broadcasting

The transmission of sound and vision programs by radio and television. In the USA, broadcasting licenses are issued to public organizations and competing commercial companies by the Federal Communications Commission.

In Britain, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a centralized body appointed by the state and responsible to Parliament, but with policy and program content not controlled by the state; in Japan, which ranks next to the USA in the number of television sets owned, there is a semigovernmental radio and television broadcasting corporation (NHK) and numerous private television companies.

Television broadcasting entered a new era with the introduction of high-powered communications satellites in the 1980s. The signals broadcast by these satellites are sufficiently strong to be picked up by a small dish aerial located, for example, on the roof of a house. Direct broadcast by satellite thus became a feasible alternative to land-based television services. See also cable television. A similar revolution is taking place as digital television becomes widely available.

History Broadcasting in the USA began on a large scale in 1920. A number of stations were set up by various trading concerns, including manufacturers of radio apparatus, and by 1924 over 1,000 stations had been licenced. Programs on US television and radio are sponsored by advertisers, who have considerable control over the content of the programs; they may – and do – reject programs they think might offend those members of the public whom they hope to persuade to buy their products.