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WHEN DID AMERICAN TV GET GOOD?

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yotsuya:
Are You Being Served? is one of my all-time favorites.

Monkeyvoodoo:


--- Quote from: jdbailey1206 on June 19, 2013, 03:25:02 pm ---Chris if you are looking for good, and I mean GOOD!, American television I would have to recommend Dexter.  It's about a serial killer who kills of all things serial killers.  And I can't believe in this whole conversation no one would mention Monty Python's Flying Circus.  Blasphemy.     :)

--- End quote ---

Have you come for an argument?

I assumed Monty Python would be a given so I never mentioned it.


Sent from a pineapple under the sea

ark_ader:
In the UK you pay a television license that costs about $150 a year.  You HAVE TO PAY this license if you own a television set, or a HDMI monitor hooked up to a satellite receiver.  IF you own a radio and no television YOU HAVE TO get a radio license.  This fee goes towards content for BBC 1, 2 and BBC Radio.  We also have ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 but these are paid by advertisements, but for some reason get subsidised by the BBC.  Oh and yes that is right we had only 6 terrestrial TV channels before digital subscriber television.  The BBC had a van that went around and checked if you had a license and you would get £1000 fine if caught.

In the states terrestrial TV is free.  One of the big culture shocks that my family experienced when they emigrated from the UK in the 1950's was the TV selection.  Now I don't know about programming in Texas or New York, but In California we got some decent television stations broadcasting some classic shows with frequent advertisement interruptions.  Same time period flipping over the pond saw the BBC switching on at 1pm (for Pebble Mill) some kids shows like andy pandy or bill & ben and the news followed by sign off until 4pm for regular programming until 11pm.  That is all you got for the BBC as there was only one channel.  So you can see from the early days programming was experimental and archived and reused way before syndication.

Fast forward a few years and we are back to the 6 channels, but say in the 1970 and 80's television programming was breaking records with shows like I Claudius,  Dr Who, Coronation Street, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and a bunch of the classic comedy like Benny Hill and Monty Python, Only Fools and Horses. 

So the money for these shows was paid by the British public, where as shows from HBO are voluntary subscriber base.  This also is from the paid subscriber cable model of ON and SELECT TV where these companies would provide Pay Per View shows and those laughable Scratch and Sniff Movies....

So American TV was always good prior to 1990s like All in in The Family, Columbo, Home Improvement to name a few,  but now with the attention of major movie stars being involved in TV shows makes the revenue stream much much bigger.  TV stations can afford big budget shows like Lost or Buffy... jk


Where the revenue stream was and still is funded by British public and we are talking billions of pounds every year.  Only recently we are seeing some fruits of infrastructure decisions of the 1980s with BBC iPLAYER and getting additional revenue from BBC America but that money goes to the bonuses of the BBC executives.


Now with Netflix and LoveFilm streaming BBC and ABC shows I wonder if the syndication arena will become the next big TV content producer.  Arrested Development via Netflix for example?


Well you won't need a BBC TV license or will you?  :lol

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_television_drama
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1970s_American_television_series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1980s_American_television_series

Turvey:

--- Quote from: ark_ader on June 19, 2013, 04:53:30 pm ---In the UK you pay a television license that costs about $150 a year.  You HAVE TO PAY this license if you own a television set, or a HDMI monitor hooked up to a satellite receiver.  IF you own a radio and no television YOU HAVE TO get a radio license. 

--- End quote ---

UK TV license actually works out at about $225 and the radio license was abolished in 1971 http://www.radiolicence.org.uk/licence1970s.html  ;)

Chris John Hunter:

Ark is almost right.

In November 1936. The BBC Television Service was launched. Which expanded BBC from Radio to TV and Radio.
In the past you needed a licence for Radio. But when television came into being in the UK it was incorporated into the TV licence. They renamed it BBC TV in 1960. In 1964 we got BBC2. And BBC TV became BBC1.

Independent Television (as it wasn't funded by the licence. Which became advert funded ITV) was launched in 1955.
Then nothing happened for almost 3 decades!!.

In Feb 83 we got both Breakfast Time (BBC1) and TV-am(ITV) which became the first morning tv broadcasts. Both ran from 6-9.30 Am.

In 1983 a forth channel with a different remit came out, Channel 4. We then got around 84 if I remember kids tv and afternoon tv.


And at this time BBC1 [/]each night turned off around midnight after playing God Save The Queen, our national anthem. (This only changed in the Autumn of 1997 in the event of the death of Princess Diana. Where they kept rolling the events on a continuity news broadcast after which BBCNews24 came into effect. So after TV ends on BBC1 it goes into a rolling news channel until 6am when Breakfast takes over)

L!VE TV was launched in 1995. It was owned by the people behind our most popular Mirror newspaper. It is only significant for three reasons: 1, It was crap. 2, no one could get it because the signal was so poor. 3, they had shows like TOPLESS DARTS which NEWS BUNNY where a bird would strip whilst reading the news ! It was canned in [/]October 1999.


Channel 5 was launched in 1997. Then in 99, L!VE TV ended due to only have 1% audience share.


Back to 5 channels. For most of us as British Sky Broadcasting Group plc SKY[/] was launched in 1990. This was PAY TV via satellite dish. BSKB is part owned by BBC. I am unsure how this came about.

But anyway, its only in the last five years we as a nation have brought digital boxes for digital tv because the broadcasting equipment for non digital was switched off. Now we have loads of channels. Which is great.

And in the last 3 years most of us brought DVRs, and a lot of NON sky providers sprang up. Virgin run by Richard Branson is cable. So is British Telecom (owned by the phone people) and then you've SKY. Owned by that ozzie ---Bad words, bad words, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when saint censors you?--- who owns half the world.


The TV Licence is needed weather you watch BBC tv or not. If you don't watch live tv and only watch on demand and catchup players its free.

I am still enjoying that new out of the box feeling of being able to PUASE LIVE TV. And all these channels! I currently have about 40.

You guys seem to have millions of channels you lucky gits! Now I can watch some of the best of US tv such as History and HBO as ON DEMAND on my tv

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