TV as a medium

Photo: Marcelo Poleze_Dreamstime.

TV is an abbreviation for television. TV conveys information and entertainment. You can watch news from home and abroad, films, documentaries and TV series. On the radio we get only the sound, and in the newspapers we can see pictures with text, but on TV all of this is combined in an exciting way with both sound and images.

The first TV broadcasts were made in the USA, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union before 1940. The first official TV broadcast in Norway was on 20 August, 1960. TV has become more advanced with time. First there was just a TV set with one button and one channel, and the transmissions were in black and white. Now we can choose from among hundreds of channels, and we have techniques that allow us to record broadcasts, stop them and “rewind”, according to each person’s needs.

Commercials

Many TV channels send commercials between and during programmes. TV is an effective medium to use when you want to get people to buy a product. There are a large number of people watching, and you can use sound and images in a persuasive way. Commercials are an important part of the financing of many channels. In Norway we have one channel, NRK, that does not broadcast commercials. Everyone who has a TV must pay a tax every year. This money is used to finance the TV shows broadcast on NRK.

Age groups

TV shows, and the times they are broadcast, are tailored to different age groups. Early in the morning we can see breakfast programmes with, for example, interviews, news and cooking. There are also cartoons and features for small children. These programmes are targeted at adults before they go to work, or for people staying at home and small children.

Later in the day, when teenagers begin to come home from school, there are several TV series. These series are broadcast until the news programmes begin. Then the adults are ready to watch TV.

In the course of the evening the programmes are varied, but the groups that are targeted are teenagers and adults. Late in the evening series and films with more violence begin to be shown. The reason that these are broadcast late in the evening is to prevent children from seeing these programmes.