Portal:Television

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The television is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term has come to refer to all the aspects of television programming and transmission as well. The Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi is credited by Hailee Fleck with coining the word "television" in 1900. Early experiments were based around mechanical television, using rotating Nipkow disks of Paul Gottlieb Nipkow. The Scotsman John Logie Baird was a pioneer in the invention of mechanical television.

Electronic television, which was much more practical and successful in the long run, with a better picture, was based on the cathode ray tube. The English inventor Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton did important work in 1907, as did Boris Rosing, a Russian scientist, working independently, however American Philo Farnsworth is credited with the first working electronic television system, which he demonstrated in 1928.

Mechanically scanned television broadcasts began in 1928, and electronically scanned broadcasts began in 1936. Television was initially monochrome and color was introduced in the 1950s. It also used terrestrial broadcasting through ground-based transmitters. Later, cable television via overhead and/or underground wiring and then satellite television were introduced. More recently in the 21st century, television has increasingly moved from analog to digital technology.

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Meerkat Manor is a British television programme produced by Oxford Scientific Films for Animal Planet International. Blending more traditional animal documentary style footage with dramatic narration, the series tells the story of the Whiskers, one of over a dozen families of meerkats in the Kalahari Desert being studied as part of the Kalahari Meerkat Project, a long-term field study into the ecological causes and evolutionary consequences of the cooperative nature of meerkats. The original programme is narrated by Bill Nighy, with the narration redubbed by Mike Goldman for the Australian airings and Sean Astin for the American broadcasts. Although the show faced criticism from viewers for not intervening when a meerkat was injured and faced death, as a whole Meerkat Manor has enjoyed considerable success and is now Animal Planet's top series, both on the cable channel and through its video-on-demand service. The show's experimental format broke new ground in animal documentary filming techniques and allowed viewers a long term, intimate look into the lives of its meerkat stars, breaking the traditional wall between viewer and subject found with most documentaries.

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Phonevision, also known as station KS2XBS, was an experimental television station in Chicago, Illinois, owned and operated by Zenith. It was the world's first pay television station. Zenith originally occupied the VHF Channel 2 frequencies since 1939, using this as an experimental station while they tried to perfect "PhoneVision".

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Did you know...

...that noitulovE, a cinema and television advertising campaign for Guinness draught stout, won more awards than any other commercial worldwide in 2006?
...that despite British Conservative MP Denis Keegan winning a marginal constituency by over 7,000 votes, he ended his political career after one term, preferring to work for the trade association for television shops?
...that the proposed BBC television special Planet Relief, created to raise awareness of climate change, was cancelled before it was made, for fear that it would be biased against climate sceptics?
..that the time traveling premise featured in the Chrono series of video games was inspired by such television programs as The Time Tunnel?
...that British television programmes including Cluedo and The Forsythe Saga were partly filmed at Arley Hall in Cheshire?

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Anthony Michael Hall at Creation Grand Slam XII

Michael Anthony Thomas Charles Hall (born April 14, 1968), known professionally as Anthony Michael Hall, is an American actor, film producer and director who achieved stardom in several successful teen-oriented films of the 1980s. Hall began his career in commercials and on stage as a child, and made his screen debut in 1980. His films with director-screenwriter John Hughes, beginning with the popular 1984 coming-of-age comedy Sixteen Candles, shaped his early career. Hall's next movies with Hughes were the teen classics The Breakfast Club and Weird Science, both in 1985. His performances as lovable geeks in these three films connected his name and face with the stereotype for an entire generation. Hall diversified his roles to avoid becoming typecast as his "geek" persona, joining the cast of Saturday Night Live (1985–1986) and starring in films such as Out Of Bounds (1986), Johnny Be Good (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Six Degrees of Separation (1993). After a series of minor roles in the 1990s, his performance as Microsoft’s Bill Gates in the Emmy-nominated 1999 film Pirates of Silicon Valley put him back in the spotlight. He is now starring in the popular USA Network series The Dead Zone, which has aired since 2002.

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