attachments_06-04-2012_23-41-26 / 11 broadcast programming

11

Read the following text and answer the quеstions to it.

Broadcast Programming

Despite the obvious differences between radio and television, the development of programming for both broadcast media is best understood as a single history. Early broadcasting was dominated by adaptations of older media. Popular stage drama was redesigned for radio in the form of weekly action serials, situation comedies, and soap operas. Vaudeville provided material for the radio comedy-variety program. Daily newspapers provided the model for news coverage.

Most modern television programming genres are derived from earlier media such as stage, cinema, and radio. In the area of comedy, the situation comedy (or sitcom) has proved the most durable and popular of American broadcasting genres. The sitcom depends on audience familiarity with recurring characters and conditions to explore life in the home, workplace, or some other common location.

Comedy-variety is a hybrid of vaudeville and nightclub entertainment. A comedy-variety hour typically consisted of short monologues and skits featuring the host, alternating with various show-business acts, including singers, musicians, stand-up comedians, trained-animal acts, and other novelties. The variety show is a related form in which the host serves only as master of ceremonies. The Ed Sullivan Show (1948-1971), for example, hosted by newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan on CBS, presented entertainers as diverse as the Beatles and the Bolshoi Ballet.

The soap opera, or daily serial drama, was developed as a daytime genre aimed specifically at female audience.

Other television programme types include talk shows, sports coverage, children’s programming, game shows, and religious programmes, all of which originated on radio.

Talk shows emerged on TV in the mid 1960s as a kind of an interview in which a host interviews celebrities in front of the audience.

The reality show, emerged in the late 1980s and 1990s, is an example of a new programme. Examples include “Cops” (1989- ), in which camera crews accompany police cars on their daily rounds, and “Survivor” (2000- ), which records the interactions of a group of people who are thrown together in a difficult, remote location, such as a desert island.

1. How many broadcasting genres do you know?

2. What is the specificity of the Reality Show?

3. Are there any similar programmes on TV and radio? What are they?