Broadcasting, electronic transmission of radio and television signals that are intended

for general public reception, as distinguished from private signals that are directed to
specific receivers. In its most common form, broadcasting may be described as the
systematic dissemination of entertainment, information, educational programming, and
other features for simultaneous reception by a scattered audience with appropriate
receiving apparatus. Broadcasts may be audible only, as in radio, or visual or a
combination of both, as in television. Sound broadcasting in this sense may be said to
have started about 1920, while television broadcasting began in the 1930s. With the
advent of cable television in the early 1950s and the use of satellites for broadcasting
beginning in the early 1960s, television reception improved and the number of
programs receivable increased dramatically.

The scope of this article encompasses the nontechnical aspects of broadcasting in the
pre-Internet era. It traces the development of radio and television broadcasting, surveys
the state of broadcasting in various countries throughout the world, and discusses the
relationship of the broadcaster to government and the public. Discussion of
broadcasting as a medium of art includes a description of borrowings from other media.
For more detailed information about electronic components and techniques used in
radio and television communications, see electronics; telecommunication system; radio;
and television.
Jorge A. CamachoThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

History
Radiobroadcasting
The United States
The first known radio program in the United States was broadcast by Reginald Aubrey
Fessenden from his experimental station at Brant Rock, Mass., on Christmas Eve, 1906.
Two musical selections, the reading of a poem, and a short talk
apparently constituted the program, which was heard by ship wireless operators within
a radius of several hundred miles. Following the relaxation of military restrictions on
radio at the conclusion of World War I, many experimental radio stations—often
equipped with homemade apparatus—were operated by amateurs. The range of such
broadcasts was only a few miles, and the receiving apparatus necessary to hear them
was mostly in the hands of other experimenters, who, like the broadcasters, pursued
radio as a hobby. Among the leading personalities of this early period was David
Sarnoff, later of the Radio Corporation of America and the National Broadcasting
Company, who first, in 1916, envisaged the possibility of a radio receiver in every home.
Growth of commercial radio
From this beginning the evolution of broadcasting was rapid; many persons who wanted
to hear music from the air soon created a demand for receivers that were suitable for
operation by the layman. The increase in the number of listeners in turn justified the
establishment of stations especially for the purpose of broadcasting entertainment and
information programs. The first commercial radio station was KDKA in Pittsburgh,
which went on the air in the evening of Nov. 2, 1920, with a broadcast of the returns of
the Harding-Cox presidential election. The success of the KDKA broadcast and of the
musical programs that were initiated thereafter motivated others to install similar
stations; a total of eight were operating in the United States by the end of 1921.

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The popularity of these early stations created two possible sources of financial support
to offset the operating costs of broadcasting. First, there were possibilities for profit in
the manufacture and sale of radio receiving equipment, and, second, the fame attained
by the organizations operating the first broadcasting stations called attention to the
value of broadcasting as an advertising medium. Advertising eventually became the
principal means of support for broadcasting in the United States.

Between 1921 and 1922 the sale of radio receiving sets and of component parts for use in
home construction of such sets began a boom that was followed immediately by a large
increase in the number of transmitting stations. By Nov. 1, 1922, 564 broadcasting
stations had been licensed.
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Interconnection of stations
The use of long-distance wire telephone lines in 1922 to connect a radio station in New
York City with one in Chicago to broadcast a description of a gridiron football game
introduced a new idea into radiobroadcasting. In 1926 the National Broadcasting
Company purchased WEAF in New York and, using it as the originating station,
established a permanent network of radio stations to which it distributed daily
programs. Some of these programs were sponsored by advertisers and furnished
revenue to both the network and its associated stations, while others were supported by
the network, with a portion of the time being set aside for public-service features.
Government regulation
Although the growth of radiobroadcasting in the United States was spectacularly swift,
in the early years it also proved to be chaotic, unplanned, and unregulated.
Furthermore, business arrangements that were being made between the leading
manufacturers of radio equipment and the leading broadcasters seemed to threaten
monopoly. Congress responded by passing the Radio Act of 1927, which, although
directed primarily against monopoly, also set up the agency that is now called
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allocate wavelengths to
broadcasters. The government’s attack on monopoly resulted eventually in four radio
networks—the National Broadcasting Company, the Columbia Broadcasting System,
the Mutual Broadcasting System, and the American Broadcasting Company—while the
FCC permitted orderly growth and ensured the survival of educational radio stations.
The United Kingdom
Early development
Radiobroadcasting in Great Britain eventually developed in quite a different way from
that in the United States. The first initiatives after World War I were taken by
commercial firms that regarded broadcasting primarily as a means of point-to-
point communication. The first successful broadcasting of the human voice, from a
transmitter in Ireland across the Atlantic in 1919, led to the erection of a six-kilowatt
transmitter at Chelmsford, Essex. From this spot two daily half-hour programs
of speech and music, including a well-received broadcast by the opera singer Dame
Nellie Melba, were broadcast for about a year between 1919 and 1920. Opposition from
the armed services, fear of interference with essential communications, and a desire
to avoid the “commercialization” of radio led, however, to a ban on the Chelmsford
broadcasts, which the Post Office claimed the right to impose. Experimental broadcasts,
the Post Office ruled, had to be individually authorized. Nevertheless, about 4,000
receiving-set licenses and 150 amateur transmitting licenses issued by the Post Office by
March 1921 were evidence of growing interest. When these amateurs, grouped into 63
societies with a total of about 3,000 members, petitioned for regular broadcasts, their
request was granted in a limited form: the Marconi Company was authorized to
broadcast about 15 minutes weekly.

The first of these authorized broadcasts, from a hut at Writtle, close to Chelmsford, took
place on Feb. 14, 1922; the station call signal was 2MT. Shortly thereafter an
experimental station was authorized at Marconi House in London, and its first program
went on the air May 11, 1922. Other stations were soon to follow.
Formation of the British Broadcasting Company
By this time developments in the United States had demonstrated the commercial
possibilities of radio but also suggested a need for greater order and control. The Post
Office took the initiative in encouraging cooperation between manufacturers, and on
Oct. 18, 1922, the British Broadcasting Company, Ltd., was established as a private
corporation. Only bona fide manufacturers were permitted to hold shares, and the
directors of the firm, all of whom represented manufacturing interests, met under an
independent chairman. The company’s revenue came from half of the 10-shilling license
fee for receivers and a 10 percent royalty on the sale of receiving sets and equipment.
Provincial stations were provided for, and all stations were to broadcast “news,
information, concerts, lectures, educational matter, speeches, weather reports,
theatrical entertainment.”

Already several precedents had been established that were later followed in many other
countries; of these the license revenue was the most important, but the royalty on sets
and equipment was also adopted elsewhere, even after its abandonment in Britain.
Because the British Broadcasting Company was a monopoly and because British radio as
a result developed in a more orderly manner than elsewhere, such problems and issues
of broadcasting as control of finance, broadcasting of controversy, relations with
government, network organization, and public-service broadcasting became apparent,
and solutions were sought in the United Kingdom earlier than elsewhere.

In 1927, upon recommendation of a parliamentary committee, the company was

liquidated and replaced by a public corporation, the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC), answerable ultimately to Parliament but with day-to-day control left
to the judgment of the Board of Governors appointed on the basis of their standing and
experience and not representing any sectional interests. A key figure, the chief executive
of the original company and director general of the corporation, was John Reith (later
Lord Reith), whose concept of public-service broadcasting prevailed in Britain and
influenced broadcasting in many other countries. The BBC retained its monopoly until
the creation of the Independent Television Authority (ITA) in 1954. The BBC
experimented with local radio in the late 1960s and expanded the number of local
stations in the early 1970s. In 1972 the ITA became the Independent Broadcasting
Authority (IBA), which assumed responsibility for establishing and regulating
independent radio and television stations. Regional and network production companies
are appointed by the IBA; the companies sell advertising time, but advertisers are not
allowed to sponsor programs.
Radio developments in other countries
Even before the pioneer station in Pittsburgh commenced operations, regular
broadcasts began from The Hague, running from November 1919 until 1924. In Canada
the first regular broadcasts from Montreal began in 1920, while in Australia a small
station in Melbourne opened in 1921, though the official start occurred in Sydney in
1923. In New Zealand several low-powered stations were operating in 1921, though the
Radio Broadcasting Company was not founded until 1927. In Denmark
experimental amateur stations went on the air in 1921, and the official State
Broadcasting System was instituted in 1925. France began regular transmissions from
the Eiffel Tower in 1922, and the first Soviet station commenced broadcasts from
Moscow in the same year. By the end of 1923 there also were radio stations established
in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and Spain. The list of countries lengthened
rapidly, with Finland and Italy beginning broadcasts in 1924 and Norway, Poland,
Mexico, and Japan in 1925. In India organized broadcasting began in 1926; the Indian
Broadcasting Company had stations in Bombay (Mumbai) and Calcutta (Kolkata) in
1927.
In most of these countries, the problem of control arose. In some countries private
enterprise was given free rein, subject to licensing by a government department or
agency and to agreement upon the wavelengths or frequencies to be used. In others
there was closer control (e.g., France) or encouragement for cooperation between
potentially conflicting interests (e.g., Germany and Japan). Britain’s example was
followed in Denmark, Sweden, several Commonwealth countries, and some British
colonies. In Canada and France, state and private enterprise operated side by side.
Private stations were well established in Canada, for example, before the Canadian
Broadcasting Commission was formed in 1936.

In France the Administration of Posts and Telegraphs handled early broadcasts;

although a state monopoly was declared in 1923 and state broadcasting remained a
department of the Administration of Posts and Telegraphs until World War II, some
private stations were granted licenses, including Radio Normandy, which broadcast to
the United Kingdom. Some of these private commercial stations continued operation,
broadcasting under government control until 1945, when their licenses were withdrawn
and radio became a complete state monopoly, independent of the Administration of
Posts and Telegraphs but answerable to the government.

In Germany the Ministry of Posts controlled and owned all technical equipment, while
private companies started programs in various cities. Soon the Reich Broadcasting
Company acquired controlling interests in these companies; in 1932 all were
nationalized.
International conferences
The wavelength problems that created so much confusion in the United States and
provided a strong argument for monopoly in Britain also arose internationally,
particularly in Europe, where the concentration of heavily populated and technologically
advanced sovereign nations compelled international agreement. Telegraphy had led to
an early conference in Paris in 1865 that created what later became the International
Telecommunications Union. This event was followed by the Berlin conference of 1885 to
discuss international telephone communications, two further conferences in Berlin in
1903 and 1906 on radiotelegraph, and still another in London in 1912 to cover the whole
field of radio communications. An informal conference of 10 countries held in London in
1925 created the Union Internationale de Radiophonie. The union was based in Geneva,
with a BBC representative as president and another as secretary-general, and was the
first international broadcasting organization. The use of wavelengths, copyright
problems, and international program exchanges inevitably were discussed, and a plan
was drawn up.

Agreement on wavelength allocation, implemented in November 1926, was based on a

formula involving area, population, and the extent of telephone and telegraph traffic. In
spite of its dominating position, the BBC, which had been using 20 medium
wavelengths, emerged with 1 long wavelength, 10 medium wavelengths, and 5 further
medium wavelengths shared with others but below the Post Office limit range for
broadcasting of between 1 megahertz and 600 kilohertz (300 and 500 metres). (Long
waves range from 30 to 300 kilohertz, medium waves from 300 kilohertz to three
megahertz, and shortwaves from 3 to 30 megahertz.) All of the more advanced
participating countries (which had risen to 16: Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia,
Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway,
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) had to make some sacrifices, and
some, such as the United Kingdom, had to persuade their post offices to agree to the use
of wavelengths outside the broadcasting range, but the principle of international
agreement had been established. The Washington Conference of 1927 widened the area
of cooperation in respect to radiotelegraph, broadcasting, and the international
allocation of wavelengths, or frequencies. It was followed by the Madrid Conference of
1932, which codified the rules and established the official international frequency list.
This agreement stabilized the situation until World War II, after which the European
scene was substantially changed, and a conference in Copenhagen in 1948 reallocated
frequencies in the European Broadcasting Area. The Atlantic City Conference in 1947
had already created the International Frequency Registration Board. A conference in
Buenos Aires in 1952 prepared the text of the International Telecommunications
Convention. The text was revised at Geneva in 1959, where radio regulations were also
revised. Geneva also was the site of the 1963 conference for the allocation of frequency
bands for space and Earth–space communications.
International organizations
The International Telecommunications Union, created in 1865,
has worldwide membership. In 1947 it became a specialized agency of the United
Nations. Within the union are the International Frequency Registration Board, the
International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee, and the International
Radio Consultative Committee. Apart from the International Telecommunications
Union, a number of organizations have been established, primarily on a regional basis,
since World War II. When tensions between the East and West made the Union
Internationale de Radiophonie almost unworkable, a strong organization, the European
Broadcasting Union, was created by the countries of western Europe in 1950, with its
administrative headquarters in Geneva. It has a membership of more than 30 nations
that includes not only all nations of western Europe but also others such as Algeria,
Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey. In addition, it has more than 40
associate members, including the United States and most Commonwealth and former
French colonial countries, as well as Japan and several Latin American countries. A
parallel organization, the International Radio and Television Organization, was created
in 1950 to serve nearly all communist countries (excluding Yugoslavia) and allies of the
communist bloc.

The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, which was formally established in 1964 as a union
of national broadcasting organizations in Asia and the Pacific, includes Japan,
Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines, as well as Iran, Turkey, Egypt, and most of
the noncommunist countries of Asia; its headquarters are in Kuala Lumpur, Malay.
The Union of National Radio and Television Organizations of Africa, which was formed
in 1962, includes most former French and British colonies. The union is based in Dakar,
Seneg., and has its technical centre at Bamako, Mali. The Arab States Broadcasting
Union was formed in 1969 as an intergovernmental organization within the framework
of the Arab League; the secretariat is in Cairo, and the technical centre is located in
Khartoum, Sudan. The Asociación Internacional de Radiodifusión primarily covers
North, Central, and South America but includes some European countries. Its central
office is in Montevideo, Uru. The Commonwealth Broadcasting Association, established
in 1945 as a standing association of national public-service broadcasting organizations
in the independent countries of the Commonwealth, bases its secretariat in London.
The North American National Broadcasters Association, with its headquarters in
Ottawa, began as an ad hoc group in 1972 and became a formal organization in 1978. Its
members are Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The Caribbean Broadcasting
Union is headquartered in Christ Church, Barb., and is an association of National
Broadcasting Systems of the Commonwealth, Caribbean, and Other Regional States.
The International Broadcasting Society was formed in 1985 to improve the information
flow between Third World and advanced countries and to foster cooperation between
developing countries. Its headquarters are in Seoul.

There are other international broadcasting bodies, including the United Nations
Department of Public Information and the Culture and Communication Sector of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
The International Broadcast Institute, created in 1968 as a nonprofit and
nongovernmental association supported by charitable foundations, with headquarters in
London, fosters a free flow of communications for informational, cultural, and
educational purposes. There are also a substantial number of religious broadcasting
bodies, some of regional and some of worldwide proportions; among the most
important are the World Association for Christian Communications, set up in 1968 and
based in London, and the Association Catholique Internationale pour la Radio, la
Télévision, et l’Audiovisuel, based in Brussels. Radio Free Europe, based in Munich and
financed by U.S. government funds, was established to broadcast pro-
Western propaganda to eastern Europe.
Television broadcasting
Early developments
Through a series of technical developments in Great Britain, Europe, the Soviet Union,
and the United States, television reached a state of technical feasibility by 1931. In that
year a research group was established in Britain under Isaac (later Sir Isaac) Shoenberg,
an inventor with vast experience in radio transmission in the Soviet Union. He fostered
the evolution of a complete and practical television-broadcast system based on a
camera tube known as the Emitron and an improved cathode-ray tube for the receiver.
Shoenberg saw the need to establish a system that would endure for many years, since
any subsequent changes in basic standards could give rise to severe technical and
economic problems. He therefore proposed a system that, though ambitious for its day,
was fully justified by subsequent events. Shoenberg’s electronic scanning proved far
superior to the mechanical scanning method that had been developed by the pioneer
John Baird. The government authorized the BBC to adopt Shoenberg’s standards (405
lines) for the world’s first high-definition service, which was launched in London in
1936. So adequate were they that they formed the sole basis of the British service until
1962, when they gradually were superseded by the European continental standard of
625 lines. The first notable outside broadcast by the BBC was the procession of the
coronation of King George VI from Hyde Park Corner in November 1937; a portable
transmitter mounted on a special vehicle made its first public appearance. Several
thousand viewers saw the transmission.

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Television developments were slower in the United States. It was not until April 30,
1939, at the opening of the New York World’s Fair, that a public demonstration was
made by the National Broadcasting Company, which announced in that year that it was
ready to begin broadcasting for two hours per week. The Columbia Broadcasting
System and the Dumont network began telecasting in 1939 and 1940, respectively. By
mid-1940 there were 23 television stations in the United States. World War II, however,
brought nearly all activity to an end as electronics factories were converted to wartime
production. The Federal Communications Commission had authorized only limited
commercial operation (the first sponsored television broadcasts began in 1941), and
gradually stations closed down; only six were left with limited programs to serve the
owners of about 10,000 sets. When wartime restrictions governing the manufacture of
receivers were removed in 1946, the stage was set in the United States for a rapid growth
of the television-broadcasting industry. By 1949 there were 1 million receivers in use;
the 10 million mark was passed in 1951, and the 50 million mark eight years later. In
England the BBC’s television service was resumed in June 1946; by 1949 there were
126,567 television licenses, and by 1950 there were 343,882, equal in proportion to 1
million in the United States. Other nations did not begin television broadcasting on
anything resembling a wide scale until the 1950s.
Transoceanic broadcasts
The initial attempt to interconnect the television networks of Europe and North
America came in 1962, when the American Telephone and Telegraph Company used its
satellite, Telstar, to relay television signals between Andover, Maine, U.S.; Goonhilly
Downs, Cornwall, Eng.; and Pleumeur-Bodou, Brittany, France. The first transmission,
of a purely experimental nature, originated in the United States on July 10, 1962, and
this was followed the next day by transmissions to the United States from France and
England; the first colour transmission occurred on July 16. Reception was limited to
about 15 minutes, the period during which the satellite was within sight of the sending
and receiving stations. To maintain continuous transmissions, the planners of the
system proposed using a series of satellites so that at least one would always be in
position to relay signals. In the mid-1960s, however, an alternative technique came to
the fore: a single relay satellite in a “stationary” orbit, so adjusted that it would always
remain above the same point on the surface of the Earth. The first public demonstration
of this system was on Oct. 10, 1964, when television coverage of the opening ceremonies
of the Olympic Games was relayed from Tokyo to North America via a Syncom satellite
positioned above the Pacific Ocean. The so-called synchronous communications
satellite maintained an altitude of about 23,000 miles (37,000 km), its position fixed
with respect to the Earth, their periods of rotation being identical. In the early 1970s
such satellites were so placed that virtually any area of the Earth was within reach of any
other by space-relay circuits. The transmitters and receivers used in space are capable of
carrying many television channels simultaneously, in addition to telephone and other
communications. The landing on the Moon by the American astronauts in 1969 was
carried by satellite to an estimated audience of more than 100 million viewers
(see also telecommunication system).
Broadcasting systems
The broadcaster and the government
Most observers recognize that no broadcast organization can be wholly independent of
government, for all of them must be licensed in accordance with international
agreements. Although broadcasters in democratic countries pride themselves on their
freedom with respect to their governments, they are not always free of stockholder or
advertiser pressure, nor are producers and editors truly independent if senior
executives, under pressure from whatever source, interfere with their editorial
functions. Independence, therefore, is a relative term when it is applied to broadcasting.

In a monograph that was written for the European Broadcasting Union, broadcasting
systems are classified under four headings: state-operated, those that work under the
establishment of a public corporation or authority, those whose systems are a
partnership blend of public authorities and private interests, and those under private
management. A brief summary of these systems provides an indication of the complex
variations that have arisen.
State operation
Grouped under this heading are broadcasting systems that are operated by a
government department or delegated to an administration, perhaps with a legal
personality and even possibly independent in financial and administrative matters, but
subject to the government and not essentially autonomous. Under this heading came the
systems in most communist countries. In the Soviet Union a special committee was set
up in 1957 to be in charge of Soviet radio and television under the direct authority of the
U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers. Similar arrangements were made
in Czechoslovakia and Poland, except that the committees were given a legal
personality. Romania had delegated broadcasting to a committee attached to the
Council of Ministers. All-India Radio is a department of the Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting. Similar arrangements are common in countries that were colonies but
have gained their independence since World War II.
Establishment of a public corporation or authority
The BBC has been the prototype of this kind of system. Provided it abides by the charter
and terms of the license under which it operates, the BBC has maximum independence
as regards the disposal of its funds (although its revenue is subject to governmental
decision as to the cost of the license that is required for every television or radio
receiver), the production and scheduling of programs, and, above all, editorial control.
Certain residual government powers are either hedged around with agreed provisos or
never exercised. Its income, save for profits on the sale of programs abroad and the sale
of various phonograph records and publications, is exclusively derived from licenses.
External broadcasting (i.e., broadcasting to areas outside national boundaries) is
separately financed. The chairman and Board of Governors constitute the legal
personality of the BBC; they are chosen by the government not as representatives of
sectional interests but on the basis of their experience and standing. Political parties in
office have been careful to avoid political prejudice in these appointments.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), or Société Radio-Canada, also has

substantial independent powers as determined by the Broadcasting Act of 1958 and its
two successors, passed in 1968 and 1991. These later acts responded to technological as
well as social changes, such as the specific needs of the regions and the aspirations of
French-speaking Canadian citizens. The CBC is dependent on an annual parliamentary
grant for its finance, supplemented by an income derived from advertising that amounts
to about one-quarter of its annual revenue. Canadian broadcasting as a whole is a mixed
system, with private broadcasting companies operating alongside the CBC.

The Japan Broadcasting Corporation, or the Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK), was charged
by a series of acts in 1950 with the task of conducting “its broadcasting service for the
public welfare in such a manner that its broadcasts may be received all over Japan.” The
NHK Board of Governors is appointed by the prime minister with the consent of both
houses of the Diet. The system is financed almost exclusively from the sale of licenses for
receiving sets. Private broadcasting, allowed since 1950, has led to the creation of 170
private broadcasting companies.

Though German broadcasting is properly included in this category, the situation there is
substantially different, for the basic radio and television services are a matter not for the
federal government but for the individual states (Länder). The state broadcasting
organizations are also grouped together in a national organization, the First German
Television network. In each state, though there are some variations, there are a
broadcasting council that is appointed by the legislature or nominated by churches,
universities, associations of employers or trade unions, political parties, or the press; an
administrative council; and a director general. Their revenue comes from receiving-set
licenses and sometimes also from advertising.
The broadcasting system in Belgium provides an interesting example of a device that has
been used successfully for coping with a two-language country. There are three public
authorities: one for French broadcasts, a second for Flemish, and a third that owns the
property, owns and operates the technical equipment, and is responsible for
the symphony orchestra, record library, and central reference library.
Partnership of public authorities and private interests
In many cases this partnership is nominal and historical rather than substantial and
actual. The outstanding example is Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI), originally founded
in 1924. In 1927 an agreement was made with the government for a 25-year
broadcasting concession. The charter was extended to cover television in 1952. Two
years later a government agency acquired control, and in 1985 it owned 99 percent of
the shares. RAI’s administrative council consists of 20 members, 6 of whom are elected
by the shareholders’ assembly, 10 elected by a parliamentary commission, and 4
selected from a list of candidates representing the regional councils. A parliamentary
committee of 40 members is in charge of running the service. The organization must
also prepare an outline of programs on a quarterly basis for approval by the Ministry of
Posts and Telecommunications, aided by an advisory committee concerned with
cultural, artistic, and educational policies. A separate organization runs the broadcast
advertising business, which, together with receiving-set licenses, provides the revenue of
RAI. State monopoly of broadcasting was terminated in 1976. By the early 1990s there
were about 450 private television stations operating in Italy alongside the RAI.

In Sweden the broadcasting monopoly is technically a privately owned corporation in

which the state has no financial interest, thus emphasizing the independence of Sveriges
Radio from the government. The shares of the corporation must be held by the Swedish
press (20 percent), large noncommercial national bodies or movements (60 percent),
and commerce and industry (20 percent). The board of governors is made up of a
chairman and government nominees and an equal number elected by the shareholders;
there also are two employee representatives of Sveriges Radio on the board. The
government reserves the right to determine the amount of revenue from receiving-set
licenses on an annual basis and thus controls both investment and the amount of
broadcasting. The government, however, does not control how that revenue is spent. On
balance, Sveriges Radio has a substantial measure of freedom.

In Switzerland too there are elements of partnership between private interests and
public authorities, but the federal constitution, the need to broadcast in three languages,
and geographical factors have led to a system by which the Swiss Broadcasting
Corporation is composed of three regional societies based in Lausanne, Zürich, and
Lugano-Besso.
Private management
Most of the broadcasting organizations under this heading are commercial firms that
derive their revenue from advertising, which takes the form of brief announcements
scheduled at regular intervals throughout the day. In some cases a program, such as a
sports event or concert, may be sponsored by one advertiser or group of advertisers.
Methods and degree of government control vary, and no general characteristics may be
isolated. Private-enterprise radio predominates in the United States and Latin America.

Subject to similar controls in these countries are many nonprofit educational stations,
financed by universities, private subscriptions, and foundations. There is a public-
service network, the Public Broadcasting Service, in the United States.

Other methods of distributing sound and vision programs by wire and cable are not
strictly broadcasting. In the main, wire-diffusion enterprises concentrate on giving
efficient reception of broadcast programs in densely populated areas, large blocks of
buildings, and hotels. A tall apartment building, for example, may have one
television antenna on its roof to which residents may attach their receivers. Programs
such as sports, special events, films, and theatrical performances are also available via
direct cable lines to subscribers as “Pay TV.” Cable television reached about 56,100,000
homes in the United States in 1991 and has created two industries in broadcasting: one
to hook up homes, the other to supply the programs. Cable television has drawn viewers
away from the major commercial television networks, whose share of the prime-time
audience has fallen and is expected to decline further.
The broadcaster and the public
Nature of the broadcast audience
The psychology and behaviour of a radio or television audience, which is composed
principally of individuals in the privacy of their own homes, differ considerably from
those of an audience in a theatre or lecture hall. There is none of the crowd atmosphere
that prevails in a public assembly, and listeners are only casually aware that they are
actually part of a large audience. This engenders a sense of intimacy that causes the
listener to feel a close personal association with the speaker or performer. Furthermore,
many people will not accept in their own homes many of the candid forms of expression
that they readily condone or support on the stage or in literature.

Because it owes its license to operate to the state, if indeed it is not state-operated, and
because of its intimate relationship to its audience, broadcasting functions in a quasi-
public domain, open in all its phases to public scrutiny. It is therefore held to be
invested with a moral as well as a legal responsibility to serve the public interest and
must remain more sensitive to public sentiment and political opinion than most other
forms of public expression.
Audience measurement
For economic reasons, as well as those outlined above, evaluation of audience opinion
and response to radio or television programs is important to the broadcaster. Audience
measurement presents difficult problems, because there is no box office by which to
determine the exact number of listeners. Mail received comes principally from those
who have the time and inclination to write and cannot be regarded as wholly
representative. Audience-measurement information may also be obtained by telephone-
sampling methods, interviews in the home by market-research organizations, or special
recording devices attached to individual receiving sets. The latter, installed with the
owner’s consent, record the amount of time the set is used, when it is turned on and off,
and the stations tuned in. These devices are expensive, however, and do not necessarily
indicate whether someone is actually watching or listening, and they are therefore
limited to small samples of the total audience. Whatever the method of rating,
commercial broadcasters are quick to alter or discontinue any program that shows lack
of audience appeal, and the listeners are thus influential in determining the nature of
the programs that are offered to them. In commercial broadcasting, sponsored
programs also are affected by their apparent success or failure in selling the goods
advertised.
Educational broadcasting
It is difficult to give an account of educational broadcasting in countries where
broadcasting is largely or wholly a matter of private management and where the larger
and more important stations and networks are private commercial enterprises.
Nevertheless, considerable numbers of educational transmissions are made in the
United States and Latin America by universities and colleges and sometimes by
municipal or state-owned stations. The Public Broadcasting Service in the United States
has increased the amount of educational and generally more thought-provoking
material available on the air, and in Latin America some countries use broadcasts not
only to support the work of teachers in schools but also to combat illiteracy and to
impart advice to isolated rural populations in matters of public health, agricultural
methods, and other social and practical subjects. The Roman Catholic Church has been
in the forefront of the latter activity, operating, for example, the Rede Nacional de
Emissôras Católicas in Brazil and the Acción Cultural Popular in Colombia. A similar
use of broadcasting is made in most of the tropical countries of Africa and Asia.

Japan’s NHK has the most ambitious educational-broadcasting output in the world.
Each of its two television and AM radio services is devoted wholly to education, while
general television services and FM radio also transmit material of this nature. Japan
prepares programs for primary, secondary, and higher education, special offerings for
the mentally and physically handicapped, and a wide range of transmissions under the
general heading of “social education,” which includes foreign languages, vocational and
technical instruction, advice on agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and business
management, plus special programs for children, adolescents, and women. The
educational broadcasts of NHK reach more than 90 percent of Japan’s primary and
secondary schools.

In Europe the French state broadcasting service devotes more than one-half of its radio
output to educational and cultural broadcasts in the arts, letters, and sciences; and on
television about 14 percent of its first and second networks are devoted to adult
education. Primary and secondary instruction is offered, as are refresher courses for
teachers and university-level courses.

Although Italian radio devotes less than 1 percent of its output specifically to
educational programs for children, nearly 20 percent is given to cultural and allied
offerings. Educational television began in Italy in 1958 with courses of a vocational
nature, followed by transmissions aimed at secondary schools. In 1966 special programs
were initiated for areas where there are no secondary schools. By the early 1980s, 17
percent of Italian television time was devoted to educational and school broadcasts and
4 percent to cultural programs.

Swedish radio offers a comprehensive service of educational and cultural broadcasting,

with the output on television higher than that on radio. There is also a substantial
output of adult education at the primary, secondary, and university levels, with about
1,400 school broadcasts a year, and Sweden has concentrated on vocational training and
refreshment for teachers. German broadcasting, by contrast, has been used much less
for formal education. In the Netherlands more than two and a half hours of school and
continuing education broadcasting are broadcast weekly on the radio; in addition,
nearly eight hours of educational television are transmitted every week.

The BBC pioneered in education; its work, in both radio and television, has steadily
expanded. The BBC offers primary and secondary students more than 100 radio series
and nearly 40 television series. The BBC also offers a wide range of biweekly programs
especially designed for study in degree courses with the Open University, created and
financed by the government, with the broadcast teaching supplemented by publications
and correspondence work. By the mid-1970s, BBC broadcasts for the Open University
averaged 16 hours weekly on radio and more than 18 hours on television. In addition,
the Independent Broadcasting Authority in the United Kingdom has required the
commercial-program companies to contribute educational material both for schools and
for adults; by 1970 this amounted to 10 hours weekly during periods totaling 28 weeks
of the year.

In Australia there is a small educational output on the commercial stations, both radio
and television, but by far the greater part of educational broadcasting is undertaken by
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Educational programming accounts for about
4 percent of radio time and 18 percent of television output, the majority of which is
broadcast to schools and kindergartens. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is
required to provide educational programs in both English and French and does so on its
AM and FM radio networks, as well as on television.
Broadcasts for external reception
International broadcasting—the transmission of programs by a country expressly for
audiences beyond its own frontiers—dates from the earliest days of broadcasting. The
Soviet Union began foreign-language transmissions for propaganda purposes in the
1920s. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany made such broadcasts at a later date. France,
Great Britain, and the Netherlands were next in the field among European countries,
though their first use of shortwave broadcasting was aimed at French-, English-, or
Dutch-speaking populations overseas. Great Britain began foreign-language
broadcasting early in 1938 with a program in Arabic and transmissions in Spanish and
Portuguese directed to Latin America. By August 1939, countries broadcasting in foreign
languages included Albania, Bulgaria, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary,
Italy, Japan, Romania, the Soviet Union, Spain, the United States, and Vatican City.

During World War II foreign-language broadcasting continued; the programs of the

BBC in particular, because of their reliability and credibility, had an important effect in
maintaining morale among the countries that were under German occupation. The
continuance of international tension after World War II led to remarkable growth of
foreign-language services. In 1950, for example, all of the communist countries of
eastern Europe except East Germany had launched external services, although these
were on a small scale, and even the Soviet Union was transmitting a total of more than
500 hours of broadcasts weekly in all foreign languages. The United Kingdom’s output,
which had once led the field, had been reduced to slightly more than 600 hours a week
and the Voice of America to less than 500 hours per week. By the early 1980s the
situation had changed radically. The Soviet Union alone broadcast more than 2,000
hours per week, and the output of all communist countries of eastern Europe (excluding
Yugoslavia) totaled about 1,500 hours. The United Kingdom logged 744 hours in
1981; West Germany logged 785 hours; and the United States broadcast over the Voice
of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 1,925 hours a week. The output of
China had risen from 66 hours weekly in 1950 to 1,375 hours by 1981. The increase in
Chinese broadcasts reflected in part the rising tension between China and the Soviet
Union; significantly, the output of China’s ally for much of this period, Albania, rose
from 26 to 560 hours weekly during the same period. By the early 1980s Japan was
transmitting for 263 hours, while Australia and Canada also sponsored external
broadcasts.
Monitoring and transcriptions
A logical development following from external broadcasting is the monitoring of foreign
broadcasts and their analysis for intelligence purposes. The BBC in particular has a
highly developed monitoring service; this activity often yields valuable information.
The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States is also active in monitoring and
analyzing foreign broadcasts. Transcriptions (recordings) of programs produced in
either the domestic or the external services of one country can be acceptable for
broadcast in others. Radio broadcasts of an educational nature can be used in different
countries speaking the same language. Although many radio transcriptions are supplied
free, in television the situation is different, and there is a substantial trade in television
films.
Pirate and offshore stations
In some countries where broadcasting in general or radio alone is a monopoly, radio has
had to compete for brief periods with independent commercial stations mounted on
ships anchored at sea outside territorial waters. Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands,
and the United Kingdom have been the countries most affected by these stations, which
have made use of unauthorized wavelengths, thus endangering other radio
communications and operating free of any copyright obligations in respect to any of
their broadcast material. Government action gradually has forced closure of such
operations: in Sweden a competitive service of popular music proved effective; and in
Denmark naval police action (the international legality of which may be questioned),
followed by confiscation and heavy penalties, brought an end to the pirate station. The
United Kingdom combined legislation penalizing any party who advertised or supplied
such ships with the launching by the BBC of Radio 1, substantially a popular music
service, to solve the problem. The French have had a particular problem of competition
from the so-called postes périphériques, which include Europe No. 1 in the Saar and
Radio Andorra in the Pyrenees, not to mention the French-language broadcasts of
Monaco, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. The strongest competition came from
Europe No. 1, in which the French government finally purchased a controlling interest.
Jorge A. CamachoThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Broadcasting as a medium of art

The artistic potential of any medium is determined by the unique form it offers and
forces on the artist and by its capacity as an effective vehicle of communication in its
own right. The form of any art includes the circumstance through which it reaches its
public. William Shakespeare’s stage was little more than an open platform on which any
action he cared to represent could be compassed provided he gave his actors the
necessary words to indicate the place, circumstance, and atmosphere of the action. But
his plays would have been null as practical drama without the circumscribing enclosure
of the Elizabethan circular theatre auditorium—the “wooden O”—which gathered
the audience around the platform, sealing them off from the outside world and
concentrating their attention on the performance. As active auditors they became
an integral part of the drama, and one must be constantly aware of them in the
very writing, structure, and timing of the plays. Shakespeare’s art was born of the
discovery of the potentialities of the actor–audience relationship.
The art of radio
In a similar way the art of radio began to be discovered when those engaged in
broadcasting became aware of the nature of the medium in which they were working
and of their special relationship to their audience. The discovery took time. (The artistic
potential of radio was not explored until the 1930s.) Radio was the only medium in
which performers were invisible to their audience. Broadcasters tended at first to adopt
the manner of the stage or the pulpit: thinking in terms of a mass audience, the
inexperienced broadcaster gave his voice and style an artificial inflation totally unsuited
to the new medium. His actual audience was composed of small groups and individuals,
usually at home or in informal circumstances, often doing other things at the same time.
The basic art of radio consisted in adapting manner and style to these new
circumstances. Few programs could expect to take their audiences for granted.

News broadcasts were among the exceptions, and news broadcasts in most countries
came to be delivered in a fixed, impersonal manner, the newsreader suppressing his
personality as far as possible and adopting a “team” voice. Most other spoken radio
formats required using the voice in such a way as to hold the attention of the listener,
and this in turn meant recognizing the nature of the microphone as a medium. The
public’s span of attention was found to be limited. The news summary was allotted five
or 10 minutes, while a talk might last 15 minutes or in special instances up to 30
minutes. Much consideration was also given to the appropriate styles for various
audiences, depending on the classes of listeners to whom broadcasts were addressed.

The art of radio emerged in Britain—and in certain other countries adopting the same
“public service” approach—as a medium nominally addressed to everyone but
actually resembling a kind of broad-based national journal with special sections
addressed to specific interests and tastes, some more demanding on the intelligence
than others. The popular radio talk (a form of spoken journalism, or essay, often
excellently composed and delivered) was shorter and more informal in style than that of
the “serious” or purely educational talk. Broadcasting offered unique opportunities for
bringing the nation’s highest intelligences into the living rooms of so-called minority
audiences (often amounting to millions) who were prepared to listen to concentrated
exposition and argument. From this, particularly in Europe, developed channels
specializing in minority interests for part or all of the day. The listeners supported the
service by paying an annual license fee. In the United States, on the other hand,
privately owned broadcasting companies got their revenues from advertising and tied
their programming to the advertiser’s desire to reach the widest possible public.
In Japan there were both public and commercial broadcasting services, the former being
financed, as in Europe, by license fees from owners of receiving sets. In the Soviet
Union broadcasting was recognized, in the words of Pravda, as “one of the most
powerful weapons of the cultural revolution.” Under Stalin virtually all receivers were
wired to local exchanges so that the listener could choose only among approved
programs. The service had to be regionalized because the U.S.S.R. included populations
speaking about 80 principal languages. Aside from news and commentary, the
broadcasts were generally cultural rather than directly propagandistic.

The development of radio as an art form was thus dependent on the way it was
organized and financed. There were rich new fields to be opened up in drama, light
entertainment, and documentary programming, conceived specifically for the medium,
while at the same time some traditional art forms (notably stage drama and music) were
transmitted with success. Fiction and poetry reading also became a staple part
of sound broadcasting.
The art of television
In the 1950s and ’60s, radio was overtaken by television. At first television as a medium
was considered to be little different from film. But, although television was a hungry
user of film, it needed film in forms that differed from those required by the theatres.

The difference between film and television as art forms stemmed from the physical and
financial conditions governing production, distribution, and exhibition. The
relationships between the media and their publics were also different. The initial
difference lies in the cameras and their function in production. The film camera supplies
a record on celluloid in the form of a two-dimensional image, which, suitably edited, can
be subsequently projected onto a screen. The television camera accepts and makes
available for immediate transmission a two-dimensional image that remains unrecorded
and passes with the event, like the image in a mirror (though this image can, by using
additional equipment, be recorded on film or videotape). The film camera is associated
with a lengthy effort of photographing, cutting, editing, and dubbing—an elaborate
process of selection and assembly that may involve months of work. Although television
images may also be stored and edited through videotape, the essential television form is
the immediate transmission to the public of events occurring at the moment—political
and social events, news summaries, commentary, and discussion.

The basic art of television is the control of this immediate flow of images. They can be
preselected insofar as the cameras may be set up at chosen vantage points; after that,
however, the director must select among the images they give him. The director-editor
uses his skill to secure an immediately effective flow of images from the multiple
viewpoints his cameras and their lenses collectively represent. In the film the same end
is achieved by the quite different process of fragmenting and recording the action
piecemeal, thus creating a succession of images that can be subsequently put together by
editing and dubbing.

Those who first struggled with the practical aesthetics of television attempted to see the
medium on the one hand as a kind of visual radio and on the other as a form of “diluted
cinema,” a rather poor cousin of the theatrical film. This was in part because they came
either from radio or from filmmaking and saw the medium in relation to their previous
occupations. Writers, directors, and performers from radio tended at first to reduce the
television image to a “talking head,” with the addition of occasional still pictures, film
clips, or cut-ins from other broadcasting stations. This was especially the case in
countries in which television initially lacked adequate financing (such as France) and
directors could not afford costly pictorialization. On the other hand, personnel coming
from filmmaking were appalled at the speed with which they were required to prepare
and mount their television programs.

Television differs most from film in its relationship to the audience. The film is an event
designed for a theatre with an audience specially assembled for the performance.
Television, on the other hand, resembles a private performance in the home. The
attitude of a person sitting perhaps alone and often for hours on end before a
comparatively small picture screened in the familiar surroundings of his living room is
quite different from that of a person who has gone out to share the special audience
experience of a theatre. The tension is more slack; concentration is constantly
threatened by irrelevant interruption. Whereas one is absorbed by a good film in a
theatre to the exclusion of all else, one merely “watches” television. The television
audience is preoccupied not so much with an individual item as with the free flow of
item after item. Television is like a talking picture magazine, going on daily and nightly,
asking little, giving out along with its entertainment a quantity of
easily assimilated information ranging from formal news coverage to informal, gossipy
discussions of the lighter affairs of the day.

Television also differs from film with respect to its visual impact. In the movie theatre a
highly magnified image fills the central part of the field of vision in an otherwise
darkened hall, exciting curiosity and response to a degree far beyond that obtained by a
standard-size television screen in a relatively undarkened, and much smaller, living
room. The great, fully loaded images of the big screen, from D.W.
Griffith’s Intolerance of 1916 to the Russian War and Peace of 1968, have involved the
investment of large sums of money in what is called “production value”—
the accumulated content of those images with their crowds of people and their elaborate
sets. Skilled viewers in the movie theatre perceive and appreciate an astonishing amount
of detail. In comparing television, however, one has only to watch a film produced for
big-screen theatre to realize the limitations of the small television screen, in which the
actors, speakers, or commentators must occupy most of the visual field.
Techniques and borrowings
It is useful to view all of the media together, ranging from the individual performer
appearing in the flesh before his audience to the complex presentations of the electronic
and allied media. They may be compared in terms of the relationship of the performer to
his audience as shown in Table 1. The media also vary in the kind of performance on
which they can draw, either derivatively or creatively, as shown in Table 2.

Relationship of medium to performance

medium nature of presentation type of material

visible and audible

oratory, preaching, recital; a speech, sermon, song, reading,
rostrum performance by a single
monologue, or monodrama
person

visible and audible

live theatre or a drama, opera, ballet, revue, circus, etc., with or without
performance by a group or
concert hall music; a concert
company

visible, but not audible,

a mimed drama with titles, documentary presentation, news
motion performance presented by
record, or animated film; presented with "live" sound (music,
picture (silent) means of cinematograph
commentator)
projection

original screenplay or material adapted from theatrical,

visible and audible
fictional, or other sources; according to degree of adaptation,
motion picture performance presented by
the sound film supervenes on the form of its source, making
(sound) means of a cinematograph
something new; also news, factual, and documentary
projection
material

radio audible, but not visible, the whole range of human activity, from the news bulletin,
broadcast performance report, commentary, discussion, talk, or actuality recording to
the complete cycle of the audible arts—story and poetry
reading, drama and documentary, music and opera, including
 Relationship of medium to performance

material specially created for the medium

visible and audible

television includes all of the above but seen as well as heard
broadcast performance

Relationship of performer to audience

performer audience relationship

individual speaker, storyteller, assembled group or audience

direct; performer to audience
or singer in any place

company of players, singers, assembled audience in a

direct; in an enclosed area
dancers, or musicians theatre or concert hall

assembled audience in a remote; through a photographed and

performance by an actor or
motion-picture theatre, hall, projected two-dimensional image on
performer recorded on film;
classroom, or other formal either a large or small screen, with
factual film with commentator
place recorded sound

radio broadcast by an actor,

dispersed audience, located remote; through a signal broadcast in
aural performer, newsreader, or
mainly in their own homes sound only
commentator

televised presentation by an
dispersed audience, located remote; through a two-dimensional image
actor, singer, dancer, performer,
mainly in their own homes on a small screen, accompanied by sound
or commentator

The tables make clear the extent to which the various media borrow from each other.
Just as the Greek drama drew on ancient myths and legends and the Renaissance drama
on classical and contemporary material alike, so the voracious demands of the new
20th-century media have driven producers and scriptwriters to acquire the rights to
existent material in other media, particularly the novel and the drama. Radio and
television have overlapped increasingly with journalism, many journalists becoming
broadcasters and commentators.

But much of the borrowing has been mechanical and technical rather than artistic in
nature. Radio broadcasting exploited the phonograph record as a means of preserving
sound; in a similar way, television drew upon the film. The invention of magnetic tape
for recording both sound and video signals has now linked together all of the
mechanized media—phonograph, telephone, radio, sound film, and television—and
made available a virtually complete record of the sights, sounds, arts, and culture of
modern society.

Preservation by recording is in itself not a creative art but a service to art created
elsewhere. A principal function of radio and television broadcasting has been the
dissemination of works of art created for other media. This is particularly true of radio;
in television these works are more often transformed to meet the requirements of the
medium and become different art forms. When an opera is performed in a television
studio in a way that meets the potentialities of the electronic cameras, the result is
television opera—a different form from stage opera. When an opera
is commissioned and composed specifically for television (as was Benjamin
Britten’s Owen Wingrave), then television may be considered an artistic medium in its
own right.
Dramatic techniques
Radio began by restoring the ancient art of the storyteller. Writers for radio next learned
how to suggest place and time by word of mouth, accompanied by the impressionistic
use of sound and music. Thus was born the genre of radio drama. The radio dramatist
must address himself to the imagination of listeners who are unable to see what they are
experiencing. This limitation carries with it a certain freedom. Just as Shakespeare’s
independence from stage decor left him free to move his action widely in time and space
(Antony and Cleopatra, for example, has 42 wide-ranging changes of scene), so radio
has been free to create its own plastic continuities of action and time-space reference.
Radio has been highly creative in the fields of drama and documentary and also in quite
new forms of imaginative light entertainment.

Television, on the other hand, adapted techniques already established by the sound film
of the 1930s and 1940s. In the initial rivalry between film and television, economic and
technical factors both played a part. The first television plays were like the simplest kind
of film dialogues; they avoided elaborate sets or large casts, because the screen was not
large enough and because they cost too much. Television material was highly
expendable, like newspapers and journals that are discarded after a single use. Only
gradually did the international distribution of selected television programs, particularly
within the large Anglo-American market, permit more money to be spent on
“production value” in television.

Television drama came into its own during the 1950s with the emergence of writers and
directors who shook themselves free from the old models and began to develop their
own techniques—an extension of the two-dimensional image with sound into fields that
the cinema could not or would not enter. The creativity of television in the purely artistic
sense lies in the unique opportunities it offers the maker. These opportunities were
beyond the reach of the filmmaker, who had no way of impelling his sponsor to finance
him in such ventures. Here art and the nature of sponsorship can be said to overlap, as
is so often the case in the history of art.
Film techniques
The basic principles that the television image shares with the film image are, of course,
its freedom to select the compass of each individual shot and its freedom to determine
the nature of the movement within it. The form of presentation depends in both cases
on a continuity of such shots in order to build up a narrative flow. Film and television
narrative are based on the same principles of mobile composition—the selective (or
edited) flow of selective shots of the action. Despite the technological differences in their
production, they are aesthetically closely linked and will continue to have a close
relationship with each other. This relationship naturally extends into the technical field.
Television adopted videotape in order to achieve an immediate high-quality record of
the electronic image. This seemed at first to be a threat to the use of film in television,
but that has not proved to be so; the film camera is indispensable in many branches of
television production. On the other hand, filmmakers have found videotape to be useful
in cinema production, since it provides the capability of checking the shot before the
film is processed.

The development of television as an art form has not excluded its use as a channel for
works produced in other media. On the contrary, production in other media increasingly
has been financed out of revenues from its subsequent transmission on television. Since
the earliest years of its existence, television has depended on the regular screening of a
vast backlog of movie films. The high rentals paid on old films have induced television
interests themselves to undertake the production of new films to be shown in theatres
and subsequently on the television channels they operate. The feature films they
produce often have relatively small casts and a higher ratio of in-close shooting, making
them suitable for the smaller TV screen, just as most films now shot for wide screens
keep the essential action in the centre so that they can later be shown on television.
Roger Manvell

Broadcasting operations
Types of programs and development of studios
There are a number of distinguishable types of programs that are broadcast, but they
often overlap in technique, subject matter, and style. Radio, for example,
broadcasts speech and music, but in an endless number of combinations. Television
adds the visual element, greatly increasing the number of possible program forms. Most
sizable broadcast organizations, however, have several categories for administrative
convenience. But the definitions cannot be too precise, and lines of demarcation are
necessarily vague.
Entertainment
Entertainment can include comedy, impossible wholly to differentiate from drama;
quizzes, not always easily distinguished from relatively serious programs of information
and education; popular music, in which the frontier with jazz and serious music is
anything but rigid; and variety, or a series of unrelated acts, nearly always linked by a
popular presenter or established performer.
From the early days of radio there was a tendency to make use of a variety format, and,
as this approach represented an extension of old music-hall traditions, success was
achieved by many programs in this vein. From the music-hall–variety-type program
emerged the “gang show,” in which a cast of performers remaining the same from week
to week would make use of a series of humorous situations or catchphrases, gradually
building up a familiar background against which the incongruities of the script could
exploit humour to the full. A further development was the “situation comedy,” in which
a number of characters, such as the members of a family, remain in the same situation
week after week but experience comic adventures. Though these laughter programs lost
popularity on radio as television gained popular acceptance, they have become the
mainstays of television. A contemporary phenomenon has been the comedy program
involving substantial amounts of political and social satire. The situation comedy has
also been influenced by this trend.

The many types of comedy entertainment programs that are produced around the world
all have one common characteristic: not only have the performers needed
the stimulus of a studio audience, but also the listeners and viewers are stimulated by
the laughter and applause of the audience. This has led to some abuses, such as the
superimposition of laughter and applause on prerecorded programs, a practice that is
frowned upon but still practiced. It has also meant that large studios are required to
accommodate not only the performers, frequently including more than one music
combination, but also the audience. In television there must be room for settings that
have become increasingly ambitious and for dancers and choruses. Broadcasting
organizations have generally been able to build studios of appropriate size, though
radiobroadcasters in the early days preferred to purchase or rent small theatres.

In their form and structure, children’s entertainment shows resemble those for adults.
Animated cartoons, however, represent an exception to this rule; the Hungarians, the
Poles, and the French have achieved genuine distinction in this area.
Drama
Radio and television drama is not best produced in a theatre; the nature of the studio is
therefore different. Early radio drama was produced in a relatively small studio, often
with a single microphone, just as early television plays were produced with a single
camera. Radio engineers soon began to employ a control panel with inputs from more
than one studio and sound effects ingeniously achieved; their counterparts in television
expanded their use of cameras and sets. Mixing in radio from one studio to another and
in television from one set to another and employing increasingly sophisticated sound
effects and background music have all become accepted techniques in drama
production. Inevitably, television drama has borrowed substantially from the techniques
of film production.

Feature films, usually originally made for the cinema, continue to form an accepted and
important element in television schedules throughout the world. Both radio and
television occasionally broadcast live performances from theatres—
performances simultaneously livestreamed on the Internet—but there is a general
feeling that such offerings do not adequately exploit the advantages of either medium.
Since the earliest days of radio and television, the studio-produced drama has been an
important ingredient in program schedules; in television, as in films, it was not long
before shooting on location also became an accepted practice. Offerings have included
classical Greek drama, Shakespeare and other Elizabethan dramatists, the Spanish and
French theatre, Russian and Scandinavian plays, and modern works.

Serial presentations on television and radio have included adaptations of famous works
of literature, such as the novels of Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac, and Leo Tolstoy,
the Forsyte Saga of John Galsworthy, historical costume dramas based on the lives of
such figures as Henry VIII and Elizabeth I of England, and, of course,
the romantic melodramas aimed largely at the daytime viewer or listener, known as
“soap operas.” Radio and television serials of fantasy and adventure are also produced
for children.

Three other distinguishable types of drama have achieved almost universal popularity:
western adventures; shows involving gangsters, crime, and police; and shows set in
hospitals and other medical situations. Violent episodes in some crime and western
adventure programs have drawn criticism from those who believe that such violence is
harmful to children. In response, many broadcasting organizations have introduced
codes of practice to minimize such scenes.

Western adventure programs, largely produced in the United States, have been popular
with studios because of their relatively low production costs and ready salability abroad.
Dramatic series of this type have been shown all over the world, often with dubbed
sound tracks. Although these exported American productions are often much less
expensive than home-produced programs, Australia has been able to produce some
western-type series, and Canada has exploited its legendary “Mounties.” So many
American television programs have been exported, however, that broadcasting
organizations in some nations, such as Japan and the United Kingdom, have taken steps
to ensure that home-produced dramas have priority in terms of percentage of schedule
hours and prime time (peak placing).
Spoken word
Spoken-word programs have included entertainment types, such as “This Is Your Life”
and many of the “talk shows,” in which a personality interviewer questions celebrities,
sometimes with interludes of music or comedy or with serious discussions,
documentaries, or lectures. A fear of controversy, the problem of maintaining an overall
impartiality, and sometimes the belief that the mass audience would be alienated by
programs demanding a conscious effort and concentration combined, in the early days
of radio, to limit the time given to serious spoken-word programs. It was not long,
however, before many broadcasters developed a sense of pride and responsibility in
their function and regarded it as their duty to provide information and opinion. In
countries where broadcasting achieved a substantial measure of independence, some
broadcasters gradually became concerned not only with the exposition of fact and
controversy but also with the task of exposing the ills and abuses of their society.
News continues to be the most important element in spoken-word radio. Since it was
inescapable that broadcast news would affect the industry, newspaper proprietors in the
early days of radio either made efforts to restrict the sources of news and the times at
which it could be broadcast or sought themselves to enter the field. In areas where
broadcasting was commercialized, the press was further concerned, because radio
competed with it for advertising revenues and because radio could almost always get a
story to the public before the newspapers could. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that
radio news reduced the circulation of newspapers; some have even maintained that
radio whetted the appetite of listeners for news and increased newspaper sales. It would
seem, however, that television has adversely affected the daily press and, even more so,
weekly or monthly magazines. Long before television outstripped radio, broadcasting
organizations were employing reporters and special and foreign correspondents and
were supplementing the service received from news agencies. Some broadcast reporters
became public personalities in their own right.

Television news presented additional production problems; the announcer at

the microphone reading from a script or TelePrompTer was not satisfactory, and it was
not long before the greater part of television news was appropriately accompanied by
relevant pictures. The need for film shots and the cost and difficulty of obtaining them
were, and to some extent remain, serious problems. In spite of substantial expenditure
on the supply of such shots, television news is open to the criticism that news values and
objectivity are distorted by the availability or nonavailability of pictures.

In general, however, broadcasting organizations have adjusted to the much higher cost
of television news. The syndication of film reports, the development of live networks on
an international basis, such as Eurovision, and satellite communications have overcome
most problems of news reporting on television. On the other hand, it has become
apparent that the psychological impact of film shots of war and civil disturbance, as of
accidents and disasters, is far greater than that of the radio report. Television reports of,
for example, the Vietnam War did far more to influence public opinion than radio news
bulletins could have done. Radio has the advantage, however, of not requiring the same
degree of attention; the trend has been toward frequently repeated short bulletins. In
the United States there are radio stations that restrict themselves entirely to news,
usually in a continuous magazine format, plus, of course, the advertising spots. The
newsmagazine, or newsreel, in radio was introduced even earlier on BBC. A series of
brief reports, interviews, and extracts from speeches, making use of many voices and
exploiting the technique of frequent renewal of stimulus, proved to be a successful
formula. This technique has spread into news bulletins and is increasingly used in the
coverage of current affairs, both in radio and television. In all these programs of news
and comment, one of the problems has been that of the anchors, or presenters, and the
degree to which they may be given freedom to project their personalities or express their
views. In the United States there have been fewer inhibitions in this area than in
countries where broadcasting is or has been a monopoly and where the need for and
tradition of impartiality have been dominant. In the case of the BBC, newsreaders were
long anonymous; but on television the identity of a newsreader, or of the presenter of a
magazine of news or comment, cannot be concealed, and these inhibitions have broken
down. Nevertheless, in western Europe and Commonwealth countries the impartiality of
broadcasting services remains an issue of greater importance than in the United States
or Latin America. In Britain, when the Independent Television Authority was created, it
was enjoined to see that in the coverage of controversial matters each program was
balanced in itself. The BBC, with greater freedom, makes no effort to ensure balance in
any one program, provided that an overall balance in respect of any issue is achieved
over a reasonable period of time. In all developed countries elaborate programs are
prepared to report the results of elections, though it is in the United States and the
United Kingdom that these are most ambitious.

In radio straight talk persists in some countries, though less so than in the heyday of the
medium. Nevertheless, some successful lectures at much greater length have been
scheduled occasionally on television and in some countries on radio. Straight talk of 10
minutes or more does not lend itself to exciting television production, unless it is
accompanied by filmed illustrations to the point where it all but becomes a
documentary.

Another pattern popular in many countries involves a panel of distinguished figures

under a chairman, answering questions of a topical nature from members of a studio
audience. In some cases a parabolic microphone is employed so that questions may be
asked from any part of the studio or hall in which the program is mounted; others may
call for written queries in advance so that questioners can be conveniently seated in the
first row. Some radio panel programs also solicit queries from members of the listening
audience who call them in on the telephone.

Development of the radio documentary stemmed from drama as writers searched for
new material especially appropriate for broadcasting. Not surprisingly, early
documentary was in dramatic form, and most of it was based on well-known historical
events, of which the programs were in effect dramatic reconstructions. Production of
radio documentaries was simplified by the invention of magnetic recording tape that
was far easier to edit and use on location than its predecessors, the wax-coated disc and
the wire recorder. Ironically, just when these technical advances had made the best form
of radio documentary possible, the television documentary on contemporary themes
began to supplant its radio counterpart. Documentaries have become more expository of
public (current) affairs concerned with international relations, domestic politics, and
social problems.
Religion
There have been, in the main, two types of religious program: devotional and
information-discussion. The former comprises prayer, religious services, or hymn
singing, either mounted in a studio or as outside broadcasts from a church, a chapel, or
a hall. A third type is the dramatization of a religious theme, though the tendency has
been to devote a good proportion of religious broadcasting time to documentaries,
discussions, and interviews. Some sects have produced broadcasts that combine political
and religious material. Missionary bodies, mostly under the control of one of the many
international or regional religious broadcasting organizations, either buy time on
commercial stations or operate stations in many parts of the world, including Latin
America, Africa, and Asia.
Outside broadcasts
Although broadcasts do not constitute a distinct and definable form, they nevertheless
have been since the birth of radio the most popular and arresting of all material
transmitted on either medium. Sports of every description and ceremonial and political
events have exercised an unfailing appeal and, in general, attract the largest audiences.
Outside broadcasts have stimulated the imagination and taxed the ingenuity of
television-broadcasting engineers to such an extent that they have accustomed the
public to feats unimaginable to the pioneers of radio. The improvement of line
communications, the development of mobile transmitters, and, above all, the use of
satellite communications have given the outside broadcast an elasticity and an almost
limitless range.