Commercial broadcasting

From Wikipedia

Commercial broadcasting is the practice of broadcasting for profit. This is normally achieved by interrupting normal programming to air advertisements, also commonly called "commercials" in this context. This is the dominant type of broadcasting in the United States and a handful of other countries such as most of Latin America, but public broadcasting where programming is largely funded by government or public donations is more common elsewhere. In an hour of broadcast time on a commercial broadcast outlet, typically ten to twenty minutes are devoted to advertising. Advertisers pay a certain amount of money to air their commercials, usually based upon the popularity or ratings of a station or network. This effectively makes commercial broadcasters more answerable to advertisers than the public, which is a major criticism of commercial radio and television. Programming on commercial stations is often more sensationalistic—particularly during ratings periods such as sweeps in the U.S. Note: broadcasting is also the old term for hand sowing. ... Profit is defined as the residual value gained from business operations. ... Generally speaking, advertising is the paid promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas by an identified sponsor. ... A country, a land, or a state, is a geographical area that connotes an independent political entity, with its own government, administration, laws, often a constitution, police, military, tax rules, and population, who are one anothers countrymen. ... Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ... Public broadcasting (also known as public service broadcasting or PSB) is the dominant form of broadcasting around the world, where radio, television, and potentially other electronic media outlets receive funding from the public. ... Public is of or pertaining to the people; belonging to the people; relating to, or affecting, a nation, state, or community; opposed to private; as, the public treasury, a road or lake Public also refers to the general body of mankind, or of a nation, state, or community; the people... A donation is to give a fund or cause or such donated gift usually for charitable reasons. ... Rating is a means of classifying things in different categories. ... A critic (derived from the ancient Greek word krites meaning a judge) is a person who offers a value judgement or an interpretation. ... Sensationalism is a manner of being extremely controversial, loud, attention-grabbing, or otherwise sensationalistic. ... In the United States the sweeps period determines local advertising rates. ...

Commercial broadcasting also has considerable overlap with pay services such as cable television, satellite television and satellite radio; though such services are generally partially or wholly paid for by local subscribers, much of the programming, particularly on cable TV, is produced by companies operating in much the same manner as commercial broadcasters, and both they and often the local cable provider will sell commercial time in the same manner. There does exist, however, completely advertisement-free commercial television and radio; premium cable services such as HBO and Showtime generally operate solely on subscriber fees with no need to sell ad space, as do the parts of the two major satellite radio systems that are produced in-house (mostly music material). Cable television or Community Antenna Television (CATV) (and often shortened to cable) is a system of providing television, FM radio programming and other services to consumers via radio waves transmitted directly to people’s televisions through fixed coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional... Satellite television is television delivered by way of orbiting communications satellites located 37,000 km (22,300 miles) above the earths surface. ... A satellite radio is a special digital radio that receives signals broadcast by communications satellite. ... HBO logo HBO (Home Box Office) is a premium cable television network. ... Showtime is a subscription television brand used by a number of channels and platforms around the world, but primarily refers to a group of channels in the United States. ...

Commercial broadcasting (especially over-the-air) is often controversial for a great many reasons. Chief among them is a percieved lack of quality and risk in the programming (to which more conservative elements respond that it is too risque much of the time), an excessively high ratio of advertising to program time (especially on children's television), and a percieved failure to serve the local interest due to media consolidation, and in fact many of the most critically acclaimed television shows of the last decade have been on uncensored, non-advertising premium cable television. Commercial radio in particular is often attacked for percieved homogeneity in programming, covert politicized censorship of content, and a desire to cut costs at the expense of giving the station an identifiable personality. Politics is a major force in media criticism, with an ongoing battle (especially in the United States) as to what moral standards, if any, are to be applied to the airwaves. Concentration of media ownership (also known as media consolidation or media convergence) is a commonly used term among media critics, policy makers, and others to characterize ownership structure of media industries. ...

In much of the world, analog broadcasting is giving way to digital, a process effectively complete some time ago for many satellite television providers and some cable systems. Standards such as DVB and ATSC promise to provide vastly enhanced picture quality and bandwidth usage, allowing the practical use of HDTV (which did not catch on anywhere until the arrival of digital technology) and multiple channels from the same broadcaster. The same transition is happening with radio transmissions but is unlikely to be complete for some time if ever; Digital Audio Broadcasting, HD Radio, and Digital Radio Mondiale are all rising formats for radio broadcasts. DVB, short for Digital Video Broadcasting, is a suite of internationally accepted, open standards for digital television maintained by the DVB Project, an industry consortium with more than 300 members, and published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) of European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC... The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is the group that helped to develop the new digital television standard for the United States, also adopted by Canada, Mexico and South Korea and being considered by other countries. ... High-definition television (HDTV) means broadcast of television signals with a higher resolution than traditional formats (NTSC, SECAM, PAL) allow. ... Digital audio broadcasting or DAB is a developing technology for broadcasting audio programming in digital form. ... HD-Radio is a marketing catch-phrase used for IBOC, the terrestrial digital radio standard in the United States. ... Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) is an international non-profit consortium committed to designing an implementing an open-source platform for digital radio broadcasting around the world, especially on shortwave. ...

Perhaps the best known commercial broadcasters are the venerable ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC TV networks, as well as radio giant Clear Channel Communications, based in the United States. Major US commercial cable operators include Comcast, Adelphia, Time Warner Cable, and Cox Communications; satellite services include Dish Network, DirecTV, the UK's Sky Television, and the radio services Sirius, WorldSpace, and XM. The ABC Circle logo, designed by Paul Rand in 1962. ... CBSs first color logo, which debuted in the fall of 1965. ... The Fox Broadcasting Company is a television network in the United States. ... The National Broadcasting Company or NBC is an American radio and television broadcasting company based in New York Citys Rockefeller Center. ... Clear Channel Communications (NYSE: CCU) is a media company based in the United States of America. ... Comcast Corporation, (NASDAQ: CMCSA) based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is the largest cable company in the United States. ... Adelphia Communications Corporation (OTC: ADELQ), named after the Greek word for brotherhood, was the sixth largest US cable television operator before it filed for bankruptcy in 2002 due to internal corruption. ... Time Warner Inc. ... Cox Enterprises is the successor to the publishing company founded at Dayton, Ohio, by James Middleton Cox, who began with the Dayton Daily News. ... The Dish Network is a direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service that broadcasts digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, owned by Echostar. ... DirecTV is a direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service that broadcasts digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States. ... link titlelink titleThe name Sky Television may refer to: British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) in the United Kingdom SKY Network Television in New Zealand This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... An example of a Sirius satellite receiver. ... WorldSpaces AfriStar control center in Washington, D.C. WorldSpace is the worlds first digital satellite radio network. ... XM Satellite Radio (NASDAQ: XMSR) is a satellite radio (DARS) service in the United States based in Washington, DC and controlled by News Corporations DirecTV, General Motors, American Honda, Hughes Electronics, and several private investment groups. ...