Portal:Television

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The Television Portal

Flat-screen televisions for sale at a consumer electronics store in 2008.

Television, sometimes shortened to TV or telly, is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in monochrome (black and white), or in color, and in two or three dimensions and sound. The term can refer to a television set, a television show, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports.

Television became available in crude experimental forms in the late 1920s, but it would still be several years before the new technology would be marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and 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. The availability of various types of archival storage media such as Betamax and VHS tapes, high-capacity hard disk drives, DVDs, flash drives, high-definition Blu-ray Discs, and cloud digital video recorders has enabled viewers to watch pre-recorded material—such as movies—at home on their own time schedule. For many reasons, especially the convenience of remote retrieval, the storage of television and video programming now also occurs on the cloud (such as the video on demand service by Netflix). At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, digital television transmissions greatly increased in popularity. Another development was the move from standard-definition television (SDTV) (576i, with 576 interlaced lines of resolution and 480i) to high-definition television (HDTV), which provides a resolution that is substantially higher. HDTV may be transmitted in different formats: 1080p, 1080i and 720p. Since 2010, with the invention of smart television, Internet television has increased the availability of television programs and movies via the Internet through streaming video services such as Netflix, Amazon Video, iPlayer and Hulu. (Full article...)

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"A Rugrats Chanukah" is a special episode of Nickelodeon's animated television series Rugrats. The first episode of the show's fourth season, it tells the story of the Jewish holiday Chanukah through the eyes of the Rugrats, who imagine themselves as the main characters. The idea of a Rugrats Chanukah special was pitched by Nickelodeon executives in 1992, but the concept was revised and became the 1995 special, "A Rugrats Passover". After production of the Passover episode wrapped, the crew returned to the Chanukah idea. Nickelodeon broadcast "A Rugrats Chanukah" on December 4, 1996; the episode received a Nielsen rating of 7.9 and positive reviews from television critics. Along with other Rugrats episodes featuring Grandpa Boris and his wife, the special attracted controversy when the Anti-Defamation League compared the character designs to anti-Semitic drawings from a 1930s Nazi newspaper.

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Credit: Cecil Stoughton

John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and others watching flight of Astronaut Alan Shepard on television. Shepard was the second person and the first American in space. He later commanded the Apollo 14 mission, and was the fifth person to walk on the moon.

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Did you know

...that the title of Dan Castellaneta's album of comedy sketches I Am Not Homer is a parody of Leonard Nimoy's first autobiography I Am Not Spock?

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

...that the participants of the Channel 4 programme Dumped were not told that they would be living on a landfill site for three weeks?

...that Robert Raymond founded Australia's longest running current affairs television program?

...that Great American Country television host Nan Kelley (then Nan Sumrall) became Miss Mississippi in 1985 after her fellow Mississippian Susan Akin was crowned Miss America?

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It is pretty amazing to go from being a print cartoonist to having a hit animated television show, although I secretly expected it [The Simpsons] do well.

— Matt Groening

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News

Wikinews television portal

Upcoming events

Upcoming television series

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Pitt in 2019

William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Golden Globe Awards for his acting, in addition to a second Academy Award, a second British Academy Film Award, a third Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award as a producer under his production company, Plan B Entertainment.

Pitt first gained recognition as a cowboy hitchhiker in the road film Thelma & Louise (1991). His first leading roles in big-budget productions came with the drama films A River Runs Through It (1992) and Legends of the Fall (1994), and the horror film Interview with the Vampire (1994). He gave critically acclaimed performances in the crime thriller Seven (1995) and the science fiction film 12 Monkeys (1995), the latter earning him a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and an Academy Award nomination. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
James T. Aubrey Kroger Babb Rudolph Cartier Sydney Newman Eric Bana Kylie Minogue Peter Jennings KaDee Strickland Austin Nichols Aaron Sorkin Jake Gyllenhaal Dan Rather 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 1A map depicting digital terrestrial television standards (from Digital television)
Image 2Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by RCA in 1939 (from History of television)
Image 3Family watching TV, 1958 (from History of television)
Image 4Comparison of image quality between ISDB-T (1080i broadcast, top) and NTSC (480i transmission, bottom) (from Digital television)
Image 5A color television test at the Mount Kaukau transmitting station, New Zealand, in 1970. A test pattern with color bars is sometimes used when no program material is available. (from Color television)
Image 6DBS satellite dishes. (from History of television)
Image 7Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is available. (from History of television)
Image 8Smart TVs on display (from Smart TV)
Image 9The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953-57). (from History of television)
Image 10RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947 (from History of television)
Image 11Baird in 1925 with his televisor equipment and dummies "James" and "Stooky Bill" (right). (from History of television)
Image 12This live image of actress Paddy Naismith was used to demonstrate 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 13Hovannes Adamian (from Color television)
Image 14LG Smart TV using the Web browser (from Smart TV)
Image 15RCA 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 16The 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 17The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from History of television)

Featured content

This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs). 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. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.