science

Television in the United States

Television in the United States is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Television in the United States rather than just read about it. In short: Television is one of the major mass media outlets in the United States. In 2011, 96.7% of households owned television sets; about 114,200,000 American households owned at least one television set each in August 2013.

Key takeaways

Television in the United States belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Television in the United States to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Television in the United States from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Television is one of the major mass media outlets in the United States. In 2011, 96.7% of households owned television sets; about 114,200,000 American households owned at least one television set each in August 2013. Most households have more than one set. The percentage of households owning at least one television set peaked at 98.4%, in the 1996–1997 season. In 1948, 1 percent of U.S. households owned at least one television; in 1955, 75 percent did. In 1992, 60 percent of all U.S. households had cable television subscriptions. However, this number has fallen to 40% in 2024. As a whole, the television networks that broadcast in the United States are the largest and most distributed in the world, and programs produced specifically for American networks are the most widely syndicated internationally. Because of a surge in the number and popularity of critically acclaimed television series in the 2000s and the 2010s, many critics have said that American television has entered a modern golden age; whether that golden age has ended or is ongoing in the early 2020s is disputed.

Television channels and networks In the United States, television is available via broadcast (also known as "over-the-air" or OTA) and four conventional types of multichannel subscription television: cable, unencrypted satellite ("free-to-air"), direct-broadcast satellite television and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV). OTA is the earliest method of receiving television programming, which only requires an antenna and an equipped internal or external tuner capable of picking up channels that transmit on the two principal broadcast bands, very high frequency (VHF) and ultra high frequency (UHF). Individual broadcast television stations in the U.S. transmit on either VHF channels 2 through 13 or UHF channels 14 through 36. During the era of analog television, broadcast stations transmitted on a single universal channel; however due to the technical complexities of the present digital television standard, most stations now transmit physically on an RF channel that is mapped to a virtual channel, which – with some exceptions – typically differs from their physical allocation and corresponds to the station's former analog channel. The UHF band originally spanned from channels 14 to 83, though the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has reduced the bandwidth allocation for UHF three times since then. Channels 70 to 83 were cut for emergency and other telecommunications purposes in 1983. In 2009, channels 52 to 69 were removed by mandate at the completion of the transition from analog to digital television. In 2020, transition away from channels above 36 was completed to make room for its use by telecommunications companies, after a 2017 spectrum auction. As in other countries, television stations require a license to broadcast legally (which any prospective broadcaster can apply for through the FCC) and must comply with certain requirements (such as those involving programming of public affairs and educational interest, and regulations prohibiting the airing of indecent content) to retain it; the FCC's Board of Commissioners maintains oversight of the renewal of existing station licenses approaching their expiration, with individuals or groups who wish to oppose the granting of a renewal to a licensee based on any disagreement over rule compliance or any other issues inclined to contest it for consideration of revocation. Free-to-air and subscription television networks, however, are not required to file for a license to operate. Over-the-air and free-to-air television do not necessitate any monthly payments, while cable, direct broadcast satellite (DBS), IPTV and virtual MVPD services require monthly payments that vary depending on the number of channels that a subscriber chooses to pay for in a particular package. Channels are usually sold in groups (known as "tiers"), rather than singularly (or on an a la carte basis). Most conventional subscription television services offer a limited basic (or "lifeline") tier, a minimum base package that includes only broadcast stations within the television market where the service is located, and public, educational, and government access (PEG) cable channels; in many smaller markets, this tier may offer stations from adjacent markets that act as default network affiliates for areas not served by a local affiliate of one or more of the major broadcast networks; however, since the digital television transition in the late 2000s, these have been replaced in some cases by digital subchannels that have agreed to provide a particular network's programming within the local market. Elevated programming tiers commonly start with an expanded basic package, offering a selection of subscription channels intended for wide distribution (primarily those that launched between the 1970s and the 1990s); since the upspring of digital cable and satellite television during the mid- and late 1990s, additional channels with more limited distribution are offered as add-ons to the basic packages through separate tiers, which are commonly organized based on the programming format of the channels sold in the tier. A la carte subscription services in the US are primarily limited to pay television (more commonly known as "premium") channels that are offered as add-ons to any programming package that a customer of a multichannel video programming distributor (also known as a cable or satellite "system" or "provider") can subscribe to for an additional monthly fee.

Broadcast television

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Television in the United States

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Television in the United States claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Television in the United States before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Television in the United States ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Television in the United States

In research: Television in the United States appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Television in the United States in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Television in the United States is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Television by country, Television in the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Television in the United States outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Television in the United States in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Television in the United States means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Television in the United States out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Television in the United States in simple terms?

Why does Television in the United States matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Television in the United States?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Television in the United States.