This guide provides industry background and career advice in a three-part arrangement. The first, on television, covers organizational structures within the networks and stations, programming, syndication, new technology, and the structures of cable television. The second part, on radio, focuses programming formats, advertising formats, advertising

In this updated edition of the industry staple, veteran media executive Jeff Ulin relates business theory and practice across key global market segments—film, television, and online/digital—providing you with an insider’s perspective that can't be found anywhere else. Learn how an idea moves from concept to profit and how distribution dominates the bottom line: Hollywood stars may make the headlines, but marketing and distribution are the behind-the-scenes drivers converting content into cash. The third edition: Includes perspectives from key industry executives at studios, networks, agencies and online leaders, including Fox, Paramount, Lucasfilm, Endeavor, Tencent, MPAA, YouTube, Amazon, and many more; Explores the explosive growth of the Chinese market, including box office trends, participation in financing Hollywood feature films, and the surge in online usage; Illustrates how online streaming leaders like Netflix, Amazon, Apple, YouTube, Hulu and Facebook are changing the way TV content is distributed and consumed, and in cases how these services are moving into theatrical markets; Analyzes online influences and disruption throughout the distribution chain, and explains the risks and impact stemming from changing access points (e.g., stand-alone apps), delivery methods (over-the-top) and consumption patterns (e.g., binge watching); Breaks down historical film windows, the economic drivers behind them, and how online and digital delivery applications are changing the landscape. Ulin provides the virtual apprenticeship you need to demystify and manage the complicated media markets, understand how digital distribution has impacted the ecosystem, and glimpse into the future of how film and television content will be financed, distributed and watched. An online eResource contains further discussion on topics presented in the book.

From unraveling the confusion surrounding digital TV to revealing the inner workings of Nielsen ratings Broadcast Television: A Complete Guide to the Industry takes an impartial and in-depth look at the business of commercial television. Unlike many books addressing this topic, the purpose of this primer is not to support a partisan opinion about what is right or wrong with television but rather to provide objective information from which the reader can make his or her own judgments. To that end the organization and presentation style is also unique in that the industry is explained as a dynamic and interdependent system of technology, economics, and regulation. This systems approach to learning helps the reader understand better the interwoven parts of television business. As a concise and highly focused overview of the business of commercial television, Broadcast Television: A Complete Guide to the Industry can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to other course readings addressing an array of topics involving television today.

This volume offers 16 essays, most original, offering varied broadcast industry views on the role of the public interest in changing business. Editors Powell and Gair, respectively a long-time member of the Northern Illinois University communications faculty and an Illinois broadcaster, provide a brief contextual introduction to each contribution and give the background of each author. The book, according to the preface, is intended to offer `candid and genuine descriptions of what the public-interest obligation actually means to the practitioner [broadcaster]'. . . . The volume is best seen as an indicator of the changing public-interest perceptions of broadcasters amid a rapidly changing marketplace. As such, it is useful for undergraduates interested in today's communications industry. Choice This volume presents a broad cross-section of views on an issue of central importance to the broadcast industry: Can the broadcast industry serve both the public interest and corporate and stockholder interest? How do the leaders and successful professionals of the broadcast industry interpret and implement the public interest obligation? A cross-section of American broadcasters--from network executives to small market radio station managers, from the president of the National Association of Broadcasters to a former FCC Chairman, from communications attorneys to retired broadcasters--offer personal interpretations of these and other questions on the public interest issue. Among the contributors are Arthur C. Nielsen, the retired Chairman of the A. C. Nielsen Company, which has been the arbiter of American network television success or failure since the advent of the medium; Edward O. Fritts, a small market radio group owner who became President of the National Association of Broadcasters; Newton N. Minow, a communications attorney who is perhaps the best remembered FCC Chairman because of his vast wasteland speech; broadcast pioneer and innovator Ward Quaal; and network insider Gene Jankowski, President, CBS broadcast group.

This is the first book to focus on sport broadcasting as a core aspect of contemporary sport business and management. It explains how sport business professionals can manage sport broadcasting as an essential component of their work. Drawing on cutting-edge theory and research into sport broadcasting around the world, the book introduces the history and core concepts of sport broadcasting, before showing how broadcasting intersects with sport management practice. It covers key themes and issues such as the law and regulation, valuation and negotiation, strategy, logistics and consumer behaviour. Outlining best practice for sport managers, this book is essential reading for any course on sport business and management, sport marketing or sport media, and a useful companion to courses on broadcast production, sports journalism or digital media.

The collision of new technologies, changing business strategies, and innovative storytelling that produced a new golden age of TV. Cable television channels were once the backwater of American television, programming recent and not-so-recent movies and reruns of network shows. Then came La Femme Nikita, OZ, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead. And then, just as “prestige cable” became a category, came House of Cards and Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and other Internet distributors of television content. What happened? In We Now Disrupt This Broadcast, Amanda Lotz chronicles the collision of new technologies, changing business strategies, and innovative storytelling that produced an era termed “peak TV.” Lotz explains that changes in the business of television expanded the creative possibilities of television. She describes the costly infrastructure rebuilding undertaken by cable service providers in the late 1990s and the struggles of cable channels to produce (and pay for) original, scripted programming in order to stand out from the competition. These new programs defied television conventions and made viewers adjust their expectations of what television could be. Le Femme Nikita offered cable's first antihero, Mad Men cost more than advertisers paid, The Walking Dead became the first mass cable hit, and Game of Thrones was the first global television blockbuster. Internet streaming didn't kill cable, Lotz tells us. Rather, it revolutionized how we watch television. Cable and network television quickly established their own streaming portals. Meanwhile, cable service providers had quietly transformed themselves into Internet providers, able to profit from both prestige cable and streaming services. Far from being dead, television continues to transform.