Broadcast Television Networks Research Articles

The National Front and Ultraliberalism (Extract from Pharmacologie du Front National, 2013)

The National Front and Ultraliberalism (Extract from <i>Pharmacologie du Front National</i>, 2013)

í‰xitos y fracasos de la televisión lineal en España entre 2017 y 2019: la audiencia rechaza los nuevos formatos de entretenimiento

La televisión lineal convencional no ha perdido su centralidad comunicativa y el estudio de sus audiencias debe ser del interés de la investigación académica. Este trabajo tiene por objetivo comparar y evaluar las audiencias entre 2017 y 2019 de los nuevos formatos de entretenimiento programados en prime time de las dos principales cadenas de televisión privada en España, Telecinco y Antena 3, con objeto de determinar el estado y la vigencia de los formatos producidos y programados en los últimos años. Los resultados llevan a concluir que la introducción de novedades en materia de entretenimiento en la parrilla de la televisión comercial española no reporta buenas audiencias para los canales. Por el contrario, las cadenas de televisión generalista logran los mejores resultados en formatos que la audiencia conoce, ligados poderosamente a la identidad de las emisoras. Ante la competencia que suponen las plataformas OTT para la televisión lineal tradicional y ante las muy variadas formas de consumo de contenidos televisivos, la televisión comercial española se aferra a aquellos formatos aplaudidos por la audiencia y responsables de su identidad de marca.

Cyber–Physical Healthcare System With Blood Test Module on Broadcast Television Network for Remote Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Management

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) have become a serious hidden threat to human health. Because they are chronic circulatory diseases, we should detect and prevent them in real time to minimize damage to human health. The ideal solution to overcome the problems of the clinical biochemical analyzer is to connect the biochemical sensor to the Internet. The broadcast television network has access to the broadband network through the set-top box. At present, the market is undergoing rapid development. Furthermore, with the introduction of Industry 4.0, cyber-physical systems have become key framework technology, as their potential for implementation in smart home applications is high. Through the use of a typical household universal television device, we linked a total cholesterol and triglyceride test strip with a television controller to realize a method for remote cardiovascular disease management and prevention. Additionally, a cyber-physical healthcare system was added to the broadcast television network for in-home CVD diagnosis and family health management. By exploiting the portable, fast, and simple features afforded by the Internet of Things, the proposed remote medical device has satisfied the family monitoring requirements, and is expected to be widely applied in the near future.

Harvesting the Wind: Analyzing Television News Coverage of Wind Energy

ABSTRACTThe need for alternative energy sources is growing. Currently, the United States is the second largest producer of wind energy, one form of alternative energy. This study investigates news about wind energy. Using a longitudinal content analysis (2001–2016) of news transcripts from the three major U.S. broadcast television networks (ABC, NBC, CBS), news was content analyzed to assess frames, issues, and sources used in reporting. Results show that American television news coverage of wind energy decreased and consistently featured thematically framed stories and a mix of sources, but sources were minimally utilized. Further, reporting during the time of significant U.S. investment in the industry lacked depth and failed to discuss issues necessary to enhance public understanding. Results demonstrate the trend to frame science-related mass communication differently than other topics, such as politics. Practical implications of this study provide guidance for issue advocates and policymakers.

De muñecas a dueñas. Una mirada sobre la aparente inversión de roles de género en las narcoseries de Telemundo

In the pioneers narcoseries –Sin tetas no hay paraíso and Las muñecas de lamafia, inter alia– the feminine characters were featured as victims: naiveyoung women seduced by drug dealers who were turning them into trophy.Telemundo (a broadcast television network), in turn, it has changed thisimage including leading protagonists of the drug dealing. Seemingly, itprovokes investment reversal in the traditional gender roles, because thewomen turn into an active agent in a patriarchal world. Nevertheless, theseprotagonists are defined by means of stereotypically feminine elements,such as the kindness, the sacrifice and especially, the maternity that isconcreted, in a literal and metaphorical way in two analyzed narcoseries: LaReina del Sur and Camelia la texana. Notwithstanding, the real subversiveact of these characters –in order to depart from gender prototypes– is herability to analyze and decide. They, rather than consider themselves asvictims of her circumstances, assume her responsibility for the life that theyhave chosen and for the violence with which they act.

Spreading the Glee: Targeting a youth audience in the multimedia, digital age

ABSTRACTThe television series Glee premiered on FOX in 2009, a time when broadcast television networks were struggling to remain relevant to a new generation of youth who seemed to prefer the interactivity and creativity of the digital media interface to the passivity of the traditional televisual experience. Amid these conditions, Glee emerged as a (multi)media text/product that found some success. This article argues that much of this success lay in FOX and Glee's harnessing of digital technology, especially social media. Audiences were encouraged to search for “the biggest [self-professed] Gleek,” spread Glee clips and even fan-created content to their friends on social media, and interact with stars, among other things. This investigation considers how the contemporary digital age has reshaped the state of network television, and the complex interactions between traditional and “new” media, by examining the Glee phenomenon between 2009 and 2015.

For Whom the Poll Airs

Televised election coverage is increasingly dominated by the horse race, a key element of which is poll coverage. How do news outlets decide which poll to air? We know little about the gatekeeping function of news outlets as it pertains to poll coverage, perhaps because this research is plagued by selection bias: By observing only reported polls and not unreported polls, researchers cannot definitively establish that any differences in representativeness are due to bias. Using a novel dataset that includes all prime-time presidential election poll coverage on Fox, MSNBC, CNN, and broadcast television networks during the 2008 election, we compare the universe of polls released each day to the polls actually covered by each news network. We find differences between the distribution of poll coverage and distribution of actual poll results. Our results suggest that both gatekeepers and reporters may have a hand in this distortion.

Review: Petra Cortright: Niki, Lucy, Lola, Viola, Ben Jones X 8 and Casey Reas: Linear Perspective

Petra Cortright: Niki, Lucy, Lola, Viola DEPART FOUNDATION LOS ANGELES JULY 9-SEPTEMBER 19, 2015 Ben Jones X 8 ACE GALLERY BEVERLY HILLS JULY 11-SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 Casey Reas: Linear Perspective CHARLIE JAMES GALLERY LOS ANGELES SEPTEMBER 5-OCTOBER 17, 2015 For the post-internet generation, using appropriated content is commonplace. The proliferation of images, sounds, texts, and fashions available online has come to be regarded as the subject matter of daily life and always there for reuse. In an interview with Marisa Olson for Rhizome.org, Christiane Paul remarked on the practice of many artists working in the digital medium: They may create online projects but they might also do object-based art, paintings or sculptures that are deeply informed by or use elements of the net or its language, which is what the term postinternet tries to capture.... (Sadly I now frequently see postinternet used as a catchy term for art made by anyone born roughly after 1985 or for a sensibility characterized by an uncomplicated reverence for fame and success.) (1) Post-internet has in many ways become a kind of catch-all phrase for artists working in the digital realm, or making mixed-media works from appropriated sources. This broad use of the term pushes it past the breaking point, where it becomes so open-ended as to be meaningless. A better definition of post-internet art is that it not only uses the internet as a point of departure, but that it is technology (software/computer) dependent. The work of Los Angeles-based artists Petra Cortright, Ben Jones, and Casey Reas can be examined in this light. All have recently created large-scale installations of projected imagery, and while their projects are conceptually and visually diverse, they are all aware of the importance of an immersive experience. Their use of software in creating an aesthetic aligned with the principles of abstraction also ties them together. The subject of Reas's installation Linear Perspective at Charlie James Gallery was the mass media: newspapers, broadcast television, and social networks. The title piece, Linear Perspective, is Reas's latest software-based work, an ever-mutating collection of images from the front page of the New York Times in 2015. In the digital age, what does the front-page photograph connote? In the printed edition, it refers to the image above the fold that is used to sell the paper. Reas repurposes and digitally manipulates one image each day that is representative of that day's headline news. In the darkened space, elongated digital brushstrokes emanate from a fixed point at the edge of a large wall, moving across it to create a shape reminiscent of a sideways funnel or an old-fashioned hearing aid. Each stroke reveals a new abstracted and distorted version of the original, and their accumulation will become a visual archive of the year. Reas adds to the work daily and plans to do so until the end of 2015. The silent computer-generated animation offers no critical or insightful perspective on the imagery or its content as it gracefully glides across the wall. Reas's custom software distorts the original rectangular shape of the source image, morphing it into a narrow wavy horizontal stroke. In two complementary monitor-based works, rather than use one image per day to represent a year, Reas created software-generated animations from all the images in a single day's edition. Titled Today's Ideology and accompanied by each edition's date (July 19, 2015) and (August 23, 20/5), these generative works cycle through the images, forming an ever-changing pattern of horizontal and diagonal brushstrokes or stripes. These pieces are Reas's first to use readable, recognizable, imagery. Also included in the exhibition were past works that used broadcast media as source material, transforming those signals into abstracted compositions. …

Presidential Agenda-Setting of Traditional and Nontraditional News Media

The president’s ability to influence the news agenda is central to the study of American politics. Although there is a large literature that examines presidential agenda-setting vis-à-vis traditional news sources, such as newspapers or broadcast television networks, there is little research that explores the effects of presidential agenda leadership of nontraditional media whether online or cable television. This study remedies this state of affairs by examining the relationship between the president’s daily agenda and traditional and nontraditional daily news agendas. I argue that although the president should find similar space on all news for topics he raises in his speeches, nontraditional sources are more likely to cover other stories that reference the president. Analysis of 748 stories on the presidency for 63 days in early 2012 from 7 traditional, cable, and online news sources provides support for my argument, with cable news providing the most presidential news coverage. I conclude with some implications about what my findings mean for presidential leadership of nontraditional media.

Extending the Television Brand: An Examination of Why Consumers Use Broadcast Network Web Sites

Framed by the technology acceptance and customer-based brand equity (CBBE) models, this study investigated how audiences intend to use broadcast television network Web sites. Drawing upon the results of a survey (N = 178), this research found that perceived ease of use and perceived enjoyment significantly influence intent to use broadcast Web sites. Findings also reveal that CBBE plays a significant role as a mediator between motivations and behavioral intention to use broadcast networks' Web sites. It is concluded that as the medium of television evolves, networks' Web sites should be conduits for sustained brand allegiance and broadcasters should make more strategic use of their Web sites.

Trying to Promote Network Entry: From the Chain Broadcasting Rules to the Channel Occupancy Rule and Beyond

This article traces the efforts by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to promote the entry of new networks, starting from its regulation of radio networks under the Chain Broadcasting Rules, through its regulation of broadcast television networks under its Financial Interest and Syndication Rules and its Prime Time Access Rule, and finally to its regulation of cable television networks under its Channel Occupancy and Leased Access Rules and its National Ownership Cap. The article’s principal conclusion is that these efforts by the FCC were largely ineffectual and that only the removal of regulatory barriers to new network entry could, and indeed did, achieve the Commission’s goal.

3D Video Transmission System for China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting

With the popularization of three dimensional (3D) video on TV, some related aspects, such as broadcast television network transmission, technology application, and content products and so on, will face the challenges of the new technology. Rapid progress has been achieved in the China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting (CMMB) technology, 3D TV technology applied in the mobile TV will become the bright spot in the future. This paper firstly introduces the transmission modes of 3D TV, and then gives the technology solution of 3D TV and the upgrade solution of electronic service guide Electronic Service Guide (ESG) based on CMMB. Test result shows that the new system with 3D video can work correctly when the 3D video was encoded with H.264 standard and the image resolution was conformed to the standard definition (320x240).

3D Video Transmission System for China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting

With the popularization of three dimensional (3D) video on TV, some related aspects, such as broadcast television network transmission, technology application, and content products and so on, will face the challenges of the new technology. Rapid progress has been achieved in the China Mobile Multimedia Broadcasting (CMMB) technology, 3D TV technology applied in the mobile TV will become the bright spot in the future. This paper firstly introduces the transmission modes of 3D TV, and then gives the technology solution of 3D TV and the upgrade solution of electronic service guide Electronic Service Guide (ESG) based on CMMB. Test result shows that the new system with 3D video can work correctly when the 3D video was encoded with H.264 standard and the image resolution was conformed to the standard definition (320x240).

The Forgotten Passageway from VHS to VOD

The Forgotten Passageway from VHS to VOD Videoland: Movie Culture at the American Video Store, by Daniel Herbert. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014. 336 pp. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780520279636.Surrealist poet Louis Aragon suggests in Paris Peasant that it was only as the arcades slipped toward the brink of obsolescence that it became possible to decipher their true nature.1 While the innovative architectural structures that encapsulated so many pleasures and paradoxes of modern life had escaped scrutiny during their heyday, the threat of complete extinction rendered their distinctive features suddenly strange and alluring. Though Aragon made this point nearly a century ago, he could have just as easily been describing the video rental store, an ingenious enterprise that took brisk shape throughout the 1980s only to evaporate into a cacophony of digital dreams less than two decades later. While Aragon's insights may be best known as kindling for Walter Benjamin's monumental analysis of the forgotten passageways of Paris, they provide an equally apt, if only implicit, frame of reference for Daniel Herbert's ambitious study Videoland: Movie Culture at the American Video Store. As with the arcades, it is only as an anachronism that the video store becomes truly illuminating, and it is only now that video stores have largely disappeared that their rich and telling history can be exhumed. Herbert is eloquent and insightful in recounting the video store's rise and fall but, like Benjamin, often finds himself entangled in a recurring melancholic dilemma. Something has certainly been lost with the extinction of the video store, perhaps something akin to what Benjamin termed aura. It isn't clear, however, whether this loss requires extended mourning or if it is an opportunity to celebrate the ambiguities buried within this short-lived phenomenon.Videoland argues that the video store fundamentally transformed media and entertainment not only by reshaping how consumers accessed and viewed individual films but also by engendering new forms of appreciation, evaluation, and social behavior. Divided into three parts, each consisting of two chapters, Videoland examines the overall history of the video rental business and emphasizes the particularity of what in the late 1970s was an entirely new endeavor. Up until that time, theaters and broadcast television networks were the only oudets for films. The video store, by contrast, shifted the movie experience into a novel retail environment wherein consumers had the power to make their own choices among a collection of tides. Just as the video store became its own destination, one built around the embodied experience of wandering the aisles in order to make one's selection, the movies themselves became more tangible as physical objects that could be touched and, at least temporarily, taken home and possessed. Even if these objects were often nothing more than an empty shell of cardboard packaging, they were deeply symbolic of an important shift in how consumers related to the movies and how movie culture was becoming increasingly intertwined with accelerating forms of conspicuous media consumption.Herbert also situates the video store in relationship to what has succeeded it, and he makes a compelling case for how the video store has contributed to the video-on-demand, or VOD, models that currendy dominate the market. For example, Herbert observes that the video rental industry accentuated the benefits of media abundance and helped inaugurate the cultural desire for infinite choice in film as well as television, music, and other media commodities. He adds that it was precisely by virtue of providing access to a broader range of films that video stores were compelled to devise new tools for navigating an expanding inventory and to provide access to information that allowed consumers to make choices according to their personal preferences. To this end, video stores guided consumers by initiating various systems of classification. …

Comparison of television broadcasting standards by analytic hierarchy process

Today, there are different standards for television broadcasting, each of them is characterized by a set of controversial technical and economic indicators. For choosing a preferable standard and its implementation in broadcast television networks, it is necessary to use methods of multi-criteria selection of optimal designs. The paper analyzes and compares two standards of digital TV broadcasting: DVB-T standard with multi-frequency modulation COFDM and ATSC standard with 8-level single-frequency amplitude modulation with vestigial sideband SSB-8T. The standards are compared using the Saaty method taking into account a set of quality indicators. Some quantitative results are given, characterizing the practical aspects of applying the method of Saaty for choosing the preferable variant of television broadcasting. The analytic hierarchy process was considered, which allows formalized selection of the optimal design with a set of quality parameters based on subjective judgments of experts. As a result of the expert survey, the matrixes of paired comparisons of quality parameters and speech codecs were formulated. After processing of expert judgments the corresponding eigenvectors and vectors of priorities for different levels of the modulation comparison hierarchy were estimated. These estimations were used for calculating the parameters of priorities global vector components. According to the analytic hierarchy process based on the maximum value of the priorities global vector components the preferable standard of television broadcasting DVB-T with a multi-frequency modulation SOFDM was chosen.

Queerness, the Quality Audience, and Comedy Central's Reno 911!

Comedy Central currently attracts the same kind of quality audience that broadcast television networks courted in the 1990s, one that resulted in the sharp increase in gaythemed content on the networks at that time. Yet the parodic mode of address that so permeates the cable network's content makes the different levels of gay cultural competency a heterogeneous viewership brings to a program like Reno 911! an issue of considerable import. A parodic situation-comedy based on reality crime programming, Reno 911! narrativizes an ambiguously gay police detective who, in turn, provides different viewing pleasures for differently situated viewers. As such, the character foregrounds questions about the political consequences of television's use of queer cultural signifiers and the pleasures that viewers take in a parodic representation of queerness on television.

Anchors Away: Media Framing of Broadcast Television Network Evening News Anchors

Between 2002 and 2006, six newcomers took the anchor chairs at the evening news programs of ABC, CBS, and NBC. Collectively, they received extensive news coverage. This study uses content analysis to examine how three national newspapers framed the new anchors. A frame casting the anchors as competitors in a ratings game was especially common. At the same time, the newspapers regularly framed the anchors in terms of their reporting experience and reporting style, as well as in terms of personal characteristics such as personality, appearance, age, and sex. The newspapers were more likely to frame female anchors in terms of their sex; apart from this, no consistent differences across sex emerged. All three newspapers followed broadly similar patterns in covering the anchors, though some differences across sources emerged. Patterns in news media framing of anchors may carry implications for public opinion about anchors and the news media.

No Joke: A Comparison of Substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Broadcast Network Television Coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election Campaign

This study examined substantive political coverage of the first presidential debate and the political conventions in 2004 on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the broadcast television networks' nightly newscasts. The study found the networks' coverage to be more hype than substance and coverage on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to be more humor than substance. The amount of substantive information in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the broadcast network newscasts was the same, regardless of whether the unit of analysis was news stories about the presidential election campaign or the entire half-hour program.

Hype Versus Substance in Network Television Coverage of Presidential Election Campaigns

Content analysis of broadcast television networks' weekday nightly newscasts during the final weeks of the 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000 presidential election campaigns found an emphasis on hype rather than substantive coverage of the campaigns. Examination of audio and video messages separately showed this to be true for both. Further, even when the audio was substantive, the accompanying visuals often were not. The results are discussed in terms of media reliance, journalistic responsibility, and cognitive processing of mediated messages.

Scheduling Commercial Videotapes in Broadcast Television

This paper, motivated by the experiences of a major U.S.-based broadcast television network, presents algorithms and heuristics to schedule commercial videotapes. Major advertisers purchase several slots to air commercials during a given time period on a broadcast network. We study the problem of scheduling advertiser's commercials in the slots it purchased when the same commercial is to be aired multiple times. Under such a situation, the advertisers typically want the airings of a commercial to be as evenly spaced as possible. Thus, our objective is to schedule a set of commercials in a set of available slots such that multiple airings of the same commercial are as evenly spaced as possible. A natural formulation of this problem is a mixed-integer program that can be solved using third-party solvers. We also develop a branch-and-bound algorithm based on a problem-specific bounding scheme. Both approaches fail to solve larger problem instances within a reasonable time frame. We present an alternative mixed-integer program that lends itself to an efficient solution. For solving even larger problems, we present multiple heuristics.