Juan Monroy — Class 8, Network Television

Three Network Oligopoly
- NBC
- CBS
- ABC
- filled VHF band
- controlled television production
- evenly split throughout 1960s, 1970s
Television Station Types
- Owned and operated
- Network affiliates
- Independent television stations
- Public television stations
Relevance
- growing youth audience
- Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In (NBC 1968–1973)
- Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour
- Dragnet
Primetime access rules
- PTAR
- stations in top–50 markets
- first hour of prime-time
  - 7:00 PM
  - Mon-Sat
- not take the network feed
- produce their own local programming
Financial Rules on Syndication
- Fin-Syn
- financial
  - network could only own 15 hours of non-news programming
  - production companies could remain independent
- syndication
  - networks acquired only first- and second- runs
  - ownership of television programs remained with the producer
Independent Production
Norman Lear “relevant series”
- All in the Family
- Maude
- Good Times
- The Jeffersons
Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS, 1970–1977)
Independent TV stations
- UHF band
- stations unaffiliated with broadcast networks
- thrived with first-run syndicated programming
Cable TV
- CATV
  - began as community antenna television, 1940s
  - distant signal importation
  - local systems began to consolidate as MSOs
- broadcasters saw cable systems as competitors
- must-carry rules
- access rules
  - public
  - educational
  - government
satellite cable
- Open Skies order, 1972
- launching of communication satellites
- cable seen as alternative to broadcasters
cable technologies
- “Blue Sky” advocates for cable TV
  - policy reformers and think tanks
  - social action groups
  - cable operators
- interactive television
  - access libraries of information
  - conduct financial transactions
  - exchange electronic mail
- QUBE
  - interactive television
  - Warner-AMEX
  - introduced 1977
  - failed to find commercial success
Ted Turner
- WTCQ-TV Atlanta
- leased transponder on Satcom I
- launched WTBS-TV Atlanta as a national superstation
  - off-network syndicated programming
  - sports programming
  - no news programming
- dual-revenue
  - advertising (as in broadcasting)
  - subscriber fees from cable distributors
Music Television
- Warner-AMEX Cable
- launched August 1981
- free programming: music videos
- young audience
- influenced network television style