Television is the most powerful medium of mass communication seen regularly by most persons in the United States. Television signals may be delivered by using antennas (broadcast), communication satellites, or cable systems. Because of television's societal impact, the federal government regulates companies that operate television systems.

Experimental television systems were developed in the 1930s, but commercial exploitation did not occur in the United States until the late 1940s. Initially, television signals were broadcast from antennas and received by a television set in a person's home or business. Improved technology led to the replacement of black-and-white images with color signals in the 1960s.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which was established by the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq.), originally was charged with the regulation of radio. With the introduction of television and the need for television stations to obtain FCC licenses to use broadcast frequencies, the FCC assumed sole jurisdiction over the television industry.

Television broadcasts may be regulated for content. Typically, this regulation has focused on broadcasts of allegedly obscene or indecent material. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld regulations banning obscene material, as obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It has also permitted the FCC to prohibit material that is "patently offensive" and either "sexual" or "excretory" from being broadcast during times when children are presumed to be in the audience (FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726, 98 S. Ct. 3026, 57 L. Ed. 2d 1073 [1978]).

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Pub. L. No. 104-104) mandates the establishment of an advisory committee for the rating of video programming that contains indecent materials for purposes of parental control. The act also requires that by 1998 all manufactured televisions with screens thirteen inches or larger must be equipped with a so-called V chip to allow parents to block programs having a predesignated rating for sex and violence.

Cable television has grown tremendously since the 1980s. Cable television originally served communities in mountainous regions that had difficulty receiving broadcast transmissions. Many communities solved this problem by erecting tall receiving towers to capture broadcast signals and retransmit them over wires running from the tower to homes that subscribed to this service.
During the 1970s and 1980s, large corporations installed cable systems in every large metropolitan area in the United States, as well as in many rural areas. Independent programming was transmitted on cable systems by companies such as Home Box Office (HBO) and Cable News Network (CNN).

Although cable television could not be categorized as broadcasting in the traditional sense, the FCC adopted the first general federal regulation of cable systems. Local government also became involved, as each municipality had to award a cable system franchise to one vendor. Cable operators negotiated system requirements and pricing with local governments, but federal law imposed some restrictions on rates to consumers.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 deregulated cable television rates, in part because of increased interest by telephone companies in entering the cable market by sending programming through existing phone lines. The act permits phone companies to provide video programming directly to subscribers in their service areas.

The transmission of television signals by satellite has been a practical solution for customers who cannot obtain cable television programming because they live in remote or rural areas. In the 1990s direct broadcast satellite (DBS) systems began to compete with cable television systems. The DBS systems offer higher-quality video and audio signals.

The development of digital high-definition television (HDTV) was the broadcast television industry's top priority in the 1990s. HDTV, which has a significantly finer picture resolution than an ordinary television screen, requires additional broadcast frequencies, which the FCC must license to broadcasters. Broadcast television, which saw its viewership steadily drop as cable and DBS became popular, sees HDTV as a way to reclaim its market share.

Advertising

Since their inception in the USA in 1941, TV commercials have become one of the most effective, most pervasive, and most popular methods of selling products of many sorts, especially consumer goods. U.S. advertising rates are determined primarily by Nielsen ratings.

Programming

Getting TV programming shown to the public can happen in many different ways. After production the next step is to market and deliver the product to whatever markets are open to using it. This typically happens on two levels:

1. Original Run or First Run - a producer creates a program of one or multiple episodes and shows it on a station or network which has either paid for the production itself or to which a license has been granted by the producers to do the same.

2. Syndication - this is the terminology rather broadly used to describe secondary programming usages (beyond original run). It includes secondary runs in the country of first issue, but also international usage which may or may not be managed by the originating producer. In many cases other companies, TV stations or individuals are engaged to do the syndication work, in other words to sell the product into the markets they are allowed to sell into by contract from the copyright holders, in most cases the producers.

In most countries, the first wave occurs primarily on free-to-air (FTA) television, while the second wave happens on subscription TV and in other countries. In the U.S. however, the first wave occurs on the FTA networks and subscription services, and the second wave travels via all means of distribution.

First run programming is increasing on subscription services outside the U.S., but few domestically produced programs are syndicated on domestic FTA elsewhere. This practice is increasing however, generally on digital only FTA channels, or with subscriber-only first run material appearing on FTA.
Unlike the U.S., repeat FTA screenings of a FTA network program almost only occur only on that network. Also, affiliates rarely buy or produce non-network programming that isn't intensely local.

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Alleged dangers

Paralleling television's growing primacy in family life and society, an increasingly vocal chorus of legislators, scientists and parents are raising objections to the uncritical acceptance of the medium. For example, the Swedish government imposed a total ban on advertising to children under twelve in 1991 (see advertising). In the U.S., the National Institute on Media and the Family (not a government agency) points out that U.S. children watch an average of 25 hours of television per week and features studies showing it interferes with the educational and maturational process.

A February 23 2002 article in Scientific American suggested that compulsive television watching was no different from any other addiction, a finding backed up by reports of withdrawal symptoms among families forced by circumstance to cease watching.

A longitudinal study in New Zealand involving 1000 people (from childhood to 26 years of age) demonstrated that "television viewing in childhood and adolescence is associated with poor educational achievement by 26 years of age". In other words, the more the child watched television, the less likely he was to finish school and enroll in a university.

Technology trends

In its infancy, television was an ephemeral medium. Fans of regular shows planned their schedules so that they could be available to watch their shows at their time of broadcast. The term appointment television was coined by marketers to describe this kind of attachment.

The viewership's dependence on schedule lessened with the invention of programmable video recorders, such as the Videocassette recorder and the Digital video recorder. Consumers could watch programs on their own schedule once they were broadcast and recorded. Television service providers also offer video on demand, a set of programs which could be watched at any time.

Both mobile phone networks and the internet are capable of carrying video streams. There is already a fair amount of internet tv, while mobile phone tv is planned to become mainstream, if it can be effectively sold, early in 2006.

Suitability for audience
Almost since the medium's inception there have been charges that some programming is, in one way or another, inappropriate, offensive or indecent.

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