Portal:Television

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The Television Portal

Flat-screen television receivers on display for sale at a consumer electronics store in 2008

Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set, rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. The medium is capable of more than "radio broadcasting", which refers to an audio signal sent to radio receivers.

Television became available in crude experimental forms in the 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the U.S. and most other developed countries.

In 2013, 79% of the world's households owned a television set. The replacement of earlier cathode-ray tube (CRT) screen displays with compact, energy-efficient, flat-panel alternative technologies such as LCDs (both fluorescent-backlit and LED), OLED displays, and plasma displays was a hardware revolution that began with computer monitors in the late 1990s. Most television sets sold in the 2000s were flat-panel, mainly LEDs. Major manufacturers announced the discontinuation of CRT, Digital Light Processing (DLP), plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. LEDs are being gradually replaced by OLEDs. Also, major manufacturers have started increasingly producing smart TVs in the mid-2010s. Smart TVs with integrated Internet and Web 2.0 functions became the dominant form of television by the late 2010s. (Full article...)

The Kaufman Astoria Studios, where Sesame Street is taped.
Sesame Street is an educational American children's television series designed for preschoolers and is recognized as a pioneer of the contemporary standard which combines education and entertainment in children's television shows. Sesame Street is well known for the inclusion of the Muppet characters created by the puppeteer Jim Henson. More than 4,000 episodes of the show have been produced in 36 seasons, which distinguishes it as one of the longest-running shows in television history. The program is produced in the United States by non-profit organization Sesame Workshop, founded by Joan Ganz Cooney and Ralph Rogers; the original series has been televised in 120 countries, and more than 20 international versions have been produced, not including dubs. Sesame Street has received 108 Emmy Awards, more than any other series in television history. An estimated 75 million Americans watched the series as children; millions more have watched around the world, or as parents.

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Telefunken television, 1936
Telefunken television, 1936
Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eiriknewth/6998383/

Early television model, from 1936, produced by Telefunken, Germany

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Matt Groening
It is pretty amazing to go from being a print cartoonist to having a hit animated television show, although I secretly expected it [The Simpsons] do well.

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Rudolph Cartier (born Rudolph Kacser, renamed himself in Germany to Rudolph Katscher; 17 April 1904 – 7 June 1994) was an Austrian television director, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer who worked predominantly in British television, exclusively for the BBC. He is best known for his 1950s collaborations with screenwriter Nigel Kneale, most notably the Quatermass serials and their 1954 adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

After studying architecture and then drama, Cartier began his career as a screenwriter and then film director in Berlin, working for UFA Studios. After a brief spell in the United States he moved to the United Kingdom in 1935. Initially failing to gain a foothold in the British film industry, he began working for BBC Television in the late 1930s (among other productions he was involved in the making of Rehearsal for a Drama, BBC 1939). The outbreak of war, however, meant that his contract was terminated; his television play The Dead Eye was stopped in the production stage. After the war, he occasionally worked for British films before he was again hired by the BBC in 1952. He soon became one of the public service broadcaster's leading directors and went on to produce and direct over 120 productions in the next 24 years, ending his television career with the play Loyalties in 1976. (Full article...)

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