Chapter 1: How Did Movies Get Started? - Lecture Script

Activity 11, page 10: Introduction to the History of Movie Production

Going to the movies is as popular today as it ever was. Do you know anything about where and how movies were first made and shown to the public? And among the American inventors, which one is usually given credit for inventing the movie camera? Well, you’ll soon find out, and you’ll also learn why Hollywood, California became so popular for making movies.

We’re going to cover a long period of time during this lecture. To start, I’m going to give you a short background of the inventions and inventors related to movie equipment. This all took place toward the end of the 19th century. Then we’re going to jump to the very beginning of the 20th century and talk about how a few people tried to monopolize, or completely control, the movie business. Finally, I’ll discuss how this monopolization, among other reasons, caused many movie producers to move out

Activity 12, Part 1, page 10: History of Movie Production

Going to the movies is as popular today as it ever was. Do you know anything about where and how movies were first made and shown to the public? And among the American inventors, which one is usually given credit for inventing the movie camera? Well, you’ll soon find out, and you’ll also learn why Hollywood, California became so popular for making movies.

We’re going to cover a long period of time during this lecture. To start, I’m going to give you a short background of the inventions and inventors related to movie equipment. This all took place toward the end of the 19th century. Then we’re going to jump to the very beginning of the 20th century and talk about how a few people tried to monopolize, or completely control, the movie business. Finally, I’ll discuss how this monopolization, among other reasons, caused many movie producers to move out west to Hollywood, California during the first couple of decades of the 20th century.

So let’s start with the people—the inventors who were responsible for the development of the machines used to make movies, which were the cameras of course, and those used to show movies—the projectors. Thomas Edison is probably one of the most well-known American inventors. Can you think of other inventions Edison is famous for? Think about the electric lamp and the phonograph. Do any of you own a stereo with a record player or have you ever used one?

OK, let’s get back to Edison, who patented over 1,000 inventions in the United States. But this word patent is important. If you patent something, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are the original inventor, or creator. What it means is that you get the rights to manufacture and sell an invention. And this was the case with the movie camera. Edison did not invent it, but he was responsible for improving and distributing the camera in the US.

Edison worked with a British inventor named William Dickson on two different machines—the kinetograph and the kinetoscope. Now, the former was a heavy camera used to record movement, or to make the movie; the latter, the kinetoscope, was used to view the movie. Edison patented this kinetoscope in 1891 and three years later on April 14th, 1894, parlors with these machines opened to the public in New York. Before the end of that same year, parlors opened in London, Berlin, and Paris. Now, parlors are just a fancy name for a room. These parlors were used to set up several kinetoscopes because only one person could use a machine at a time. One person, one kinetoscope. Edison was a business person; he was convinced he could make the most money this way.

However, there were other inventors responsible for developing other types of movie projectors. Around the same time in France, the Lumiere brothers, named August and Louis, invented the first projector, not camera, but projector, called the cinematographe, in 1895. Unlike Edison’s kinetoscope, this machine could show movies to several spectators simultaneously, which means at the same time.

In addition to being inventors, the Lumiere brothers were also filmmakers. One of their first films was about a train pulling into a station. It may seem funny to us today, but since the public was not used to seeing moving pictures, many people who saw the movie were terrified, jumped to the floor, and hid under their chairs because they thought the train was coming at them. You can’t really compare it to the special effects of movies today, but if you think about it, the Lumiere brothers were tapping into the most fascinating aspect of movies—audience involvement.

You can imagine that Edison was probably getting jealous of the Lumiere brothers over in the US. So, to keep up with this competition in France, Edison patented, and you remember the word patented, the rights in 1896 to a projector that was originally created by another inventor named Thomas Armat. Edison then renamed the projector for himself, calling it the Edison Vitascope. He had a big ego! This was the beginning of Edison’s attempts to make the most money possible and control the movie industry.

So, let’s turn to the beginning of the 20th century, when Edison and his business partners tried to monopolize the film industry in the same way that other business people in the US were trying to control other parts of the economy. Some of you might remember studying about Ford with the automobile industry and Rockefeller and the oil industry.

Activity 12, Part 2: Monopolization of Movie Industry

In December 1908, Edison and nine other producers formed the Motion Picture Patents Company—that’s MPPC. The Motion Picture Patents Company. The MPPC set up many rules for all movie producers to follow, and if they didn’t, they faced legal problems. One of the rules was to keep movies short because they believed, although the Lumiere brothers probably thought differently, that audiences wouldn’t want to sit for a long time and watch a movie. Second, the MPPC didn’t give actors any credit for the movie so that they wouldn’t ask for more money. In other words, the MPPC didn’t want the names of the actors to be recognized by audiences, which is obviously much different from what we have today. Third, in order to make the most money, they only distributed movies to those who used equipment and film that was patented. An example of this is George Eastman of Kodak film. Do you know the name? He got in on the money-making prospects and sold his film only to producers who were authorized by the MPPC. Lastly, the MPPC controlled the price of the ticket. If the MPPC found out that studios were not following their rules, they sent people to interrupt the filming and even threatened to stop the distribution of the film.

So, let’s talk about the effects that all of these rules and regulations probably had on many independent movie producers at this time. It was pretty obvious that many would not want to and did not want to follow the MPPC’s rules, so some producers decided to leave the east coast and go to…where do you think? That’s right. California. The movie producers could be further away from the MPPC and they could also avoid legal problems with the MPPC by running across the border to Mexico to make their movies. However, there were several other reasons that made California a better place to make movies. Can you think of some other practical factors? If you were thinking about the great weather in California, you are right. Since most filming occurred outdoors during this time, a lot of natural light was necessary year round. Secondly, there was a lot of cheap land without a lot of people at that time to use. In addition, think about where Los Angeles, California is located. It’s close to the ocean, it’s close to the desert, and it’s also close to mountains. In other words, the geography of California provided a variety of locations with different backgrounds for filming different types of movies. Lastly, many Americans and immigrants were starting to move out west; this migration provided a large cheap labor market for movie producers.

Let’s wrap things up with a list of the developments that happened quickly in Hollywood in the early 20th century. In 1911, the first studio was built on a site on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, which you may have heard of. And by 1912, there were 15 studios in the area. That’s a lot of development in one year. And in 1912, the US government started looking more closely at the MPPC as a monopoly and subsequently, it lost its power in 1915 after three independent studios, Paramount, Fox, and Universal filed a legal suit against the MPPC and won. This was the end of one important era in Hollywood just before the invention of the television, which we’ll talk about at a later time.

Activity 26, page 24: The Hollywood “Code”: Before and After

The last time I lectured, we talked about the history of movie-making and Hollywood up until the early part of the 20th century. We talked about inventors, inventions and different organizations that played important roles in making Hollywood the center of the entertainment world.

Today I’d like to shift to a period of Hollywood’s history that not many people know a lot about. This was the time between the two world wars: WWI and WWII. This was an interesting time for the movie industry. Directors and producers actually started to regulate themselves, or to give themselves some rules. We’ll also talk a little about the 1950s and 1960s when the movie rating system that we’re familiar with today got started.

After WWI, about what year was this? Yes, that’s right, 1918 marked the end of the war, and shortly after that, many Americans felt a lot of freedom from old rules about how people should dress and act. It was at this time, for example, when women’s skirts got much shorter because they no longer felt the need to wear long dresses with collars up to their chins. This freedom was also reflected in the types of movies that were made. There were some movies with scenes about prostitution, drugs, and murder. Many movie producers thought, “Hey, it is my constitutional right to make any kind of movie I want,” but others were starting to think that some movies were getting out of hand.

So in 1919, the Supreme Court of the United States tried to make some regulations about movies. However, many movie directors didn’t want the government to control their movies, so they decided to form their own organization to control themselves. Ok, are you all ready for more initials to memorize? In 1922, a self-regulatory organization called the MPPDA was formed. MPPDA stands for the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association. The MPPDA. In 1934, this organization released the MPPC, which is not the same MPPC as mentioned in the first lecture. This MPPC is the Motion Picture Production Code. Does anyone know what “code” means? Remember it was actually the directors and producers who were writing rules to regulate their own movies, so they’re the ones who put this code together. The code banned many words from movies that had sexual meaning such as broad, hot, whore, and fairy. I don’t think I should write these words on the board! It also said that bedroom scenes could only take place between married people who were fully clothed and slept in two separate twin beds. Another rule was that long kisses were no longer allowed. Any director who did not follow these rules had to pay a $25,000 fine. A few famous films you might be familiar with that were made under these rules were Citizen Kane and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

You would think this code might hurt the industry financially, but in fact, the 1930s and 40s were very popular decades for movies. This was the period of the economic Depression after the stock market crash, and since the content of most movies was appropriate for everyone, including children, movies were an inexpensive form of entertainment accessible to many people. So people without jobs or much money could forget their problems by going into the fantasy world of a movie like Gone with the Wind, which was released in 1939.

By the 1950s, however, Hollywood started challenging some of the MPPC rules because movies had to compete with a new form of entertainment. Any ideas what this was? That’s right—television. So, in 1966, yet another organization made up of people within the movie industry, developed the MPA—yes, there are yet more initials—and this is one that you are familiar with today…the Motion Picture Association, the MPA rating system. This organization, however, did not control the content of the movies; it just informed the audience of the content of movies. In other words, if you saw a movie that had a rating of G, PG, PG-13, or R, you could make the decision whether you wanted to see it. With this rating system, movies can be made that have a lot of violence or sex, but viewers are warned ahead of time so that they can make their own decision about whether to see the movie.

Topic Sentence Examples

Topic Sentences and Controlling Ideas

Every topic sentence will have a topic and a controlling idea. The controlling idea shows the direction the paragraph will take.

Here are some examples:

·         Topic Sentence: There are many reasons why pollution in ABC Town is the worst in the world.  

·         The topic is “pollution in ABC Town is the worst in the world” and the controlling idea is “many reasons.”

·         Topic Sentence: To be an effective CEO requires certain characteristics. 

·         The topic is “To be an effective CEO” and the controlling idea is "certain characteristics." 

·         Topic Sentence: There are many possible contributing factors to global warming.

·         The topic is "global warming" and the controlling idea is "contributing factors." 

·         Topic Sentence: Fortune hunters encounter many difficulties when exploring a shipwreck.  

·         The topic is “exploring a shipwreck” and the controlling idea is “many difficulties.”

·         Topic Sentence: Dogs make wonderful pets because they help you to live longer. 

·         The topic is "dogs make wonderful pets" and the controlling idea is "because they help you to live longer."

·         Topic Sentence: Crime in poverty-stricken areas occurs as a result of a systemic discrimination. 

·         The topic is "crime in poverty stricken areas" and the controlling idea is "systemic discrimination." 

·         Topic Sentence: Teen pregnancy may be prevented by improved education.

·         The topic is "teen pregnancy may be prevented" and the controlling idea is "improved education."

·         Topic Sentence: Cooking requires a number of different skills.

·         The topic is "cooking" and the controlling idea is "many different skills."

·         Topic Sentence: It is important to be ready before buying a house.

·         The topic is "buying a house" and the controlling idea is it's "important to be ready." 

·         Topic Sentence: Graduating from high school is important for many different reasons.

·         The topic is "graduating from high school" and the controlling idea is "many different reasons."

·         Topic Sentence: Having a first child is difficult because of the significant adjustments in your life. 

·         The topic is "having a first child" and the controlling idea is "significant adjustments in your life."

·         Topic Sentence: Remodeling a kitchen successfully requires research and a good eye. 

·         The topic is "remodeling a kitchen" and the controlling idea is "requires research and a good eye."

Academic Vocabulary List

Hey guys! These following academic words from the book will be frequently used in our class.  So make sure you know meaning of these words and you should be able to use them in a sentence.  

Chapter 2: How’d They Do That? - Lecture Script

Activity 10, p. 38: Using Computers to Make Movies

When we think of how different people use computer animation, many different types of jobs come to mind. The airline industry, for example, uses computer animation to train pilots. Can you think of other jobs in which computer animation is used? That’s right, and also think of engineers that use computer animation to design. In other words, there are several different areas where animation is used.

When we think of computer animation and media, animated movies and movies with special effects come to mind. These days, movie directors rely more and more on the knowledge of computer animators. For example, computer animation can be used to enhance background scenery or create characters in movies. In fact, most movies we see today use some kind of computer-generated additions.

Think about some of the movies you have seen in the past couple of years. Do you remember any computer-animated characters? Many animators used advanced software to create three-dimensional characters and machines in movies such as Toy Story I and II, Jurassic Park, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Bug’s Life, etc. We see the characters in the movies months or even years after they were designed, but have you ever thought about how the three-dimensional characters are first created? That’s our focus today. I’m going to explain the different steps in the process of creating these characters.

CGI, or computer-generated imagery processes are similar to traditional animation techniques except that a computer is used instead of pens, pencils, and paper or a drawing board. In addition, computers allow animators to create characters much more quickly than in the past. What used to take weeks may now only take days or even hours. However, much skill is needed in CGI. In addition to knowing how to use the technology, animators also need to have some artistic talent.

The first step an animator takes is to build a computer model of a character that will move and maybe talk. The animator designs this model with lines and points in three-dimensional space on the computer. This is called a wireframe. The process of building the model is called wireframing. Look back on the first page of this chapter, page 26, to see the example of a wireframe in the first illustration on the left. At this point, you can see there are no details like color or texture on the model.

By the way, there are other ways to create a wireframe besides designing one on the computer. Animators can also create a character by using a special digital pen to touch points on a model. The information from the pen then gets transferred to the computer. It's even possible to make a wireframe model from a real person by using something called a cyberscanner. For example, I want you to imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger’s face right now. A computer animator can scan Arnold’s big head with a cyberscanner to make a wireframe model that he/she can change depending on what the director needs. Why do you think a computer-animated Arnold would be useful to a movie director? That’s right. These digital equivalents of actors' faces can also be used for stunt doubles or other situations where the live actor will not be used. Whatever method is used, the wireframe construction is the first step for the computer animator.

Let’s go on to the second step. After the wireframes are created, the animator can add shading to the models. Keep in mind, shading is not the same thing as color. These are different shades of gray depending on the position of the light. Lighting, of course, is essential to create realistic-looking characters. This second step also helps animators detect problems that were not visible in the wireframes. Again, look back at page 26 to see a shaded version of the wireframe in the second drawing.

The third very important step is called rendering. That’s r-e-n-d-e-r-i-n-g. Look at the third and fourth drawings on page 26. Since the computer generated head at the second step (shading) still has sharp line edges, the animator needs to smooth out these lines to make it even more realistic looking. Sophisticated commercial software is often used at this point. This software was used in movies such as Monsters, Inc., Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and Men in Black II. Each of the frames, and keep in mind one second contains twenty-four frames, takes about 6 hours to render. Some frames in the movie Toy Story took up to 90 hours. By using software, the animator can add color, bumps, and hair, to make the characters appear alive.” That’s three things: color, bumps, and hair. The advancement in the software has saved animators a lot of time.

Finally, the rendered computer model can be animated. This includes a process called keyframing. As I said earlier, each second of film has 24 frames, but only three or four of these are considered key frames. Do you remember what key means when we talk about note-taking? Yes, you’re right. These are the important frames during which an object changes its size, direction, shape or other properties. In computer animation, the animator designs or chooses the key frames and guess what? The computer then fills in the rest of the movements and saves a lot of time. Again, this is done with special software. The computer does this all mathematically, unlike the time-consuming task of drawing each of the frames or moving and filming models little by little to show movement. However, even though it may seem easier for animators with the computer, complex movements in facial expressions make it difficult to make completely realistic human characters.

To wrap things up, you should make sure that you understand the major steps in creating computer-generated characters: wireframing, shading, rendering, and keyframing. I will give you a quiz on Friday with four short answer questions, so you should ask each other questions and fill in your notes to make sure you have all the information. Thanks for your participation today.

Activity 19, page 50: Movie Production Stages 

We talked the other day about how computer-generated characters are created, but when are they actually inserted into a movie? Obviously, making a movie involves many different steps, but there are basically three main stages of production: pre-production, the actual filming of the live footage, and post-production.

Before any of these stages can occur, of course, there has to be a great idea for a movie. Then a director is found to lead the production of the movie and choose the numerous people that are involved. In a film that requires computer animation, a director may want to work with a particular computer animation company. On the other hand, several different companies may try to convince a director they can design the desired effects in the movie.

So, let’s start with the first stage—pre-production. Let’s pretend the director is chosen and the film crew is established. The first step in this stage is when storyboards are created. Storyboards…that’s story and boards. These are collections of drawings that include some description and technical instructions to describe the camera shots. Storyboards look a little like comic books, except instead of dialog, the scene is described in words to accompany the drawings. In the end, a movie might have as many as 2,000 shots in these storyboards that are all put together to make the final product. The idea of storyboards may seem old-fashioned when talking about all this advanced technology, but it is still necessary to create collections of drawings to see what scenes will be necessary.

Next, the various teams of the movie are given their assignments. These teams include a group that works on set design and construction. Another group is responsible for going out and looking for appropriate places for the “on-location shots” for example, shots in a particular city, climate, etc. Another team works on preparing any stunts that will be included. Animatronics, that’s a-n-i-m-a-t-r-o-n-i-c-s, animatronics specialists are brought in if there are any physical special effects with robotized animals. There are also roups that prepare the cameras, lights, sound equipment, wardrobe, etc. You get the idea. Just watch the credits next time you see a movie and you’ll see the hundreds of people who are involved in making a movie. So, of course there is a CGI team that starts the development process for all the computer-generated shots that will appear in the movie.

During the second stage of the movie production, the actual footage is filmed. This is the “lights, camera, action” part of the process. The CGI experts may be called in at this point to provide advice on the recording of the movements of human beings to be used for digital characters or digitized scenes to be created in the post-production phase. For example, this is the stage when the actors in Jurassic Park had to “act” like they were being chased by dinosaurs even though the dinosaurs were not really there. The CGI people help the actors be more realistic.

Finally, it’s in the post-production stage when the CGI experts do most of their work. This team includes a variety of people including software developers, visual effects supervisors, art directors, technical directors, producers, model makers, animators, editors, camera operators, etc. For example, a special effects supervisor might oversee the best way to give human emotions to inanimate objects or animals. A model maker may work with a model of a cat and digitize it on the computer. This results in the wireframe models we talked about earlier. Other digital effects that may be worked on in this post-production stage include enhancing live-action shots like adding computerized snow or other types of weather to particular scenes.

All in all, although post-production is the busiest time for animators, they play an important role throughout the whole process of making a movie

Chapter 3: Can You Hear Me Now?- Lecture Script

Activity 8, page 62: Interpersonal vs. Mass Communication

OK now you should be more familiar with the three models of communication. Today we're going to use terms from those models to discuss some of the major differences between interpersonal and mass communication.

Let’s go back to definitions of interpersonal and mass communication. Do you remember some of the examples? If your mother yells at you for coming home at 4:00 a.m., this is an example of what kind of communication? That’s right. Interpersonal communication is traditionally face-to-face, generally between two people.

Mass communication, on the other hand, is the production and distribution of an identical message to a very large and diverse audience using some sort of technology. Let me repeat that, mass communication is the production and distribution of an identical message to a very large and diverse audience using some sort of technology. It is not face-to-face. The TV show Friends and the publication of a magazine like Newsweek are examples.

With these definitions in mind, let’s compare interpersonal and mass communication in more detail. The models you read about had similar components. Does anyone remember what those were? Yes you’re right, source and receiver, or destination, were two of them. We’ll also talk about message and noise. I am going to go through each component, pointing out similarities and differences between interpersonal and mass communication.

Let's start with the source. In interpersonal communication, the source is an individual like you or me who decides to send a message. Perhaps you want to ask someone to go to lunch or signal to your friend across the room that you’ll call him later. Likewise, in mass communication, there is also always a source. However, instead of an individual, the source is usually a team of people. A professional team. Let's take the cable sports network ESPN. How many people do you think were involved in announcing yesterday’s sports results? There are several ESPN producers, dozens of reporters at each game, the camera crew, and many others.

Another difference is the amount of control the source has. In interpersonal communication, when we speak to another person face-to-face, we have a lot of control over what we want to say and how and when we want to say it, including our tone. On the other hand, in mass communication, such as in the publication of a newspaper, a single person doesn't have total control. At least we hope not. There are reporters and editors. There are printers and distributors. And, of course, the advertisers have more control than we may even think about, but we’ll talk about that in a later chapter. To sum up the idea of control, you should simply understand that there is much less individual control in mass communication than in interpersonal communication.

The next component is the message. In both types of communication, messages are sent to entertain, to inform, or to persuade. Which of the models you read about used the word “encoding”? Yes, you’re right. It was Schramm who showed how in interpersonal communication, the source encodes the message either verbally or nonverbally using words or gestures that he/she knows or hopes the receiver will understand. Therefore, the message is flexible; if the source gets any negative feedback, like someone making a face to show she/he doesn’t understand something, the source can modify the message.

Encoding also takes place in mass communication messages. In this case, the message includes the work of a production team using special effects such as sounds or color, depending on the medium. For example, the message might be encoded in text, like in books, in pictures, like in a billboard, in text and pictures like in magazines, or in moving images with sounds like in films or without sound like in digitized animation on a web page. Unlike interpersonal communication, the message in mass communication is not flexible at all because of the lack of immediate feedback, which we'll talk about later.

OK we still need to talk about the receiver. The big difference between interpersonal communication and mass communication is the level of interaction between the source and the receiver. Since the receiver in interpersonal communication is usually just one person, most likely the source has direct contact with this person. On the other hand, the receivers in mass communication include a large and diverse audience, perhaps millions of people. The source has little or no contact with them because they are spread out geographically perhaps all over the world. Because of the size of the audience they deal with, many media organizations feel that they have to assume their receivers are quite average. This is why newspapers are generally written at the fifth-grade reading level to reach to largest number of readers/receivers.

Before we wrap things up, I’d like to talk about something called noise. Do you remember this concept from the Shannon-Weaver model? Noise can cause messages to be inaccurate. There are two types of noise: physical or semantic. Physical noise is an easy concept to understand. Examples of physical noise include static on your cell phone or a plane flying overhead. Semantic, that’s s-e-m-a-n-t-i-c, noise is something that “gets in the way” of communication such as someone you’re talking to using a gesture that is new or offensive to you. There is no physical noise preventing you from hearing the message, but you can’t decode the message as intended by the source because you’re distracted by the “noise”—the semantic noise—the gestures. Noise can be even more disastrous in mass communication. For example, a satellite dish going out during a storm, a big scratch on your new DVD, a smudged article in USA Today, or a web page that cannot be loaded due to a bad link results in unsuccessful communication.

So now you have more information of the major players in interpersonal and mass communication: source, message, receiver, and noise. You’ll probably become more aware now of how and what you say to your friends today as well as the messages that mass media send to you on a daily basis. And you can certainly expect to find these concepts and terms on the mid-term exam. You'll need to define each term and give an example. So, if you're not sure about these concepts, be sure to make good use of your study group time, make concept cards, and come and see me during my office hours if you have further questions.

Oral Communication Chapter 4 Lecture

Television Commercial Market

OK, let’s make sure we understand something right away. One thing you should never forget while you are watching television is the overall goal of TV: the television industry is a business. That’s it. Television networks sell their audiences to advertisers. Advertisers spend a lot of money buying specific commercial time because they are interested in one thing…buying you—your time and attention. In other words, the advertisers are basically using you because the costs of the TV commercial are essentially passed onto you at the store, such as when you feel somehow persuaded to buy brand name coffee rather than the store brand because you remember that cute commercial between the husband and wife making coffee together. So, going back to the title of the chapter in our textbook, “Do We Watch TV for Free?” No, we don’t. We actually pay a lot.

Advertisements comprise about 25% of television time. In addition to commercials for products and services, TV time is also made up of three other types of non-program material: The first is promotional announcements (promos) designed to attract viewers to watch a particular program; the second is the ID, or the identification of the local station or national network; the last is the PSA, or the public service announcement. These are usually run for free or at very low cost to promote a charitable cause, such as fighting hunger in Africa or illiteracy in the US. These types of non-program material are convenient for the TV industry because they fill the leftover 15 and 30-second commercial slots.

Speaking of buying, let’s get to the main purpose of this lecture—the different categories of TV advertising and how they affect the costs. Advertisers can purchase time in five different segments of TV. Today I’m going to give you some information about these five different categories so that you can see how the costs are assessed and why companies believe it’s worth putting aside much of their budgets for these expenses.

The first and largest category of the TV industry is the networks. Therefore, you can probably guess that network ads make up the largest component and these are, you know the major networks: CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, WB, and UPN. If an advertiser puts an ad on network TV, they’re going to hit the most people because more people will see them at the same time. That’s the big advantage.
The cost varies, of course depending on the length of the commercials. TV ads are generally sold in 30-second blocks. Tell me, how many commercials usually take place during one commercial break? Yup, and within a single commercial break, you’ll see commercials from several different companies for several different products or services: shampoo, cat food, new car, restaurant, upcoming TV show, etc. This is what we call “magazine format” because it’s kind of similar to the way that different ads are scattered throughout a magazine.

The costs of these 30-second blocks are usually negotiated between advertisers and networks based on the popularity or potential popularity of a program. Let’s look at a more specific example of these costs. For a popular show like Friends, a 30-second ad during its last season averaged $473,500. This is the most expensive. The average for 30-second commercials in 2002 was about $115,799. Obviously, the costs depend on the type and size of the audience. Networks charge the most for TV shows that appeal to the 18-34 year old audience. This is most the demographically desirable audience because this is the group of people with the highest purchasing power, or disposable income, for cosmetics, cars, clothing, etc. Also, Thursday nights, when Friends aired, has long been the highest-rated TV night of the week.

The second type of TV commercial advertising is much less broad than a network. These are called spot ads. This is when an advertiser purchases time from a specific station or a group of stations in a specific geographic area where they want a product ad to have more impact. Does anyone remember what DMA stands for from your textbook? Designated market area. You can imagine that the larger markets are more expensive than the smaller ones. Advertisers look at these markets to gauge where they should advertise a product—not just the size of the market, but also the demographics of each one.

Let’s move on to the third category--syndicated advertising. You’ve probably heard of TV programs such as Seinfeld, Friends, and Cheers that were very popular in the past. These are syndicated programs—the older episodes of these programs are sold on a station-by-station, market-by-market basis. This is called syndication. Can anyone give me the more familiar word? That’s right. These programs used to belong to a particular network, but now they are “syndicated” and shown on other networks. So that means that with this type of advertising, commercial time is purchased for specific syndicated shows on different stations all over the country. Advertisers feel that they can often reach as large of audiences as network programs do, but the commercial slots during these syndicated programs are usually cheaper.

Although network advertising remains the most popular, cable channel advertising, our fourth category, now attracts about 30% of the TV audience , according to some experts, and the audiences continue to increase. There is an important advantage to cable TV advertising. Advertisers can choose very demographically narrow audiences. Can you all name a few cable channels that target a specific audience? The advertiser can target a specific group and not spend money with viewers who are probably not going to buy their product. For example, it makes sense that golf ball manufacturers can spend more money on the Golf Channel rather than waste money on a regular network.

The last type, local advertising, is based on the city or community. This includes commercial time bought on either local stations or cable stations by local businesses. Local advertisers usually cannot afford the costs of prime time television, so they often have to use fringe time, which is the time just before and after prime time. However, a national company might help pay for the commercial time of local dealers if they sell their products. This is called cooperative advertising.
As you can see, television does not really serve its viewers. It serves its advertisers first. You are just the middle person. How does TV makes its money? From you!

PPTs (Noun and Adjective Clause)

1. CLICK HERE DOWNLOAD PPT ON NOUN CLAUSE 

2. CLICK HERE DOWNLOAD PPT ON ADJECTIVE CLAUSE