in chapter 3.
The conventions of advertising and program creation were multifaceted in television’s early years. As was the case in radio, much early television featured a single sponsor for each program—as in the Texaco Star Theater—rather than the purchase of commercials by multiple corporations, a practice that later became standard. Only in the late 1950s and early 1960s did the networks eliminate the single-sponsorship format, thereby wresting substantial control of their schedule away from advertising agencies and sponsors. The earlier norm eroded precipitously in part as a result of the quiz show scandals, which revealed advertisers’ willingness to mislead audiences, but as explored in chapter 5, this erosion also had much to do with adjustments in how the networks sought to operate, as well as differences in the demands of television relative to radio. After the elimination of the single-sponsorship format, networks earned revenue from various advertisers who paid for thirty-second commercials embedded at regular intervals within programs in the manner that is still common today. Advertisers made their purchases based on network guarantees of reaching a certain audience, although many of the methods used to determine the size and composition of the audience were very limited.
Viewers had few ways to use their televisions during the network era in comparison with the television we know in the twenty-first century. Most viewers selected from fewer than a handful of options and primarily chose from three nationally distributed networks, inconsistently dispersed independent stations, and the isolated and underfunded educational television stations that became a slow-growing and still underfunded public broadcasting system. As the name implies, in the network era, U.S. “television” meant the networks ABC, CBS, and NBC.
In addition to lacking choice, network-era viewers possessed little control over the medium. Channel surfing via remote control—an activity taken for granted by contemporary viewers—did not become an option for most until the beginning of the multi-channel transition—although, as established, there were few options to surf among. Viewers possessed no recourse against network schedules, and time shifting remained beyond the realm of possibility. If the PTA bake sale was scheduled for Thursday night, that week’s visit with The Waltons could not be rescheduled or delayed.
In the network era, television was predominantly a nonportable, domestic medium, with most homes owning just one set. Even by 1970, only 32.2 percent of homes had more than one television.4 The communication scholar James Webster describes television in this era as an “old medium,” in which programming was uniform, uncorrelated with channels, and universally available.5 Such basic characteristics of technological use and accessibility contributed to the programming strategies of the era in important ways. Network programmers knew that the whole family commonly viewed television together, and they consequently selected programs and designed a schedule likely to be acceptable to, although perhaps not most favored by, the widest range of viewers—a strategy the CBS vice president of programming Paul Klein described as “least objectionable programming.”6 This was the era of broadcasting, in which networks selected programs that would reach a heterogeneous mass culture, but still directed their address to the white middle class. This mandate was integral to the business design of the networks and led to a competitive strategy in which they did not attempt to significantly differentiate their programming or clearly brand themselves with distinctive identities, as is common today.
The network era featured very specific terms of engagement for the audience regardless of the broader distinctions in how the industry created that programming or how the business of television operated. Viewers grew accustomed to arbitrary norms of practice—many of which were established in radio—such as a limited range of genres, certain types of programming scheduled at particular times of day, the television “season,” and reruns. These unexceptional network-era conventions appeared “natural” and “just how television is” to such a degree that altering these norms seemed unimaginable. However, adjustments in the television industry during the multi-channel transition revealed the arbitrary quality of these practices and enabled critics, industry workers, and entrepreneurs to envision radically different possibilities for television.
As the arrival of technologies that provided television viewers with unprecedented choice and control initiated an end to the network era, the multi-channel transition profoundly altered the television experience. To be sure, many network-era practices remained dominant throughout the multi-channel transition, but during the twenty-year period that began in the mid-1980s and extended through the early years of the twenty-first century, these practices were challenged to such a degree that their preeminent status eroded.
The Multi-Channel Transition
Beginning in the 1980s, the television industry experienced two decades of gradual change. New technologies, including the remote control, videocassette recorder, and analog cable systems, expanded viewers’ choice and control; producers adjusted to government regulations that forced the networks to relinquish some of their control over the terms of program creation;7 nascent cable channels and new broadcast networks added to viewers’ content choices and eroded the dominance of ABC, CBS, and NBC; subscription channels launched and introduced an advertising-free form of television programming; and methods for measuring audiences grew increasingly sophisticated with the deployment of Nielsen’s People Meter. As in the network era, this constellation of industrial norms led to a particular viewer experience of television and enabled a certain range of programming. Many of these industrial practices are explored in greater depth in chapters 2 through 6, which focus on new norms emerging in production processes, including technology, program creation, distribution, financing, and audience measurement, and how these norms adjusted the type of programming the industry creates. In introducing this distinction between the multi-channel transition and the post-network era here, we must first establish the difference in viewers’ experience of television. The subsequent chapters then detail the modifications in industrial practices that introduced these changes for viewers.
The common television experience was altered primarily as a result of expanded choice and control introduced during the multi-channel transition. As competition arising from the creation of new broadcast networks, such as FOX (1986), the WB (1995), and UPN (1995), expanded broadcast viewing options, a rapidly growing array of cable channels also drew viewers away from broadcast networks. The combined broadcast share—the percentage of those watching television who watched broadcast networks—declined from 90 to 64 during the 1980s, and that percentage was shared by six broadcast competitors instead of three.8 Broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, the WB, and UPN) collected an average of only 58 percent of those watching television at the conclusion of the 1999–2000 season, and only 46 percent by the end of the 2004–2005 season.9 Alternative distribution systems such as cable and satellite enabled a new abundance of viewing options, and 56 percent of television households subscribed to them by 1990—a figure that grew to 85 percent of households by 2004.10
The development of new technology that increased consumer control also facilitated viewers’ break from the network-era television experience. Audiences first found this control in the form of the remote control devices (RCDs) that became standard in the 1980s. The dissemination of VCR technology further enabled them to select when to view content and to build personal libraries. For many, the availability of cable, remote control devices, and VCRs resulted in significant change all at once. The diffusion of these technologies was complexly interrelated. Viewers did not need to purchase a new remote-equipped set to gain use of an RCD. Many who acquired cable boxes and VCRs first accessed RCDs with these devices, while the new range of channels offered by cable and the control capabilities of VCRs expanded viewers’ need for remotes.11
Substantial changes within the walls of the home also altered how audiences used television during the multi-channel
