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Television is one of the major mass media of the United States. Household ownership is 96.7% and the majority of households have more than one TV set. As a whole, the television networks of the United States are the largest and most syndicated in the world.
The United States has a decentralized, market-oriented television system. There is a national public broadcast service known as the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Local media markets have their own television stations, which may be affiliated with or owned and operated by a TV network.
In addition to the thousands of local TV stations in the USA, there are three major national TV networks:
These networks show their broadcasts at the same time throughout the nation during prime time. Being the largest commercial TV companies in the country, these three networks are also responsible for the majority of TV programs broadcast nationwide.
Typically, they begin with an early-morning local news show, followed by a network morning show, such as NBC's Today, which mixes news, weather, interviews and music. Network daytime schedules consist of talk shows and soap operas, with one network (CBS) still carrying game shows and a handful of other games airing in syndication; local news may air at midday.
Syndicated talk shows appear in the late afternoon, followed by local news again in the early evening. ABC, CBS and NBC offer network news, generally at 6:30 or 7:00 in the Eastern Time zone and 5:30 or 6:00 in other areas. Local newscasts or syndicated programs fill the "prime access" hour or half-hour, and lead into the networks' prime time schedules, which are the day's most-watched three hours of television.
Typically, family-oriented comedy programs led in the early part of prime time, although in recent years, reality television like Dancing with the Stars has largely replaced them. Later in the evening, dramas like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, House M.D., and Grey's Anatomy air.
At the end of prime time, another local news program comes on, usually followed by late-night interview shows, such as Late Show with David Letterman or The Tonight Show. Rather than sign off for the early hours of the morning (as was standard practice until the early 1970s in larger markets and until the mid-1980s in smaller ones), TV stations now fill the time with syndicated programming, reruns of prime time television shows or the local late news o'clock news, or 30-minute advertisements, known as infomercials, and in the case of CBS and ABC, overnight network news programs.
Saturday mornings usually feature network programming aimed at children (including animated cartoons), while Sunday mornings include public-affairs programs. Both of these help fulfil stations' legal obligations, to provide educational children's programs and public-service programming respectively. Sports and infomercials can be found on weekend afternoons, followed again by the same type of prime-time shows aired during the week.
While pay television systems existed in the USA as early as the late 1940s, cable television did not become popular until the early 1970s. There was one major problem: the cost of digging the roads up and of installing cables in people's homes. Today, most American households receive cable TV, and cable networks collectively have greater viewership than broadcast networks.
The first domestic communications satellite, Westar 1, was launched in 1974, and now it is as wide spread in the USA as cable television.
Statements
1. ___ The citizens of this country can choose between more that half a thousand radio stations.
2. ___ In this country FM radio mainly broadcasts music while AM radio specializes in talk and news programmes.
3. ___ This radio station specializes in broadcasting high-quality classical music during the day.
4. ___ Half a dozen proprietors own most of TV channels in this country.
5. ___ This country has three main national TV networks.
6. ___ This country has one national public television broadcast service.
7. ___ The radio in this country has always been financed by individuals, not the government.
8. ___ In this country, prime tome programmes usually finish with a late-night interview show.
9. ___ In this country, freeform stations are no longer as popular as they used to be in the 1990s.
10. ___ In this country, reality television shows took over family-oriented comedy programs.
11. ___The target audience of this TV channel is more intellectual than of all the other channels.
12. ___ In this country, cable television took off only the 1970s die to some technical reasons.
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| B. Television in the UK | | | TASK 6. Match the types of TV programmes below with their definitions. |