology and direct-broadcast satellite television multiplied the channels available to viewers. The number of broadcast networks increased also, with the success of the Fox network and then the arrival of the UPN and WB networks.

The share the broadcast networks attracted continued to erode, from well over 90 percent in the early s to under 50 percent by Although the population of the United States has continued to grow, the Nielson Media Research company estimated that fewer people watched the highly publicized final episode of Seinfeld in first aired in ; see Seinfeld, Jerry than watched the final episode of MASH in first aired in However, this system was never converted into reality.

All attempts to convert it into reality did not succeed. Color television was placed on the backburner for about 20 years. In , the idea of color television was renewed in earnest. As TheHistoryOfTelevision. Black and white television was thought of as old and it was time to do something new. This is when color television systems first began to be considered seriously. CBS was the first company to create a color television set.

Thus, it was not compatible with black and white TV sets in use across America. Unfazed, RCA continued to develop their own color television system that would be compatible with its customers RCA sets. Few people owned color TV sets between and However, starting in , color TV programming was broadcast across America, leading to a surge in sales of color television sets. Between the s and s, television turned from a niche technology into a critical form of communication found in living rooms across the nation.

A vast number of changes and improvements took place in the second half of the 20th century to make the television into what it is today.

Today, online television and other broadcasting technologies have changed the future of traditional TV. Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Home » History » History of the Television. History of the Television Televisions can be found in billions of homes around the world. Mechanical Televisions in the s and Early s Prior to electric televisions, we had mechanical televisions. How Did Early Televisions Work?

Mechanical Televisions Mechanical televisions relied on rotating disks to transmit images from a transmitter to the receiver. Color Television in America Color television traces its roots as far back as , when a German inventor received a patent for color television.

Timeline of TV History Between the s and s Between the s and s, television turned from a niche technology into a critical form of communication found in living rooms across the nation. This act was a supplement to the Communications Act of , which required broadcasters to give equal airtime to candidates running in elections.

The half-hour sitcom ranked as the number one program in the nation for four of its first six full seasons. Only 12 customers across America could see the first color TV broadcast. Kennedy and Richard Nixon were broadcast throughout the year across the country, forever changing the way presidents would campaign.

This meant 30 minutes of programming each night were given back to local stations in the top 50 markets, encouraging the production of local programming. ESPN would go on to become the largest and most successful basic cable channel. Johnson Hur. After having graduated with a degree in Finance and working for a Fortune company for several years, Johnson decided to follow his passion by embarking on a path to the digital world.

He has over 8 years of experience with large companies setting marketing strategy. Filmed coverage of the civil rights movement and live coverage of Martin Luther King's March on Washington brought those issues into sharp focus. When President Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, November 22, , most Americans immediately turned on television sets to get the news. The networks devoted days and days of airtime to coverage of the tragedy, the funeral and the aftermath.

Many Americans who may have come home from church early were watching live coverage on Sunday morning November 24, when they saw Jack Ruby kill the alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Later, coverage of the Vietnam War was credited with, for the first time, bringing war into the living rooms of citizens.

Johnson was reported to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost the country. Yet, this was also a time of abundant escapism on television. This era produced some of the most enduring reruns in television history. It stayed in the top ten every year until it reached number one in Then came the "Beverly Hillbillies" in The premise was simple. The show was an inspired piece of silliness, produced by Paul Henning, a Midwesterner from Missouri who spent 30 years in Hollywood mining his rural roots.

The "Beverly Hillbillies" shot up to number one in the ratings the first two years it was on the air, and stayed in the top fifteen for most of the rest of the decade. Critics have called the show, "equal parts Steinbeck and absurdism, the nouveau riche-out-of-water.

Producer Henning followed that up with "Petticoat Junction" from and "Green Acres" from Both shows proved to be almost as popular. The daughters gave the writers ample opportunity for thinly veiled farmer's daughters jokes while the hotel's isolation created a rural milieu that didn't exist in reality anymore.

One fan web site, "Memorable TV," calls the show, "a flat-out assault on Cartesian logic, Newtonian physics, and Harvard-centrist positivism.