Radio and television in the USA

In the USA radio is controlled by private commercial companies, with the exception of National Public Radio, which is supported by grants and donations. By 1928, the USA had three national radio networks, two owned by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and one by the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). At first, sound broadcasting was almost entirely for entertainment, but schedules are now more varied, and some stations broadcast purely educational programs.

In 1985, there were over 9,000 radio stations in the USA, the largest number in the world. Of this number, over 1,000 were noncommercial, that is, no advertising or commercials of any type are permitted. These public and educational radio stations are owned and operated primarily by colleges and universities, by local schools and boards of education, and by various religious groups.

At the same time, there were close to 1,200 individual television stations, not just transmitters that pass on programs. All radio and television stations in the United States must be licensed to broadcast by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Although the FCC regulates radio and television transmission, it has no control over reception: there are no fees, charges, taxes or licenses in the United States for owning radio and television receivers or for receiving anything that is broadcast through the air. Laws prohibit any state or the federal government from owning or operating radio and television stations. (Stations such as the Voice of America may only broadcast overseas).

Most commercial radio stations follow a distinctive "format", that is a type of programming that appeals to a certain listening audience (some stations have more than one format). To change from one format to another, stations need permission from the FCC.

Most television production is in the hands of the Big Three: the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). These recently have been joined by a forth: The Fox Broadcasting Company (FBC) commonly referred to as Fox (often stylized FOX) and owned by Rupert Murdoch. There is also non-commercial television, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), which is financed by grants from companies and individuals. It offers quality drama programs, children's programs, and national and international news programs.

The majority of commercial television stations receive most of their programming, roughly 70 percent, from the three commercial networks: ABC, CBS and NBC. These networks are not television stations or channels. They sell programs and news to individual television stations which choose those they want to broadcast. These affiliated stations also create some of their own programming; produce their own state and local news programs and purchase films from other sources.

The press in the UK

Readership of national newspapers in Britain is high and the country has probably a larger number of mass circulation newspapers – both quality and popular titles – than any other in the world. The press is privately owned and foreign proprietors are not disadvantaged. It is a matter of debate how influential newspapers are. Mostly they claim to have minimal political effect, though at least one popular newspaper did claim to have won a previous election for the party it supported at the time. It is probably true to say that most readers tend to buy newspapers sympathetic to their own views, so their political influence may be quite small. Still, the press does offer a wide variety of political views and information for those who wish to seek it out. It is also probably true to say that newspapers like to reflect the public mood as well as influencing it.

Television and Radio in the UK

In the nineteenth century Prime Minister Gladstone used to tour the country, addressing mass meetings for many hours at a time, but he only succeeded in reaching a small proportion of those who can now be reached daily from a television studio.Britain has a broad range of privately owned and publicly owned (though not government managed) broadcasting media. The broadcasting companies are required to offer impartial news treatment and balance in overall political reporting. Skilled journalists attempt to probe major political figures in depth. Politicians are keen to use these opportunities as a shop-window for themselves and their polices. The Independent Television Commission (ITC) is the organization which is responsible for controlling the operation of private television companies in the UK.

Words and expressions

impartial– беспристрастный, справедливый

affiliated– дочерний

reception– приём

to reflect – отражать

proprietor– собственник, владелец

to succeed in– достигать цели, преуспевать

influence – влияние

treatment – трактовка, подход

Assignments

Task 1. Answer the following questions.

1. Give the definitions of print media, electronic media and multimedia?

Task 2. Decipher the following abbreviations.

– ABC, NBC, CBS, FCC, FOX (FBC) PBS.

 Task 3. Read the text about multimedia businesses. Make notes about the person, the services and the company.

Machine Dreams

"Do something you're not ready to do", says Mayer. In the worst case you'll learn your limitations".

Marissa Mayer is the world's most poised and powerful information guru. Marissa Mayer, the 34-year-old megamillionaire, Oscar de la Renta–obsessed, computer-programming Google executive who lives in a penthouse atop the Four Seasons, San Francisco. Virtually, Mayer is an agglomeration of podcasts, red-carpet images, and text snippets about the physics of data, the future of news, and atomic units of consumption.

In actuality, Mayer is just as resistant to the kinds of unitary categories that the regular three-dimensional world insists on. It’s not only that she demolishes old-fashioned oppositions of beauty and brains, or women and science, or chic and geek. It’s that she’s elusive in person (meeting her is all about fragments of time, as her busyness is quasi-presidential); that she works for a company that makes billions in the transparency business but is opaque with regard to its internal doings; and, most definitively, that she is so extreme and multipolar in her accomplishments that one fumbles to bundle it all up into the linear narrative so beloved by humans since the Bible.

In 1999, a Stanford computer-science M.A. turns down a teaching job at Carnegie Mellon, among other opportunities, in order to join a fledgling Silicon Valley start-up with a silly name. At the job interview she’s asked stuff like “How would you write a spell-check program when you have a vocabulary so big it won’t fit in a computer?” Mayer becomes Google employee number 20. She and Google flourish. Says computer-science professor Eric Roberts, her Stanford mentor, “She hitched her wagon to the correct star. That’s not a negative critique of her; that’s what the Valley is like.” He adds, “Success in this field is dependent on temperament,” i.e., “the drive not to be beaten by machines.” A product manager, she creates the famous home page: simple and unchanging, delightful to purists and pragmatists alike. Her ideas are omnipresent (everywhere) through out the actual designs, their simplicity and intuitive ease of use (you can identify her influence in the design, etc). As the company grows, so too Mayer’s responsibilities: She oversees the development, code-writing, and launch of Gmail, Google Maps, Google, Google Chrome, Google Health, and Google News. There is a vast, impenetrable techie world of Google profit-making activity that is insider stuff; but Google for the masses, is Mayer’s fiefdom (under her complete control or authority).

In short, she is obsessed with puzzling out the consumer’s relationship to clicks. Mayer’s job is to be in sync with change.

Words and expressions

to disrupt– разрывать, разрушать

snippet– отрывок (из книги)

resistant –стойкий, прочный

transparency– прозрачность

opaque– непрозрачный, светонепроницаемый

accomplishment – достижение

impenetrable– недоступный, непроницаемый