A generation raised on streaming services won’t necessarily think much of the difference between film and television. A quick scroll through one’s Netflix home page will offer options across both media, with film titles listed side-by-side with television shows. The contemporary use of the generic term “content” is a symptom of this dissolving boundaries between types of moving-image media – what scholars call convergence, where previously distinct media forms now have shared distribution channels. And while the histories of film and television sometimes overlapped or intersected, each media type has had its own institutions, technologies, business operations, audience relations, and programming content. This chapter provides a concise introduction to the history of American television. Knowledge of this history is essential to textual interpretations of television programming, since these industrial and technological contexts strongly determine what stories the medium tells and in what ways those stories are told.

The following history of television is divided into three periods, introduced by television scholar Amanda Lotz and widely used in media studies. Those periods are as follows: the network era, the multichannel transition, and the post-network era. The network era (1940s-1970s) refers generally to the period of television broadcasting, where the medium consisted primarily of three major networks (NBC, CBS, and ABC) whose programming was distributed by local stations via the public airwaves. The multichannel transition (1980s-early 2000s) describes the expansion of television by means of alternative distribution methods (cable and satellite) and across new networks (FOX, UPN, and WB) and premium channels (HBO). The post-network era (2000s-present) refers to the convergence of television with the Internet, as streaming services largely displace both network and cable television. Broadly speaking, within each period, television is defined by distinct modes of delivery, relationships to advertisers, types of programming content, and ways of conceptualizing audiences.

THE NETWORK ERA

The commercial use of television began in 1939 – the World’s Fair held in New York City was one auspicious moment in the introduction of this technology to the public – but World War II largely interrupted its initial rollout. Commercial television – meaning the use of the technology as a profit-seeking enterprise by industry and its availability as a consumer product to the public – was consequently a postwar phenomenon.

Television developed out of America’s radio networks, which likewise operated under a broadcasting model, involving the public transmission of programming to any available receivers within the geographical limits of the signal. Radio shaped both the industrial structure of early television and its programming. Like radio, television networks are comprised of both owned & operated stations, which as the name suggests are owned and operated by the network itself, and affiliate stations, which are independently owned but which receive programming from a parent network. In this period, there were only three networks: the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) were the dominant two, while the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) was formed from a sell-off of part of NBC’s radio network in the mid-1940s.

In the immediate postwar years, television was concentrated in the Northeast, and specifically, in New York City; for example, in 1946, there were only six stations broadcasting to approximately 8,000 homes. Nationwide broadcasting was not in place until 1951, and even then, only a little more than 100 stations were in operation. As stations proliferated, industrial development ran ahead of federal regulation of the airwaves, complicating the growth of the new medium. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had allocated a portion of the broadcast spectrum to television (in the process, it shoved FM radio aside to a different band allocation), but stations crowded together produced signal interference. The FCC therefore announced a “freeze” on the licensing of new stations in September 1948, and while it was originally intended to last only a few months, it was not lifted until July 1952. The freeze did enable the FCC to settle the technical difficulties, but its effect was also to consolidate network dominance of the airwaves. The high cost of television production incentivized centralized control of programming, which would then be broadcast out to nationwide affiliates, and this granted the network leverages over those stations. One way they exploited this leverage was called “option time,” which required affiliate stations to hold open a portion of their broadcast day – the most valuable time slots in prime-time – for network-produced and -scheduled programming. Contractual demands like option time helped to consolidate American television networks as an oligopoly, where a few companies dominate one market, just like the few major studios that controlled Hollywood during the studio era.

The expansion of networks nationwide and their oligopolistic control over the industry into the 1950s changed the nature of early television programming. Initially, television shows had two characteristics: they were broadcast live and they were single-sponsorship, which involved one corporation supervising the production of a show as a marketing platform for its product. As an example, we can consider one popular early television format: the variety show. Borrowing from radio and vaudeville traditions, the variety show featured a wide range of entertainment that would have included comedic monologues, singing and dancing, juggling and acrobatics, and comedic sketches. The contemporary analogue might be something like Saturday Night Live – for its sketch comedy, opening monologues, and musical performances – or America’s Got Talent, which repackages the variety show as reality competition. Two notable examples from early television were The Texaco Star Theater, hosted by Milton Berle, whose popularity earned him the nickname “Mr. Television,” and Toast of the Town, featuring Ed Sullivan. Variety shows were soon supplemented by a range of other genres of television programming, including situation comedies, westerns, quiz shows, and live teleplays. Of the latter category, anthology dramas such as the Kraft Television Hour or the Philco Television Playhouse put on adapted or original plays, whose live broadcast required careful technical planning. Marty (1953) is perhaps the best known of these teleplays (Figure 1). Written by Paddy Chayefsky, the program starred Rod Steiger as a socially awkward butcher who begins a romance with a shy woman.

That television programming tended to be live and based in single sponsorship presented problems for the networks. It gave authority over programming to the sponsoring advertisers and left networks unable to fully control the TV schedule. NBC vice president Pat Weaver was instrumental in changing this. Through Weaver’s efforts with shows such as The Today Show, television transitioned to what was called “magazine sponsorship.” Instead of a sponsor paying to produce a program, the network would assume the costs of production and then sell time to advertisers for commercial spots. With multiple sponsors, no one advertiser had control over programming and that control could revert back to the networks. This allowed the network control over their schedule: promoting and profiting from popular shows, cancelling others, and arranging the schedule in a purposeful, brand-oriented way – for instance, that leads viewers from one program to the next.

Another important transition from early television arrived with I Love Lucy, the most popular sitcom of the 1950s (Figure 2). Created by Desilu Productions, it starred husband and wife Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball as fictional married couple Ricky and Lucy. The premise of the show was that Lucy was continually trying to break into Ricky’s occupation of showbusiness resulting in situations involving zany antics. As important as its onscreen comedy was, the program was also significant for its offscreen innovations, which established the aesthetic template for sitcoms for decades. First, the show was filmed using multiple cameras – typically three – that simultaneously recorded the live action. This is known as the “multi-cam” or “three-camera” format. Second, in order to shoot the action from multiple angles simultaneously, a lighting set-up needed to be devised that would provide a consistently illuminated but ultimately “flat” look to the show. Without this lighting rig, some camera angles might pick up unwanted shadows. Third and finally, Desilu recorded their episodes on film, rather than broadcasting live, and this allowed them to start syndicating episodes beginning in the show’s fourth season. Syndication refers to the rebroadcasting of episodes after their original air date, and it underlies the deficit-financing model of television production.

By the end of the 1950s, television had stabilized into an oligopoly of three networks that controlled the production and distribution of programming. This decade is known as television’s “golden age,” because of the quality and prestige of its programming, from the variety shows to the legendary live anthology dramas. The 1960s, by contrast, was at the time thought to be an overall downturn for the medium. In a famous speech in May 1961, FCC commissioner Newton Minow decried the current state of TV as a “vast wasteland.” He said, “You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials – many screaming, cajoling, and offending.” Minow would have been referring to trivial entertainment like Gilligan’s Island, Batman, Green Acres, and Bewitched, and thrillers like Dragnet and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

The 1970s, however, witnessed a change in television, driven by the social and political climate of the late 1960s. Rather than the escapist entertainment of the 1960s, television started to more directly reflect the societal changes that were taking place. One notable example is the family sitcom All in the Family, which started its run in 1971 (Figure 3). The premise of the show pitted the cantankerous and prejudiced Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor), the family patriarch, against his hippie-generation daughter Gloria (Sally Struthers) and her husband Michael (Rob Reiner), whom Archie calls “Meathead.” Even in the context of a family sitcom, the show addressed serious subject matter such as the feminist movement, abortion, homosexuality, and racism. All in the Family was produced by Norman Lear, who made this socially conscious form of TV entertainment his signature. It would carry over into his other 1970s shows including Maude, Good Times, and The Jeffersons. Also relevant here is the MTM Enterprises production of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, starring Mary Tyler Moore as a news producer for a local TV station. Moore’s character Mary Richards represented a new type of onscreen womanhood, one shaped by second-wave feminism – single, ambitious, and independent.

THE MULTICHANNEL TRANSITION

Dedicated to showing movies and sports, the premium cable channel Home Box Office (HBO) first offered its subscription-based services in 1972, but it was not until 1975, when HBO introduced its satellite service with the broadcast of the heavyweight boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, that the new channel garnered significant viewership. Thus began the cable era of television, or what media scholars refer to as the multichannel transition, which saw the introduction of new networks and proliferating options for viewers. This period spelled the end for the networks’ oligopolistic control over the industry, as well as an end to the broadcasting era. The networks were subject to corporate takeovers – Capital Cities merged with ABC in 1985, General Electric purchased NBC’s parent company in the same year, and CBS barely survived a hostile takeover attempt by Ted Turner, owner of the Turner Broadcasting System.

A new network successfully launched for the first time in 1986. The FOX network was formed after the arrival of Barry Diller, formerly of Paramount Pictures, and Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corporation, to 20th Century Fox. To establish the necessary infrastructure for his planned new network, Murdoch purchased Metromedia’s chain of TV stations. Within two years of its launch, FOX had 96 affiliates and its stations covered more than 75% of the country. What had been only three networks for decades was now four. FOX had to distinguish itself in the marketplace, and the job of developing distinctive programming fell to Diller. Two programs featuring somewhat raunchy, dysfunctional families lead the way. Married…with Children, featuring Ed O’Neill as Al Bundy, played like a low-class All in the Family. The Simpsons began as an animated segment of The Tracey Ullman Show, and FOX then spun it off as its own show in 1989 (Figure 4). More than 30 years later, the iconic Simpsons family is still on the air. FOX also tapped into audience demographics largely ignored by the other major networks, specifically youth and Black audiences. For example, in 1990, the network debuted In Living Color, a sketch comedy show created by Keenan Ivory Wayans, and featuring Jamie Foxx and Jim Carrey in one of their earliest roles. In 1992, the comedy Martin premiered, featuring comedian Martin Lawrence.

FOX would be joined by two other new networks in the 1990s, as the Telecommunications Act of 1996 raised the cap which limited how many stations could be owned by a network. This deregulatory provision enabled film studios to move aggressively enter the TV industry. Paramount Pictures established UPN and Warner Brothers created the WB in the late 1990s. The value proposition of this expansionary measures was that the new networks could serve as distribution channels for the studios’ existing library of content, providing additional revenue on older titles. But these new networks would also invest in new programming designed around distinct brand identities. FOX’s early focus on Black audiences in the early 1990s waned as the network gained audiences, leaving that market segment open for UPN to exploit. UPN debuted shows such as Moesha, with pop star Brandy, and The Hughleys, featuring comedian D.L. Hughley, to appeal to these demographics. WB, meanwhile, turned its focus to teen audiences, specializing in soapy dramas such as Dawson’s Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Charmed. UPN and the WB would later merge, becoming the CW in 2006.

FOX’s strategy of targeting underserved viewer demographics was part of a larger realignment of the television industry in terms of how it conceptualized its audience. The multichannel transition is characterized not by broadcasting to the widest possible audience but by narrowcasting, which describes the targeting of specific but valuable segments of the larger audience. This strategy of narrowcasting is evident in the range of cable channels that proliferated during this period, many of which made programming choices and established brand identities organized around particular demographics. Consider the following channels that debuted by the early 1980s: Cable News Network (CNN), dedicated to around-the-clock news coverage; Nickelodeon, to children’s entertainment; Music Television (MTV), to youth culture and the relatively new format of music videos; Black Entertainment Television (BET), to Black-oriented entertainment; ESPN, to sports; the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), to Christian entertainment and worship programming; the Weather Channel, to around-the-clock weather coverage; and the USA Network, to movies and TV reruns. Each of these channels appeals to a different slice of the total audience pie, allowing advertisers to target desired demographics, so that, for example, toy commercials could appear during programming for kids. These channels developed niche programming – meaning, content designed to attract specific demographics – that no longer had to adhere to the standard of “least objectionable content, widest possible audience” that had defined the network era. Indeed, cable channels had fewer FCC restrictions on what they could air in terms of potentially objectionable material like sex, violence, and political issues.

The rise of cable television – by the early 2000s, nearly 70 percent of households had a cable subscription – contributed to the emergence of TV’s “second golden age,” referring to the development of critically acclaimed and popular original programming. Why did cable channels start producing original programming, as opposed to relying solely on syndicated TV shows and the back catalogs of the studios? Original programming was a key way to entice new audiences and to establish a brand identity for the channel in a crowded marketplace where more competitors (i.e. cable channels) were fighting over smaller shares of viewers. To a degree, HBO lead the way, with its early forays into original programming such as The Larry Sanders Show, Sex & the City, The Sopranos, The Wire, and Six Feet Under. However, these changes were also visible in network TV of the 1990s and early 2000s, as shows of more narrative complexity and higher production values started to appear. Notable in this context is the FBI paranormal investigation series The X-Files and the mystery-adventure show Lost. Perhaps one of the best illustrations of this transition is the rebranding of the cable channel AMC. Founded in 1984, American Movie Classics was initially dedicated to the airing of feature films and documentaries, which it broadcast without commercial interruption. The changing economics of cable television, however, necessitated its transition to advertiser-supported programming in 2002, and the channel rebranded as AMC, dropping the full moniker as a signal of its shift away from the rebroadcast of films. Early ventures into original programming by AMC were primarily reality television, which is cheaper to produce, but like many other players in this second golden age, the channel would quickly turn to prestige dramas to draw lucrative upscale viewers. AMC premiered its signature show in 2007, the Madison Avenue-set drama Mad Men (Figure 5), and would later debut Breaking Bad, featuring Bryan Cranston as a former chemistry teacher who builds a meth empire after falling ill from cancer, and The Walking Dead, a popular zombie apocalypse narrative.

The prestige dramas and innovative comedies of this period have been characterized as quality TV. Quality TV describes the introduction of cinematic or novelistic aspects into television narrative, which involved higher production values and formal experimentation with TV formats. One distinguishing factor of quality TV from more conventional television is the increased serialization of TV narratives. Conventional television tends to be episodic, meaning that individual episodes are relatively autonomous; their narrative arcs resolve within the span of the episode. Episodic form was instrumental to syndication, since TV series were not necessarily rebroadcast in chronological order, so it was important that each episode could stand alone. By contrast, quality TV tends to be highly serialized in its narrative structure. Narrative arcs are introduced but left unresolved by the episode’s end, carrying over across the season or even the entire series. For example, in The X-Files, each episode was structured around a single FBI investigation, which would be resolved, but other segments of the episode might pertain to the series’ larger mystery about the federal government’s cover-up about the existence of extraterrestrial life. The series-long mystery about the nature of the island in Lost is another example of TV seriality; audiences did not find out the truth about this strange location until the series finale.

Quality TV demonstrates its “cinematic” qualities typically in one of two ways: through an exploration of character interiority or through world-building. In terms of character, quality TV has tended to emphasize male anti-heroes, such as Don Draper of Mad Men and Walter White of Breaking Bad. In Mad Men, Draper’s success as a creative director in advertising is driven by his need to overcome his past. Draper’s character is a split subject throughout the series – at once motivated by material wealth and a more bohemian streak that is disenchanted with the business world. He wants both economic freedom and personal freedom, and the series explores the conflict between those two sides of his personality, only resolving them at its conclusion. Breaking Bad’s Walter White is a prototypical anti-hero (Figure 6). He starts as an under-appreciated chemistry teacher who turns to cooking meth when he is diagnosed with cancer; though he initially intends only to produce a nest egg for his family, building an illegal drug empire becomes more about commanding power and respect. Walter’s narrative arc follows the conventional route established by gangster cinema, where the intoxicating effects of greed and power lead to the protagonist’s violent downfall.

The period of the multichannel transition, finally, saw major changes to the degree of interactivity that viewers had with programming content. The introduction of devices like the remote control eased the viewer’s navigation of cable’s numerous offerings as TV watchers could now channel surf looking for something to watch. This period is also characterized by what TV scholars call time shifting, which refers to technologies that grant some control to the viewer over how and when they consume shows. The first important change was the introduction of the VCR, which allowed viewers to record programs off the television for their personal collections. Television networks and film studios were concerned about this “theft” of their content, and Universal Studios and Disney sued Sony, the manufacturer of Betamax, a competing format to VHS. In a landmark 1984 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that recording for private use for the purpose of time shifting constituted a permissible “fair use” claim, thereby clearing the way for the VCR’s rapid adoption by U.S. consumers. Later, technologies such as DVR granted even more control to viewers, allowing not just for recording to watch later but also the pausing, fast forwarding, or rewinding of TV. This individualized control over the TV schedule, though, would only accelerate in the post-network era.

THE POST-NETWORK ERA

The post-network era marks the convergence of television with the Internet, where digital modes of distribution have largely displaced what we now call linear television. Rather than a network, TV is now primarily consumed via a platform. On a platform, television programming is offered in a non-linear fashion. Viewers have been freed from the constraints of a TV schedule. To explain this difference, media scholars make reference to a push model of media distribution versus a pull model. In a push model, like linear television, content is pushed out to viewers at a predetermined schedule (movie theaters follow their showtimes, radio plays a song according to its own rotation, etc.). In a pull model, control flips to the user, who can determine the order and amount of the media texts they consume. Constructing a Spotify playlist is an example of pull media, as is downloading or renting an episode of television from iTunes. The promise of the Internet has generally been this notion of an individualized experience, but the consequence of that has always been the diminishing of television as a collective experience. Freed from the schedule, able to determine our own media diet, we can no longer guarantee that other viewers are watching what we are when we are watching it. Not only has this contributed to the rise of spoiler culture, but also the decline of TV as part of our shared culture.

The post-network era is defined in large part by the arrival of streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu as providers of television. Originally a DVD-by-mail rental service, Netflix started offering streaming options in 2008, but in these early years, it relied on licensing content from the film studios and television networks. The arguably more significant development came in 2013, when Netflix pivoted to original programming, just as cable channels had done in the previous decade. There was good reason for this. Licensed content is not owned by Netflix, and therefore the desirability of its library to consumers would be dependent on borrowing content from its competitors. Netflix “owns” its original programming, at least in that a typical deal for these shows involves a ten-year commitment that they will remain on the service after the airing of the series finale. Netflix’s first original TV programs were House of Cards, co-produced by filmmaker David Fincher, and Orange is the New Black (Figure 7), created by TV veteran Jenji Kohan.

Streaming services have recently been rolling out ad-supported membership tiers, but it is essential to understand that these are subscriber-based services. Their business model is based on expanding and maintaining their subscriber base. The rate at which users cancel or suspend their subscriptions is what the industry calls churn, and consistent original programming is used to minimize that. There are significant implications to the fact that streaming services are subscriber-based rather than advertiser-supported. To state the obvious, television now comes without commercial interruptions, a benefit for the user but wholly upending the revenue model of linear TV. One advantage of this for the services is that they do not have advertisers to please, allowing for more innovative, formally experimental, or potentially objectionable programming. Where do new subscribers come from? If you’re Netflix, much of the American market has been saturated, so growth areas tend to be found internationally. This affects the types of original programming Netflix will produce, as it seeks to service different regions. Consider, for instance, Squid Game (Figure 8) and the service’s investment in K-dramas, or globally popular shows such as Money Heist and Borgen.

It is not just in the subscriber base that streamers like Netflix are changing the face of the TV industry. Consider this: as indicated above, network TV operated with deficit financing, relying on syndication to fully recoup the costs of production and turn a profit, but what happens to this model of funding when streaming disrupts the value of the rerun? If episodes stay on the platform indefinitely, then they can’t be licensed out to earn revenue. And it’s not just that. Linear TV relies on third party measurement of ratings, which are published publicly, to determine a show’s success, but that feedback between a show’s popularity and its potential earnings has been weakened in the streaming era. Streamers release relatively little data on views, and total views is a less important metric to them than consistent subscriber growth. In other words, from reruns to ratings, the old way of doing business is TV is broken. How then do streaming services fund their original programming? Typically, they pay all costs upfront, plus a premium to the production team to replace the residuals that they would have received from syndication. But these funds are still relatively delinked from whether a show is a hit or not, a fact which the streaming industry has just started to address.

Streaming has also changed what we recognize as television, or differently stated, television is now packaged differently for viewers. One significant change that Netflix introduced in 2013 is the binge model, which entails the simultaneous release of an entire season, rather than broadcasting episodes in weekly installments. Bingeing became the standard practice for streaming distribution. In recent years, however, streamers are experimenting with reviving some of the practices of linear TV, such as the release of one or several episodes at a time, rather than all at once. This slowed release schedule helps to prevent churn. Subscribers to streaming services may also have noticed that television episodes no longer follow standardized formats as they were forced to do under linear television. For example, a half-hour time slot would typically include 22 minutes of programming, with the remaining time being reserved for commercials. TV writers organized an episode to fit within this allotted window, as well as timed its narrative beats to fall within the commercial interruptions. Absent those constraints, streaming television has experimented with varying episode lengths. Take the first three episodes of Netflix’s Mindhunter. The first episode is around 58 minutes, the second around 52 minutes, and the third around 43 minutes. Variations can swing more dramatically than this for different shows. The number of an episodes within a season is also now more variable (and generally fewer) than in linear television. A standard season of linear television would likely have included 22 episodes, but now seasons can be as short as 6 or 8 episodes.

Netflix and Hulu were early entrants into streaming television. They have since been joined by numerous competing services including Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+, Max (formerly HBO Now or HBO Go), and other niche streamers. This intense competition for subscribers has produced what FX president John Landgraf described as “peak TV,” which saw the number of original scripted series steadily escalating for a decade, reaching its heights in 2022 with an estimated 599 shows. That bubble has since popped. The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and the WGA and SAG strikes, not to mention the high production costs, have all contributed to a major drawdown in TV production. The future of streaming TV is therefore currently unclear. Streaming services are not going anywhere, but what their version of television will look going forward will continue to be shaped by these evolving market forces.