Unit 4. Mass media the modern broadcasting industry

Annual revenues for broadcasting in the U.S. amounted to nearly $25 billion in the late 1980s. The industry directly employs more Лап 230.000 people; a comparable number are employed in such related services as advertising and independent program production.

LOCAL STATIONS. The core of the broadcasting industry is the local station. Apart from news, however, local stations produce little of their own programming. Radio stations broadcast prerecorded music; television stations serve primarily as a conduit for network programming or for reruns and old movies. Because they ultimately control and are responsible for programming, however, local stations are a necessary link with the mass audience.

Radio broadcasted operate by selling advertising to local businesses and, through a system of station representatives, gain some income from national advertisers. Network-affiliated television stations share profits from network advertising and have the right to intersperse their own commercials with those of the network. Contracts with the networks do not oblige local stations to carry network programming- but, given television's high production costs together with the audience-attracting power of network programs, affiliated local stations seldom interrupt the network schedule.

During the late 1980s in the U.S., more than 9000 radio stations were on the air; they were almost evenly divided between the AM (amplitude modulation) and the FM (frequency modulation) bands. About one-quarter of the FM stations (but none of the AM stations) were noncommercial and were supported by educational institutions, local governments, and nonprofit civic organizations and, in many cases, by listener contributions and federal funding under the auspices of National Public Radio. More than 1300 television stations were active in the U.S. in the late 1980s: over one-half of these were VHF stations.

Commercial television stations are still concentrated in the more easily received VHF bands, although the number of commercial UHF stations is increasing rapidly. Commercial stations, which represent 75 percent of the television stations on the air, attract about 98 percent of the audience, and almost all arc affiliated with one of the three large networks. The more populous the urban area in which a station is located, the more profitable the station is likely to be. The cost of personnel and equipment necessary for broadcasting to a given geographic area is a fixed investment; densely populated areas generate larger audiences, and the broadcasters, in turn, receive higher revenues for each commercial aired. Because audience size is so critical to the profit margin, stations compete intensely in all but very remote regions (where only a few stations provide service). Program ratings are watched, and stations tend to offer substantial salaries to the disk jockeys and television news announcers who attract the largest audiences.

NATIONAL NETWORKS. Competition for the audience is also Intense among me national networks, and to update the race, many newspapers publish the weekly Nielsen ratings (see below) for the top ten programs, in general, the networks do not actually produce the programs they air during prime time (7-11 PM). Instead, they purchase programs from independent production companies and then schedule them for maximum competitive advantage.

Each of the three major networks has Its corporate headquarters In New York City, and each gains additional revenue from owning stations in major cities (since 1985, 12 is the maximum number of VHF stations the FCC permits for a single owner). All three television networks emerged from existing radio networks.

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is part of RCA. In early 1986, RCA was acquired by the General Electric Company. The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) was bought by the American executive William S. Paley in 1929, when it was a small, struggling radio network. Through

Paley's management the corporation grew and expanded into recorded music, musical instruments, and publishing. The youngest of the three networks came into existence when the U.S. Department of Justice forced NBC to sell one of its two radio networks in 1943. The network was bought by the candy manufacturer Edward J. Noble, who renamed it the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and oversaw its transition to producing television. For more than three decades ABC tended to have the lowest ratings and the fewest affiliate stations of the three major networks. Because of the economics of advertising, it had to straggle to stay in business. In tile late 1970s, however, ABC moved to first place in the ratings and remained there for several years. The company grew into a large corporate empire that includes motion picture theaters, a recording company, and publishing companies. In 1986 a merger took place between ABC and Capital Cities Communications, inc. A fourth U.S. commercial network, the Fox Broadcasting Company, owned by Australian-born publisher Rupert Murdoch, began to capture a significant share of young adult audiences in the late 1980s.

A fifth network also exists, which, because of its origins in educational broadcasting, is notably different from the other four. Seeking to provide an alternative to commercial broadcasting, educational stations banded together in 1967 to establish the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Through the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS began to produce its own national programming. What was once strictly educational programming typified by professors at blackboards became public broadcasting with a wide variety of offerings? These include serious drama, the performing arts, science, public affairs documentaries, and children's programs (perhaps tile most famous of which is «Sesame Street»). Since cutbacks in federal spending during the early 1980s, public broadcasting receives only about 18 percent of its income from the government; the remainder of its funding comes from private foundations and direct viewer contributions.