Portal:Television

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The Television Portal

Flat-screen television receivers on display for sale at a consumer electronics store in 2008

Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. The medium is capable of more than "radio broadcasting," which refers to an audio signal sent to radio receivers.

Television became available in crude experimental forms in the 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses, and institutions. During the 1950s, television was the primary medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the U.S. and most other developed countries.

In 2013, 79% of the world's households owned a television set. The replacement of earlier cathode-ray tube (CRT) screen displays with compact, energy-efficient, flat-panel alternative technologies such as LCDs (both fluorescent-backlit and LED), OLED displays, and plasma displays was a hardware revolution that began with computer monitors in the late 1990s. Most television sets sold in the 2000s were flat-panel, mainly LEDs. Major manufacturers announced the discontinuation of CRT, Digital Light Processing (DLP), plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. LEDs are being gradually replaced by OLEDs. Also, major manufacturers have started increasingly producing smart TVs in the mid-2010s. Smart TVs with integrated Internet and Web 2.0 functions became the dominant form of television by the late 2010s. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article - show another

In 1969, the children's television show Sesame Street premiered on the National Educational Television network (later succeeded by PBS) in the United States. Unlike earlier children's programming, the show's producers used research and over 1,000 studies and experiments to create the show and test its impact on its young viewers' learning. By the end of the program's first season, Children's Television Workshop (CTW), the organization founded to oversee Sesame Street production, had developed what came to be called "the CTW model": a system of planning, production, and evaluation that combined the expertise of researchers and early childhood educators with that of the program's writers, producers, and directors.

CTW conducted research in two ways: in-house formative research that informed and improved production, and independent summative evaluations conducted by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) during the show's first two seasons to measure the program's educational effectiveness. CTW researchers invented tools to measure young viewers' attention to the program. Based on these findings, the researchers compiled a body of data and the producers changed the show accordingly.

More selected articles

Read more

Selected image - show another

Credit: Holger.Ellgaard

The Kaknäs tower (Swedish: Kaknästornet) is a TV tower in Gärdet in Stockholm, Sweden. It has 72 pillars. The tower is a major hub of Swedish television, radio and satellite broadcasts. It was finished in 1967, designed by architect Bengt Lindroos, and the height is 155 metres (509 ft) or 170 metres (560 ft) with the antenna included. The tower is owned by the national Swedish broadcasting company Teracom. The tower's name comes from the ancient name of the area, Kaknäs.

More selected pictures

Read more

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that a federal marshal seized a car and a truck because there was no other way to satisfy a debt owed by Arkansas television station KRZB-TV?
... that as general director of the Grand Theatre in Łódź, bass singer Kazimierz Kowalski led a worldwide television broadcast of Moniuszko's The Haunted Manor?
... that a television station spent so little on programming that a media columnist called it the "IOUs of Cincinnati"?
... that Ice King, the antagonist of television series Adventure Time, was at first received negatively by critics but later praised for representing mental health issues such as Alzheimer's disease?
... that CBS News and Stations president Wendy McMahon helped bring local evening news back to the network's Detroit station after 20 years?
... that Life with Father was the first network television series originating in Hollywood that was broadcast in color?

Selected quote - show another

When television came roaring in after the war (World War II) they did a little school survey asking children which they preferred and why - television or radio. And there was this little 7-year-old boy who said he preferred radio 'because the pictures were better.'

— Alistair Cooke

More selected quotes

More at Wikiquote

More did you know

...that copies of the 1982 biopic Will: G. Gordon Liddy, about a Watergate co-conspirator, are stored in the Nixon Presidential Materials collection at the U.S. National Archives?

...that the television adaptation of the BBC Radio 2 sitcom Teenage Kicks, originally for BBC Two, has been taken over by ITV?

...that Black Entertainment Television comedy series We Got to Do Better, had its name changed from Hot Ghetto Mess amidst allegations of enforcing negative stereotypes of African Americans?

..that the time traveling premise featured in the Chrono series of video games was inspired by such television programs as The Time Tunnel?

...that Russian television implied that Filipp Kirkorov won the Eurovision Song Contest 1995 with "Kolibelnaya Dlya Vulkana" when he in fact only came 17th?

More did you know facts

Selected biography - show another

James Thomas Aubrey Jr. (December 14, 1918 – September 3, 1994) was an American television and film executive. As president of the CBS television network from 1959 to 1965, with his "smell for the blue-collar," he produced some of television's most enduring series on the air, including Gilligan's Island and The Beverly Hillbillies.

Under Aubrey's leadership, CBS dominated American television, leading the other networks NBC and ABC, by nine points and seeing its profits rise from $25 million in 1959 to $49 million in 1964. The New York Times Magazine in 1964 called Aubrey "a master of programming whose divinations led to successes that are breathtaking". Aubrey had replaced CBS Television president Louis G. Cowan, who was dismissed after the quiz-show scandals. Aubrey's tough decision-making earned him the nickname "Smiling Cobra" during his tenure. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
Kroger Babb Rudolph Cartier Sydney Newman Eric Bana Kylie Minogue Peter Jennings KaDee Strickland Austin Nichols Aaron Sorkin Jake Gyllenhaal Dan Rather Brad Pitt Walter Cronkite Tom Brokaw John Le Mesurier George Formby Dan Castellaneta Perry Como Red Skelton Rose Catherine Pinkney

General images

The following are images from various television-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1An early Smart TV from 2012 running the discontinued Orsay platform (from History of television)
Image 2RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947 (from History of television)
Image 3Samsung's discontinued Orsay platform (from Smart TV)
Image 4First television test broadcast transmitted by the NHK Broadcasting Technology Research Institute in May 1939 (from History of television)
Image 5LG Smart TV using the Web browser (from Smart TV)
Image 6The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953–57) (from History of television)
Image 7Baird in 1925 with his televisor equipment and dummies "James" and "Stooky Bill" (right) (from History of television)
Image 8LG Electronics smart TV from 2011 (from Smart TV)
Image 9Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is available (from History of television)
Image 10The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from History of television)
Image 11Comparison of image quality between ISDB-T (1080i broadcast, top) and NTSC (480i transmission, bottom) (from Digital television)
Image 12Hovannes Adamian c. 1900s (from Color television)
Image 13The Nipkow disk. This schematic shows the circular paths traced by the holes, which may also be square for greater precision. The area of the disk outlined in black shows the region scanned. (from History of television)
Image 14Ferdinand Braun (from History of television)
Image 15Manfred von Ardenne in 1933 (from History of television)
Image 16Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by RCA in 1939 (from History of television)
Image 17This live image of actress Paddy Naismith was used to demonstrate Telechrome, John Logie Baird's first all-electronic color television system, which used two projection CRTs. The two-color image would be similar to the basic Telechrome system. (from Color television)
Image 18Philo Farnsworth in 1924 (from History of television)
Image 19An RCA Victor Color TV ad featuring milliner Lilly Daché in 1959. (from Color television)
Image 20DBS satellite dishes (from History of television)
Image 21RCA CT-100 at the SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention playing Superman. The RCA CT-100 was the first mass-produced color TV set. (from Color television)
Image 22A map depicting digital terrestrial television standards (from Digital television)
Image 23Family watching TV, 1958 (from History of television)
Image 24Smart TVs on display (from Smart TV)

Featured lists - load new batch

Featured lists have been determined by the Wikipedia community to be the best lists on English Wikipedia.

Season	Episodes	Originally aired
Season	Episodes	First aired	Last aired
1	13	March 7, 2006 (2006-03-07)	May 16, 2006 (2006-05-16)
2	23	September 19, 2006 (2006-09-19)	May 8, 2007 (2007-05-08)
3	11	September 25, 2007 (2007-09-25)	December 18, 2007 (2007-12-18)
4	22	September 28, 2008 (2008-09-28)	May 10, 2009 (2009-05-10)

(Full article...)

Image 2
The anime series Buso Renkin is based on the manga series of the same name written by Nobuhiro Watsuki. The series is directed by Takao Kato and produced by Xebec. The episodes follow Kazuki Muto who becomes an Alchemic warrior in the battle against Alchemic monsters known as Homunculi.

The production of the Buso Renkin anime was announced by the release of a minute-long internet trailer. Buso Renkin aired between October 5, 2006, and March 29, 2007, on TV Tokyo. The episodes were later released in nine DVD compilations between January 25, 2007, and September 21, 2007 by Geneon Universal Entertainment. A DVD box set containing the whole series was released on November 26, 2009. (Full article...)
Image 3

The Office is an American television sitcom broadcast on NBC. Created as an adaptation by Greg Daniels of the British series of the same name, it is a mockumentary that follows the day-to-day lives of the employees of the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of Dunder Mifflin, a fictional paper supply company. The series ran on NBC in the United States from March 24, 2005, to May 16, 2013. Additionally, nine spin-off series of webisodes of The Office have been aired on NBC.com.

The Office aired a short first season in 2005 that consisted of six episodes. This was followed by a full-length second season in 2005–06 that consisted of 22 episodes, and a third season in 2006–07, with 25 episodes. Due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, the fourth season that aired in 2007–08 consisted of 19 episodes. The fifth season aired during 2008–09 and consisted of 28 episodes. The sixth season aired during 2009–10 and consisted of 26 episodes. The seventh season aired during 2010–11 and consisted of 26 episodes. The eighth season aired during 2011–12 and consisted of 24 episodes. The ninth season aired during 2012–13 and consisted of 25 episodes. A total of 201 episodes of The Office aired over nine seasons. (Full article...)
Image 4
Formby entertaining British troops during the Second World War

The English comic, singer and actor George Formby (1904–1961) performed in many mediums of light entertainment, including film, radio and theatre. His career spanned from 1915 until December 1960. During that time he became synonymous with playing "a shy, innocent, gauche, accident-prone Lancashire lad".

Formby began his working life as a jockey but always held an ambition to become a performer. In 1915, against the wishes of his father, Formby made his screen debut in the film By the Shortest of Heads. Upon his father's death in 1921, he began to build a full-time performing career, and worked predominantly on the variety circuit. In 1926 he began his music career, singing light, comical songs, and playing the ukulele or banjolele. From 1934 he increasingly worked in film, and had become a major star by the 1930s and '40s. He appeared on television for the first time in 1938 in the festive special Christmas Greetings. He became the UK's highest-paid entertainer during those decades. The film historian Brian McFarlane writes that Formby portrayed "essentially gormless incompetents, aspiring to various kinds of professional success ... and even more improbably to a middle-class girlfriend, usually in the clutches of some caddish type with a moustache. Invariably he scored on both counts". (Full article...)
Image 5
1"The Parting of the Ways"WebisodeSimon MeyersDavid Roden31 October 2009 (2009-10-31)
2"Children in Need special"CharityN/AN/A20 November 2009 (2009-11-20)
3"EastEnders 25th Anniversary"OtherN/AN/A19 February 2010 (2010-02-19)
4"Blue Peter special"OtherN/AN/A10 March 2010 (2010-03-10)
5"Short Story – Part One"WebisodeReza MoradiMark Catley12 March 2011 (2011-03-12)
6"Short Story – Part Two"WebisodeReza MoradiMark Catley2 April 2011 (2011-04-02)
7"Under Fire"WebisodeGareth BrynCatrin Clarke12 April 2012 (2012-04-12)
8"The Kids Aren't Alright"WebisodeAnne EdyveanMatt Redd21 July 2012 (2012-07-21)
9"Mistletoe and Rum"WebisodeSunetra SarkerDavid P. Davis15 December 2012 (2012-12-15)
10"Nurse Factor"WebisodeSimon NormanJanine H. Jones28 December 2012 (2012-12-28)
11"Gone in Sixty Seconds"WebisodeJon SenPaul Quiney5 January 2013 (2013-01-05)
12"Scars and Nightmares"WebisodeDafydd PalfreyAsher Pirie2 November 2013 (2013-11-02)
13"The Spirit of Christmas"WebisodeSeán GleesonHenrietta Hardy14 December 2013 (2013-12-14)
14"Radio Holby − Part One"WebisodeKodjo TsakpoSimon Norman18 October 2014 (2014-10-18)
15"Radio Holby − Part Two"WebisodeKodjo TsakpoRoss Southard25 October 2014 (2014-10-25)
16"Mrs Walker-To-Be"WebisodeJohn QuarrellSarah Beeson22 August 2015 (2015-08-22)
17"On Call"WebisodeJack RyderKayleigh Llewellyn10 October 2015 (2015-10-10)
18"Back to Ours"OtherMatt TaylorN/A20 August 2016 (2016-08-20)
19"The First Noel"WebisodeAnthony SutcliffeN/A24 December 2016 (2016-12-24)
19"Our Holby City"WebisodeAnthony SutcliffeN/A29 March 2022 (2022-03-29) (Full article...)
Image 6
Myself ; Yourself is a Japanese animated television series, directed by Tetsuaki Matsuda, animated by the Japanese animation studio Dogakobo and produced by the Myself ; Yourself Production Committee, which is composed of Happinet Pictures, Marvelous Entertainment, The 5pb and Pony Canyon Enterprises. The series is based on the visual novel Myself ; Yourself by Yeti, adapting the source material over thirteen episodes. The episodes' plots follows Sana Hidaka and his return to the town of Sakuranomori after leaving the town and his friends five years earlier.

The series was broadcast from October 3 to December 26, 2007, on TV Kanagawa, and later on Chiba TV, TV Aichi, TV Saitama, TV Osaka and AT-X. The AT-X broadcast was notably late, starting on November 22, 2007. (Full article...)
Image 7
The 73rd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards honored the best in artistic and technical achievement in American prime time television programming from June 1, 2020, until May 31, 2021, as chosen by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The awards were presented across three ceremonies on September 11 and 12, 2021, at the Event Deck at L.A. Live in Downtown Los Angeles, California, preceding the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards on September 19. A total of 99 Creative Arts Emmys were presented across 92 categories. The ceremonies were produced by Bob Bain, directed by Rich Preuss, and broadcast in the United States by FXX on September 18.

The Queen's Gambit won nine awards, leading all programs; The Mandalorian and Saturday Night Live followed with seven wins each. The Mandalorian also received the most nominations with 19, followed by WandaVision with 15 and Saturday Night Live with 14. Program awards went to Boys State, Carpool Karaoke: The Series, Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square, For All Mankind: Time Capsule, Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal, Love, Death & Robots, Queer Eye, RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked, Secrets of the Whales, Space Explorers: The ISS Experience, Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, and 76 Days. Netflix led all networks with 34 wins and 104 nominations. (Full article...)
Image 8

The Office is an American television sitcom developed by Greg Daniels and based on the British series of the same name created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. The show premiered on NBC on March 24, 2005, and concluded on May 16, 2013, after airing 201 episodes across nine seasons. Filmed as a mockumentary, the series depicts the everyday lives of a group of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. The Office initially featured Steve Carell as Michael Scott, Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, John Krasinski as Jim Halpert, Jenna Fischer as Pam Beesly, and B. J. Novak as Ryan Howard; the show's cast changed significantly during its run.

Despite premiering to mixed reviews during its first season, The Office's subsequent seasons received widespread acclaim and became a success for NBC, though later seasons were criticized for a dip in quality. From 2006 to 2011, the show was nominated six consecutive times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, winning for its second season. The show was also nominated for three Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy; five Producers Guild of America Awards for Best Episodic Comedy, winning once; the 2006 TCA Award for Program of the Year; and four TCA Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy, winning twice. The Office was named as one of the top television programs of 2006 and 2008 by the American Film Institute, and in 2007, the series was recognized with a Peabody Award. (Full article...)
Image 9

Part of The Bill's opening sequence

The Bill is a British police procedural television series that ran from 1984 to 2010. The show, whose name is derived from "old bill"—a British slang term for police officers—was unusual among police dramas in that it focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work. The series originated in 1983 as a one-off drama titled Woodentop (another British slang term for the police, derived from the helmets worn by British police officers), written by Geoff McQueen and produced by Thames Television. ITV were sufficiently impressed with Woodentop that they commissioned a series, which started in 1984 under the title of The Bill. At the time of the series' end in August 2010, The Bill was the United Kingdom's longest-running police drama and was among the longest-running of any British television series, having run for almost 27 years.

The Bill has earned various awards and nominations during its run, with the nominations in categories ranging from Best Drama to its camera and editing work to the cast's acting performance. It received nominations for eight awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, winning Best Video Cameraman in 1990 and Best Continuing Drama in 2009—an award for which it was unsuccessfully nominated in a further three years. In addition, The Bill enjoyed success at the Inside Soap Awards, where it won Best Drama six times, including four consecutive wins, as well as a nomination in 2010—losing to Waterloo Road. Other awards include a Writers' Guild of Great Britain award for Best Soap/Continuing Drama Series in 2008, Best Serial Drama at the Digital Spy Soap Awards of the same year and a nomination for Most Popular Overseas Drama at the 2005 Logie Awards. The Bill has also received multiple nominations at the EMMAs, National Television Awards, where it won Most Popular Drama in 1996 and 2004, and six Royal Television Society award nominations, having won awards in 2006 and 2008. (Full article...)
Image 10
Turner as Cora Smith in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Lana Turner (1921–1995) was an American actress who appeared in over fifty films during her career, which spanned four decades. Discovered in 1937 at age 16, she signed a contract with Warner Bros. but soon transferred to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The studio's co-founder, Louis B. Mayer, helped further her career by casting her in several youth-oriented comedies and musicals, including Dancing Co-Ed (1939) and Ziegfeld Girl (1941), the latter of which was a commercial success and helped establish her as one of the studio's leading performers. Turner subsequently co-starred with Clark Gable in the drama Somewhere I'll Find You (1943), the first of four films she would appear in with him.

Turner's role as a femme fatale in the film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) advanced her career significantly and established her as a dramatic actress. It earned her acclaim with Bosley Crowther of The New York Times deeming it "the role of her career." In addition to her film roles, Turner frequently appeared on radio programs throughout the 1940s, including Suspense and The Orson Welles Almanac. In 1952, she co-starred in the drama The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) opposite Kirk Douglas, portraying an alcoholic actress. Turner made her final film appearance with Gable in the drama Betrayed (1954). After the critical and commercial failure of Diane (1956), MGM opted not to renew Turner's contract. At the time, her films with the studio had collectively earned over $50 million (Full article...)
Image 11
The Devil May Cry anime series is directed by Shin Itagaki and produced by Madhouse. The English adaptation of the anime has been licensed by Funimation Entertainment. They are based on the Devil May Cry video game series produced by Capcom. The background of the storyline is primarily based on the first and third installments of the series, Devil May Cry and Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening respectively. The series follows the daily life of demon hunter Dante as he adopts a young girl named Patty Lowell and faces off against a demon seeking to attain godhood.

The anime was originally announced at the Tokyo Game Show on September 22, 2006, with plans to release twelve episodes of the series. Unlike most anime, the episode titles were released in English instead of the customary Japanese. The first episode aired on June 14, 2007, with the twelfth shown on September 6, 2007. The episodes aired on WOWOW. On June 30, 2007, at Anime Expo 07, it was announced that ADV Films had licensed the show. However, in 2008, it became one of more than 30 titles that were transferred to Funimation. The series made its North American television debut on the Funimation Channel in September 2010 and it began airing on Chiller's Anime Wednesdays block on July 15, 2015. (Full article...)

More featured lists

News

Wikinews television portal

Upcoming events

Upcoming television series

Featured content

Extended content

This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Television}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.