A study gathered information from "Variety" about production costs and final 32-week season ratings for prime-time series in order to determine what effect ratings have on whether a program is cancelled. The cancellation threshold against which these series could be judged was based upon final regular-season Nielsen ratings information.…

The television camera is selective in the information in conveys. Since the effect image size has on receiver behavior is important, television production texts perpetually include discussions of camera shots and refer to close-ups as providing the most information. Yet none of the surveyed research has systematically controlled and examined the…

A study that examined consonance among the three major television networks' evening news programs for the period 1973 through 1981 used multiple criteria to assess long-term patterns of network similarity in news selection and treatment. A random sample was drawn, using one constructed week of five weekdays per quarter of the nine years and…

A total of 155 nonlabeled, normal adults and 28 labeled, schizophrenic adults were interviewed in a study to determine differences in the two groups' perceptions of television utility and reality. Hypotheses were formulated concerning expected differences in the reported importance of television in interpersonal communication, relaxation, and…

Demonstrates that the reason for Zenith's Phonevision's failure was the interweaving of such individual factors as the actions of the regulatory system and the opposition of the broadcast and film industries, along with the internal activities of Zenith and prevailing market conditions. (MS)

After critiquing the usual estimates of the importance of television as a source of news, the national audience for television news over a two-week period is identified from the 1974-1975 W.R. Simmons study (which uses a diary technique for gathering data). Analysis showed that, in the two-week period, 49% of the adult population did not watch a…

The basic potentials and requirements of multiscreen television presentations are explored in this paper. The major theoretical arguments for utilizing the multiscreen approach involve the progressively complex nature of the world: the instantaneousness of the moment, the experiential density, and the multiplicity of viewpoints. There is a…

The literature of film and literature of television are, to a large extent, two separate entities. The major film theorists have not had much to say about television, and television has inspired few theorists of its own--few, that is, whose major concern, like the film theorists', is aesthetics. One of the earliest forms of commentary on…

A study examined the family communication of two television families: the Huxtables, on "The Cosby Show," and the Simpsons. Content analysis was used to analyze communication behaviors in 9 episodes of "The Cosby Show" and 12 episodes of "The Simpsons," and behaviors were coded as to type of communication. Results…

A study was conducted to explore the hypothesis that heavy television viewing, particularly the viewing of a great deal of violence, cultivates certain misconceptions about social reality. Four counties in Florida were selected for the study on the basis of geographical location and amount of violent crime. Survey questionnaires were administered…

A Q-factor analysis study was undertaken to supplement an earlier research effort that had suggested that television can be an acculturator for foreign students. The method used to test the relationship between television presentation and foreign students' orientation toward cultural values involved three steps: (1) traditional values were…

Little research has been conducted into the structure of television images. This structure merits examination in terms of its perceptual psychology, composition (light, color, form, placement, sound, and editing), and the aesthetics of motio Field forces theory asserts that there are differences between a real scenario and its representation on…

Like other industries, television has its own version of the used-car dealership or second-hand store: off-network syndication. Since researchers who study television have rarely investigated the market for these programs, a study examined program and marketplace characteristics to determine which contributes most to the successful syndication of…

A study compared local and non-local coverage across three market sizes in two states (Michigan and Oregon) and examined the extent to which the use of news gathering technologies differed across market size. The study was a replication and extension of a 13-year old study by William C. Adams and explored the possible impact of technological…

According to a new myth in the television broadcasting industry, the producer has become the representative of the show business side of news production, while the reporter has remained the protector of the more noble goals of journalism in the television newsroom. To explore the dimensions of this myth, a study examined data, available from a…