The ethical dilemma presented by the ratings sweeps is a fundamental operating principle of advertiser-financed television broadcasting: broadcasters generate operating revenue and profit by exchanging audiences for money with advertisers. In order to create or attract audiences to be sold, the broadcaster formulates or acquires and then…

Discusses the availability of research on the makeup of audiences for public television as well as the need for and uses of such data. The public television audience is characterized as generally the well-educated, affluent minority. (JMF)

Discusses the continuing debate about the effects of televised violence on viewers, particularly children, in terms of aggressive behavior. The two opposing views, the psychologistic and the relational, are each supported by research which, in turn, affects the use of censorship. (JMF)

A study tested the utility of the viewing intention application of the transfer discrepancy model--a model attempting not only to identify the key program attributes that alter beliefs, but also to identify those that transfer this belief change into changes in viewer behavior. To promote cross-population examination, the study focused on network…

The growth in competition for revenues, along with the advent of cable, independent television and video cassette recorders (VCR), may signify a change in the market structure of local television news. To explain if and how this change may be occurring, an explanation of economic theory as well as evidence from "Broadcast and Cable…

In a recent study of the Tampa (Florida) market, TRAC Media Services acquired some interesting information about the market's response to its two public television stations. WEDU is a VHF-signal community station that reaches about 745,000 households in a week, and WUSF is a university-licensed UHF station that reaches about 547,000. Month-long…

Focusing on changes in the minds of the audience, this study of the impact of television programs provides a general analysis of the perceptual spectrum of the television audience and its values, preferences, and attachments to the content of television programs. Influences are identified and cued to the development of programming, and findings of…

Addresses issues of culture, cultural politics, social power, and television audience in cultural studies. Argues that cultural studies as a field tends to analyze all cultural interpretation in terms of struggles between dominant and subordinate groups and that the text-centered approach of cultural studies misses much of television viewing's…

This paper assesses, by reference to contemporary issues of the "Radio Times" and the London edition of the "TV Times," the way in which Independent Television (ITV) separated itself from the traditional middle class attitudes typified by the British Broadcasting Company programs and, instead, expressed through its programming…