The significant changes that have swept the television industry over the last two decades, most notably a shift to deregulation in broadcast media, prompt a discussion on how to ensure that meaningful content is available to the viewer. Television and Public Policy analyzes the current state of television systems in a selected group of countries by exploring the political, economic, and technological factors that have shaped the sector in such a short span of time. Consequently, by positioning the television sector within issues of media policy and the regulatory framework, the book questions what these trends mean for television, and the historical, political, and cultural role in our societies. Television and Public Policy distinguishes itself in several ways: *It is a global project in its comparative scope and subject area. Contributors represent countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. *It is contemporary and filled with information largely absent in current literature. *It offers original analysis of the contemporary television sector. This book speaks to a broad range of academics, postgraduate, and undergraduate students, and can serve as a key resource for courses ranging from media studies, to development studies, international relations, and law.

This study of cable rate regulation finds that unregulated monopoly may be superior to regulate monopoly, even in the presence of legal entry barriers. By comparing how rates, quality and volume changed during the periods of deregulation and reregulation in the cable industry, the authors show that cable rate regulation deals with a real problem, monopoly power in local cable markets, but has typically proven perverse in effect.

Discusses why and how we should rate the content of television programs for violence

Television and Public Policy analyzes the current state of television systems in a selected group of countries, exploring the political, economic, and technological factors that have shaped the sector over the past two decades. By positioning the television sector within issues of media policy and the regulatory framework, the book questions what these trends mean for television, and the historical, political, and cultural role in our societies.

Winner of the 2017 Outstanding Book Award from the Popular Communication Division of the International Communication Association (ICA) Nearly as soon as television began to enter American homes in the late 1940s, social activists recognized that it was a powerful tool for shaping the nation’s views. By targeting broadcast regulations and laws, both liberal and conservative activist groups have sought to influence what America sees on the small screen. Public Interests describes the impressive battles that these media activists fought and charts how they tried to change the face of American television. Allison Perlman looks behind the scenes to track the strategies employed by several key groups of media reformers, from civil rights organizations like the NAACP to conservative groups like the Parents Television Council. While some of these campaigns were designed to improve the representation of certain marginalized groups in television programming, as Perlman reveals, they all strove for more systemic reforms, from early efforts to create educational channels to more recent attempts to preserve a space for Spanish-language broadcasting. Public Interests fills in a key piece of the history of American social reform movements, revealing pressure groups’ deep investments in influencing both television programming and broadcasting policy. Vividly illustrating the resilience, flexibility, and diversity of media activist campaigns from the 1950s onward, the book offers valuable lessons that can be applied to current battles over the airwaves.

This book seeks to investigate ‘platform power’ in the multi-platform era and unravels the evolution of power structures in the TV industry as a result of platformisation. Multiple TV platforms and modes of distribution are competing–not necessarily in a zero-sum game–to control the market. In the volume, the contributors work to extend established ‘platform theory’ to the TV industry, which has become increasingly organised as a platform economy. The book helps to understand how platform power arises in the industry, how it destabilises international relations, and how it is used in the global media value chain. Platform Power and Policy in Transforming Television Markets contributes to the growing field of media industry studies, and draws on scholarly work in communication, political economy and public policy whilst providing a deeper insight into the transformation of the TV industry from an economic, political and consumer level. Avoiding a merely legal analysis from a technology-driven perspective, the book provides a critical analysis of the dominant modes of power within the evolving structures of the global TV value chain.

Ralph Engelman′s history of the growth of public radio and television in America is timely, compelling, and instructive. Very useful for citizens who take seriously the need for public use of the public airwaves, which we need to remember, the people own but do not control. --Ralph Nader, Director, The Center for the Study of Responsive Law "There is no cynicism or stridency in Ralph Engelman′s definitive history of public broadcasting′s failure to fulfill its promise, only documentation of the immense problems endemic to government and corporate sponsored mass media. For models of hope, this volume acknowledges the civic discourse that has thrived in the margins of public broadcasting--in the independent community and in the homespun programming of the public access movement." --Dee Dee Halleck, Cofounder, Paper Tiger Television & Deep Dish TV "Public Radio and Television in America by Ralph Engelman effectively navigates the complex, controversial, and often maddening history of public broadcasting as a political and cultural force. Always more important than its audience size in America, public broadcasting′s promise and problems, as well as its heroes and villains, are treated effectively and well in this solid and critical analysis. The book is compact, yet sufficiently substantive and blessedly well written and well documented." --Everette E. Dennis, Executive Director, Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, editor, Media Studies Journal "Ralph Engelman′s Public Radio and Television in America is a chilling description of how noncommercial broadcasting is the tragic victim of conservative corporate politics that have spent most of this century trying to cripple and kill it." --Ben H. Bagdikian, former Dean, Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California,