Communications in The United States - Television

Television

Television broadcast stations: 9,024 (of which 1,750 are full-power TV stations; 592 are class-A TV stations; 4,537 are TV translators; and 2,145 are other low-power TV stations) (as of December 31, 2005, according to the Federal Communications Commission); in addition, there are about 12,000 cable TV systems.

  • Most local commercial television stations are owned-and-operated by or affiliated with the large national broadcast networks such as ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and The CW. Some television networks are aimed at ethnic minorities, including Spanish language networks Univisión and Telemundo. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), is the public broadcasting network, with over 300 non-profit affiliated stations across the United States. Besides the large broadcast networks (which are free for anyone with a TV and an antenna), there are also many networks available only with a subscription to cable or satellite television, like CNN.

Televisions: 219 million (1997)

See also: List of United States broadcast television networks and List of United States cable and satellite television networks

Read more about this topic:  Communications In The United States

Famous quotes containing the word television:

    “We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.”
    —Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)

    “Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
    —Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)

    “There was a girl who was running the traffic desk, and there was a woman who was on the overnight for radio as a producer, and my desk assistant was a woman. So when the world came to an end, we took over.”
    —Marya McLaughlin, U.S. television newswoman. As quoted in Women in Television News, ch. 3, by Judith S. Gelfman (1976)