The Television Portal
Television, sometimes shortened to TV or telly, is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images 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.
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, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. In the near future, LEDs are expected to be gradually replaced by OLEDs. Also, major manufacturers have announced that they will increasingly produce 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...)
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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.
Did you know -
- ... that Czech television reporter and author Vladimír Škutina was arrested and imprisoned twice for his use of political satire?
- ... that Idaho television station KCIX-TV went silent awaiting a merger deal that fell apart?
- ... that XHFAMX-TDT "La Octava", which opens tonight, marks Grupo Radio Centro's return to Mexico City television for the first time since 1972?
- ... that two weeks after the owner of a Kansas City television station declared that "KCIT-TV is here to stay", it ceased broadcasting?
- ... that Ernest Hemingway watched the television adaptation of For Whom the Bell Tolls from a flea-bitten motel as the screenwriter held the "rabbit ears" for him?
- ... that a line of the 1840 song "Kein schöner Land in dieser Zeit", claiming "no country more beautiful" and presented by its author as a Volkslied, is quoted as the title of books and television series?
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More did you know
- ...that David Letterman parodied Werner Erhard in the 1978 Mork & Mindy episode Mork Goes Erk?
- ...that The O.C.'s music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas worked in the music department of over fifty Roger Corman B-movies before her television debut?
- ...that the ABC television network created controversy when they licensed and produced a doll based on fictional rapist Todd Manning?
- ...that Tomorrow's Pioneers, a television program for children produced by Hamas, features a mascot similar to Mickey Mouse?
- ... that The Owl Service, a 1969 TV adaptation of the novel, was the first fully-scripted colour production by Granada Television?
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William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various 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...)General images
RCA 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)
Baird in 1925 with his televisor equipment and dummies "James" and "Stooky Bill" (right). (from History of television)
Hovannes Adamian c. 1900s (from Color television)
A color television test at the Mount Kaukau transmitter site, New Zealand in 1970.
A test pattern with color bars is used to calibrate the signal. (from Color television)
Family watching TV, 1958 (from History of television)
The 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)
RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947 (from History of television)
Smart TVs on display (from Smart TV)
LG Smart TV using the Web browser (from Smart TV)
DBS satellite dishes. (from History of television)
The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953-57). (from History of television)
Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is available. (from History of television)
Samsung’s discontinued Orsay platform (from Smart TV)
A map depicting digital terrestrial television standards (from Digital television)
Comparison of image quality between ISDB-T (1080i broadcast, top) and NTSC (480i transmission, bottom) (from Digital television)
This 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)
The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from History of television)
Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by RCA in 1939 (from History of television)
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30 Rock is an American satirical situation comedy that premiered on NBC on October 11, 2006. Created by Tina Fey, the television series has won and been nominated for a variety of different awards during its seven season run. It received 103 Emmy Awards nominations, with 10 Emmy Award nominations for its first season alone, and a further 17 Emmy Award nominations in its second season. The show won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for its first three seasons and was nominated every year it was eligible.
Lead actress Tina Fey has been nominated for awards 12 times for her role as Liz Lemon, the head writer of the fictional television show TGS with Tracy Jordan. Fey has also been nominated nine times for her writing skills. Lead actor Alec Baldwin has been nominated 12 times for his portrayal of NBC television executive Jack Donaghy. Through its run, 30 Rock was nominated for 145 different awards, winning 39. A webisode series called Kenneth the Web Page has been nominated for one award. In this list, "year" refers to the year the award was presented to the winner. (Full article...)
Millennium is an American crime-thriller television series which was broadcast between 1996 and 1999. Created by Chris Carter, the series aired on Fox for three seasons with a total of sixty-seven episodes. Millennium starred Lance Henriksen, Megan Gallagher, Klea Scott, and Brittany Tiplady. Henriksen portrayed Frank Black, an offender profiler who worked for the Millennium Group, a private investigative organisation. Black retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to move his wife (Gallagher) and daughter (Tiplady) to Seattle, where he began to consult on criminal cases for the Group. After his wife's death, he returned to the FBI to work with new partner Emma Hollis (Scott) to discredit the Group.
Millennium's genesis stemmed from "Irresistible", a second-season episode of The X-Files penned by Carter. Influence was also drawn from the works of Nostradamus, and the increasing popular interest in eschatology ahead of the coming millennium. The series began airing in the Friday timeslot formerly occupied by The X-Files. "Pilot", the debut episode, was heavily promoted by Fox, and brought in over a quarter of the total audience during its broadcast. (Full article...)- The Arthur Ashe Courage Award (sometimes called the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage or Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award) is presented as part of the ESPY Awards. It is named for the American tennis player Arthur Ashe. Although it is a sport-oriented award, it is not limited to sports-related people or actions, as it is presented annually to individuals whose contributions "transcend sports". According to ESPN, the organization responsible for giving out the award, "recipients reflect the spirit of Arthur Ashe, possessing strength in the face of adversity, courage in the face of peril and the willingness to stand up for their beliefs no matter what the cost". The award was presented as part of the ESPY Awards ceremony at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles from 2008 to 2019. The 2020 ESPYs ceremony was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Ashe Award being one of the few awards presented, and the 2021 ceremony was held in New York City.
The inaugural award, made at the 1993 ESPY Awards, was presented to the American college basketball player, coach, and broadcaster Jim Valvano. In 1993, ESPN partnered with Valvano to create the V Foundation which presents the annual Jimmy V Award to "a deserving member of the sporting world who has overcome great obstacles through perseverance and determination." Suffering from cancer, Valvano gave the inaugural Arthur Ashe Courage Award acceptance speech which "brought a howling, teary-eyed Madison Square Garden to its feet". Valvano died two months after receiving the award. Although the award is usually given to individuals, it has been presented to multiple recipients on seven occasions: former athletes on United Airlines Flight 93 (2002), Pat and Kevin Tillman (2003), Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah and Jim MacLaren (2005), Roia Ahmad and Shamila Kohestani (2006), Trevor Ringland and David Cullen (2007), and Tommie Smith, John Carlos (2008), and survivors of the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal (2018). The accolade has been presented posthumously on five occasions. (Full article...) 
Jacob Hoggard, the lead singer of Hedley, finished third on the second season of Canadian Idol.
Canadian Idol was a Canadian interactive reality game show series. The series premiered their first season in 2003 on CTV and was on air for six seasons. Based on the American version of the show, American Idol, it is part of the Idol series. Canadian Idol was the most-watched Canadian English-language television series of 2008. The show began with a tour across Canada, in which singers audition in front of four judges: Jake Gold, Sass Jordan, Zack Werner, and Farley Flex. The show was cancelled due to the slowing economy.
The show's age requirements allowed people to enter only if they were between 16 and 28 years of age. During every season, the final round of competition featured ten singers, except for season one when it had eleven finalists. 61 contestants have reached the finals of their respective Canadian Idol season. Out of the contestants listed, 26 of them were under the age of 20, including three winners and four runners-up. Seventeen finalists came from the province of Ontario, while British Columbia and Alberta each had nine. Alberta had the most Canadian Idol winners with three—Kalan Porter, Melissa O'Neil, and Theo Tams; Newfoundland and Labrador had the most runners-up with two—Rex Goudie and Craig Sharpe. Prince Edward Island was the only province to never have had a finalist. There has never been a Canadian Idol finalist from a Canadian territory. Toronto, Ontario was the hometown for the most Canadian Idol finalists with five, followed by Abbotsford, British Columbia with four. Rob James, Dwight d'Eon, and Drew Wright were 28 at the time their season's final round began, making them the oldest finalists to have performed; Emily Vinette, Daryl Brunt, Craig Sharpe, and Martha Joy were 16 at the time their season's final round began, making them the youngest finalists to have been in the finals. (Full article...)
Matt Groening, shown here in 2010, created The Simpsons, which premiered on December 17, 1989.
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It is a satirical depiction of a dysfunctional middle-class American lifestyle starring the eponymous family: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. Set in the town of Springfield, the show lampoons both American culture and the human condition. The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a pitch for a series of animated shorts with producer James L. Brooks. Groening named each character (other than Bart) after members of his own family. The shorts became part of the Fox series The Tracey Ullman Show on April 19, 1987. After a three-season run, the sketch was developed into a half-hour prime-time hit show.
From the series debut on December 17, 1989, to May 17, 2009, The Simpsons had broadcast its first 441 episodes, to the end of the twentieth season. The show holds several American television longevity records. It is the longest-running prime-time animated series and longest-running sitcom in the United States. On April 28, 1994, The Simpsons reached its 100th episode in the fifth season. With its twentieth season (2008–09), the series tied Gunsmoke in seasons as the longest-running American prime-time scripted television series, and surpassed Gunsmoke in this record with the twenty-first season premiere on September 27, 2009. (Full article...)- BBC Young Musician is a televised national music competition, broadcast biennially on BBC Television and BBC Radio 3. Originally BBC Young Musician of the Year, its name was changed in 2010.
The competition, a former member of the European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY), is open to UK-resident percussion, keyboard, string, brass and woodwind players, who are eighteen years of age or under on 1 January in the relevant year. (Full article...)
(Full article...)Season Episodes Originally aired First aired Last aired 1 13 January 4, 1999 June 11, 1999 2 13 November 26, 1999 December 22, 2000 3 13 April 6, 2001 July 12, 2002 4 13 September 27, 2002 November 5, 2004 5 12 November 4, 2005 April 28, 2007 6 1 June 29, 2008 Specials 4 December 3, 2004 May 11, 2007 Television film November 8, 2009
Awake is an American police procedural fantasy drama television series that originally aired on NBC for one season from March 1 to May 24, 2012. The pilot episode had an early release on Hulu on February 16, 2012, two weeks before the series' premiere on television. Kyle Killen, the series' creator, was primarily responsible for the program's concept. Killen and David Slade served as executive producers of the pilot episode, and Killen continued producing the series along with Jeffrey Reiner and Howard Gordon.
The show's central character is Michael Britten (Jason Isaacs), a detective who works for the Los Angeles Police Department. In the first episode, Michael, his wife Hannah (Laura Allen), and their son Rex (Dylan Minnette) get into a serious car accident. After the accident, he finds himself switching between two "realities" whenever he goes to bed—one in which Hannah was killed in the accident and one in which Rex died instead—and is unable to determine which reality is true. He uses details from each reality to solve cases in the other. (Full article...)
Richardson in the 1962 film, Long Day's Journey into Night
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902–1983) was an English actor who appeared on radio, film, television and stage. Described by The Guardian as "indisputably our most poetic actor", and by the director David Ayliff as "a natural actor ... [who] couldn't stop being a perfect actor", Richardson's career lasted over 50 years. He was—in the words of his biographer, Sheridan Morley—one "of the three great actor knights of the mid-twentieth century", alongside Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud.
After seeing a production of Hamlet starring Sir Frank Benson, Richardson decided to become an actor and made his stage debut, playing a gendarme in The Bishop's Candlesticks in December 1920. After touring and appearing in rep, he made his London debut in July 1926 as the stranger in Oedipus at Colonus. In 1930 he joined the Old Vic where he first met Gielgud, staying with the company until the following year. After service during the Second World War with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, he returned to acting, preferring the works of the more modern authors Luigi Pirandello, Joe Orton, Harold Pinter, George Bernard Shaw and J. B. Priestley to the classic plays of Shakespeare. A radio career ran in parallel to that on the stage, and Richardson was first broadcast in The City in 1929. (Full article...)- Green Wing is a surreal medical sitcom starring Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt. All the episodes were written by a team of eight writers working on every episode together. The writers are Victoria Pile (who is also the producer), Robert Harley, Gary Howe, Stuart Kenworthy, Oriane Messina, Richard Preddy, Fay Rusling and James Henry. The series was directed by Tristram Shapeero and Dominic Brigstocke. The first series consisted of nine episodes broadcast between 3 September and 29 October 2004 on Channel 4. A DVD of the series was released on 3 April 2006. The scripts of the first series entitled Green Wing: The Complete First Series Scripts were released in paperback on 22 October 2006. The first series was received well by both critics and fans. The series also won several awards including a BAFTA, two Royal Television Society (RTS) awards, and a Rose d'Or.
In the first series, the main plot involves a love triangle between surgical registrar Dr. Caroline Todd (Greig), anaesthetist Dr. Guy Secretan (Mangan), and surgeon Dr. "Mac" Macartney (Rhind-Tutt) and the affair between consultant radiologist Dr. Alan Statham (Mark Heap) who is in love with Joanna Clore (Pippa Haywood), the director of human resources. (Full article...) - The 40th Daytime Emmy Awards, presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), "recognizes outstanding achievement in all fields of daytime television production and are presented to individuals and programs broadcast from 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. during the 2012 calendar year". The ceremony took place on June 16, 2013 at The Beverly Hilton, in Beverly Hills, California beginning at 5:00 p.m. PST / 8:00 p.m. EST. The ceremony was televised in the United States by HLN and executive produced by Gabriel Gornell.
The evening was hosted by Sam Champion, A. J. Hammer and Robin Meade for the first time and the pre-show ceremony was hosted by Hammer and Christi Paul. The drama pre-nominees were announced on February 27, 2013, and the nominations were announced during an episode of Good Morning America on May 1, 2013. (Full article...)
Emma Stone is an American actress who aspired to an acting career from an early age. She had her first role onstage at age 11, and followed with parts in sixteen plays in a regional theater in Arizona. Stone made her television debut in the unsold pilot for the reality show The New Partridge Family (2005). After brief television roles in Medium, Malcolm in the Middle, and Lucky Louie, she made her film debut in the comedy Superbad (2007).
Stone appeared as a ghost in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009), and found commercial success with the horror comedy Zombieland, where she played a zombie apocalypse survivor. Her breakthrough came with her first leading role (a high school student perceived to be sexually promiscuous) in the teen comedy Easy A (2010). She subsequently received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical and the BAFTA Rising Star Award. In 2011, she starred in the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love and in the period drama The Help, which were both commercial successes. Stone's success continued with her role as Gwen Stacy in the 2012 superhero film The Amazing Spider-Man that became her highest-grossing release, with a worldwide revenue of $757 million, and she later reprised the role in its 2014 sequel. (Full article...)
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News
- December 28: US professional wrestler Jon Huber dies aged 41
- September 2: Tributes paid to recently deceased US actor Chadwick Boseman
- May 24: Japanese professional wrestler and Netflix star Hana Kimura dies aged 22
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History of television: Early television stations • Geographical usage of television • Golden Age of Television • List of experimental television stations • List of years in television • Mechanical television • Social aspects of television • Television systems before 1940 • Timeline of the introduction of television in countries • Timeline of the introduction of color television in countries
Inventors and pioneers: John Logie Baird • Alan Blumlein • Walter Bruch • Alan Archibald Campbell-Swinton • Allen B. DuMont • Philo Taylor Farnsworth • Charles Francis Jenkins • Boris Grabovsky • Paul Gottlieb Nipkow • Constantin Perskyi • Boris Rosing • David Sarnoff • Kálmán Tihanyi • Vladimir Zworykin
Technology: Comparison of display technology • Digital television • Liquid crystal display television • Large-screen television technology • Technology of television
Terms: Broadcast television systems • Composite monitor • HDTV • Liquid crystal display television • PAL • Picture-in-picture • Pay-per-view • Plasma display • NICAM • NTSC • SECAM
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