Hello, everyone!
This are some of the stuff we discussed in class. I will be uploading some of your written assignments here.
FIRST NOTE: The past tense of 'broadcast' is 'broadcast'. If you any of you writes 'broadcasted' in the final exams, I am cutting marks off of you severely.
FIRST NOTE: The past tense of 'broadcast' is 'broadcast'. If you any of you writes 'broadcasted' in the final exams, I am cutting marks off of you severely.
We won't be covering Guglielmo Marconi, because well, we learned all that in high school, didn't we?
If you want a refresher, you can simply Google him online.
Now, broadcast used to mean only radio and is a means to transmit signals, carrying information, across wide spaces.
The term 'broadcast' comes from a term of 'sowing seeds' by scattering them widely across the field. In Bahasa Malaysia, this translates to 'menabur benih'.
Side Note: I come from a swamp, and we plant kangkung and other vegetables this way. Just take a handful of seeds and spread them around. In comparison, cucumbers like to climb on stilts and have to be properly planted. Same thing with corn.
You can find the history of broadcasting here:
The first was telegraphy. Generational gap question: If you were transported in time back to say, 1984 and wanted to send a telegraph, where would you go? The Post Office. I received my last telegraph from my grandfather, when I was 11 (1991). If you remember, early telegraphs used the Morse Code - a series of dots and dashes. But that's all been covered in primary school.
So anyway, one of the earliest forms of electronic broadcasting was really telephone broadcasting. What happens is that people would call using a phone and listen to the opera or stage plays.
Pathetic, isn't it? You call a number, and you listen to music. Hogwash, these days, but this was the iPod of its day. Furthermore, I remember some similar services in the late '90s. This started in 1881 and was called the Theatre Phone or Théâtrophone.
People back then didn't know that having a phone by your ear could give you cancer (unproven). In fact, cancer was perhaps not known back then. Tuberculosis was known as 'consumption'. Don't believe me? Watch Moulin Rouge.
Anyway, some business-minded people thought, "well, calling the opera was cool, but it sucks. There must be another way.
And there were! And these people, despite not having the Internet, were smart enough to come up with radio broadcast.
It started experimentally in 1906 and was made commercial from 1920
Radio broadcasting is an audio (sound) broadcasting service, broadcast through the air as radio waves from a transmitter to an antenna and, thus, to a receiving device.
Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast common programming, either in syndication or simulcast or both.
Now, syndication is like Rick Dee's and the Weekly Top 40s. I hope I got his name right. It's basically like the comic strips you see in newspapers. Syndication means that the show can be bought and broadcast on any station or network that buys the rights.
Just over a decade after the commercialisation of radio, telephone broadcast closed shop. It was ridiculous to hold the telephone over your ear and listen to the opera when you can lounge about in the comfort of your home, listening to the radio.
TV broadcast or telecast began experimentally in 1925, and was made commercial five years later. The radio people were scared. Simply because TV had pictures. Moving pictures.
When radio had cable radio (also called Cable FM) from 1928, TV had cable TV (from 1932). Both used coaxial cables instead of invisible waves in the air.
Side Note: The television was conceived as an educational instrument. The early programming were what you might have seen on TV Pendidikan. There were no American Idol, Lost or Glee back then.
Cable radio and TV did not make the ultramagnetic wave broadcast obsolete. In fact, we still use it today. RTM and TV3, for example, uses VHF (very high frequency) to transmit. ntv7 uses UHF (ultra high frequency) both are waves in the electromagnetic spectrum.
The reason being the wave forms carry signals to a wider audience. Coaxial cables can only deliver to places connected to the transmitter.
Something came along in 1974 to have both the power of coaxial cable plus the wide reach of electromagnetic waves. This was the satellite broadcast.
TV was the first to use it. And remember, this was five years after man landed on the moon. People watching the Lunar landing did so via cable or VHF. Most poor people, listened over the radio.
Radio only started using satellite in 1990. They almost gave up, really, until personalities like Howard Stern and others showed the potential for Radio. I mean, you can't drive and watch TV, but you can still listen to the radio.
The hot topic now, is Internet TV. You've all seen YouTube. Now, imagine if ALL possible programming are broadcast via YouTube. Impossible? We have that already, today. In fact, I have IPTV at home. Best thing about it? SyFy Channel.
For added reading (non-compulsory, but for general knowledge):
- talks a lot about US broadcast history. It's good, since US broadcast history is generally broadcast history. Good for starters, but not really what we're going for, which is modern broadcast.
- Same as above. Introductions, introductions. It is good for you to know the history, as he who conquers the past, commands the future. I mean, those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
- More conceptual. Fascinating at times, but a bit dry.
