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The Television Portal

Flat-screen television receivers on display for sale at a consumer electronics store in 2008

Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set, rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, entertainment, news, and sports. The medium is capable of more than "radio broadcasting", which refers to an audio signal sent to radio receivers.

Television became available in crude experimental forms in the 1920s, but only after several years of further development was the new technology marketed to consumers. After World War II, an improved form of black-and-white television broadcasting became popular in the United Kingdom and the 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, Digital Light Processing (DLP), plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. LEDs are being gradually replaced by OLEDs. Also, major manufacturers have started increasingly producing 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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"North by North Quahog" is the first episode of season four of Family Guy, following the revival of the series three years after its cancellation in 2002. Directed by Peter Shin and written by series creator Seth MacFarlane (pictured), the episode was first broadcast on May 1, 2005, on FOX. In "North by North Quahog", the show's main characters Peter and Lois Griffin go on a second honeymoon to spice up their marriage, but are eventually chased by Mel Gibson after Peter steals the sequel to The Passion of the Christ from Gibson's private hotel room. Meanwhile, their anthropomorphic dog Brian and their infant son Stewie take care of their teenage kids Chris and Meg. Family Guy had been canceled in 2002 due to low ratings, but was revived by FOX after reruns on Adult Swim became the network's most watched program, and more than three million DVDs of the show were sold. Much of the plot and many of the technical aspects of the episode, as well as the title, are direct parodies of the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock movie North by Northwest. The episode was watched by 12 million viewers and received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour).

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A television studio is an installation in which television or video productions take place, either for live television, for recording live to tape, or for the acquisition of raw footage for postproduction. The design of a studio is similar to, and derived from, movie studios, with a few amendments for the special requirements of television production.

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... that people were scammed on New Zealand television by the host of You've Been Scammed?
... that New Jersey politics expert Nick Acocella hosted Pasta & Politics, a television show where he would make pasta with various politicians including Thomas Kean, Cory Booker, and Chris Christie?
... that WNJU, a Spanish-language television station serving New York City, was the first in the United States to air a hard-liquor advertisement?
... that Digital pulled their HiNote Ultra laptop out of a manila envelope on television nearly 15 years before Apple did the same?
... that after being wiped by the BBC, all four episodes of the Doctor Who serial The Time Meddler were discovered in Nigeria in 1984?
... that Ice King, the antagonist of television series Adventure Time, was at first received negatively by critics but later praised for representing mental health issues such as Alzheimer's disease?

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More did you know

...that the Simpsons short Good Night aired April 19, 1987 on The Tracey Ullman Show and was the first ever appearance of the Simpson family on television?

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

...that actress, writer and producer Michelle Paradise created the television series Exes and Ohs without an agent?

...that the television drama Hill Street Blues imitated the visual style of The Police Tapes, a low-budget documentary about a police precinct in the South Bronx?

...that Judy Morris, co-writer of the Academy Award winning Happy Feet has also acted in many of the most popular North American and Australian television programs since the age of 10?

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Rudolph Cartier (born Rudolph Kacser, renamed himself in Germany to Rudolph Katscher; 17 April 1904 – 7 June 1994) was an Austrian television director, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer who worked predominantly in British television, exclusively for the BBC. He is best known for his 1950s collaborations with screenwriter Nigel Kneale, most notably the Quatermass serials and their 1954 adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

After studying architecture and then drama, Cartier began his career as a screenwriter and then film director in Berlin, working for UFA Studios. After a brief spell in the United States he moved to the United Kingdom in 1935. Initially failing to gain a foothold in the British film industry, he began working for BBC Television in the late 1930s (among other productions he was involved in the making of Rehearsal for a Drama, BBC 1939). The outbreak of war, however, meant that his contract was terminated; his television play The Dead Eye was stopped in the production stage. After the war, he occasionally worked for British films before he was again hired by the BBC in 1952. He soon became one of the public service broadcaster's leading directors and went on to produce and direct over 120 productions in the next 24 years, ending his television career with the play Loyalties in 1976. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
James T. Aubrey Kroger Babb Sydney Newman Eric Bana Kylie Minogue Peter Jennings KaDee Strickland Austin Nichols Aaron Sorkin Jake Gyllenhaal Dan Rather Brad Pitt 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 1LG Electronics smart TV from 2011 (from Smart TV)
Image 2Smart TVs on display (from Smart TV)
Image 3Baird in 1925 with his televisor equipment and dummies "James" and "Stooky Bill" (right) (from History of television)
Image 4Public television in France uses 819 line b&w high definition, from 1959 until 1983 (TF1). (from History of television)
Image 5RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947 (from History of television)
Image 6The 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 7A 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)
Image 8Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by RCA in 1939 (from History of television)
Image 9The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from History of television)
Image 10The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953–57) (from History of television)
Image 11Hovannes Adamian c. 1900s (from Color television)
Image 12Samsung's discontinued Orsay platform (from Smart TV)
Image 13Family watching TV, 1958 (from History of television)
Image 14Philo Farnsworth in 1924 (from History of television)
Image 15Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is available (from History of television)
Image 16Ferdinand Braun (from History of television)
Image 17Manfred von Ardenne in 1933 (from History of television)
Image 18DBS satellite dishes (from History of television)
Image 19RCA 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 20Comparison of image quality between ISDB-T (1080i broadcast, top) and NTSC (480i transmission, bottom) (from Digital television)
Image 21This 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)
Image 22First television test broadcast transmitted by the NHK Broadcasting Technology Research Institute in May 1939 (from History of television)
Image 23LG Smart TV using the Web browser (from Smart TV)
Image 24An early Smart TV from 2012 running the discontinued Orsay platform (from History of television)
Image 25A map depicting digital terrestrial television standards (from Digital television)

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Featured lists have been determined by the Wikipedia community to be the best lists on English Wikipedia.

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Gielgud in 1936

Sir John Gielgud, OM, CH (/ˈɡiːlɡʊd/; 1904–2000) was an English actor and theatre director. He appeared on stage, television and radio and in film in a career that spanned eight decades. Film historian Brian McFarlane, writing for the British Film Institute, wrote of Gielgud that "in terms of the performing arts, it is no exaggeration to say that he towered over the century".

Gielgud, a member of the theatrical dynasty the Terry family, began working on stage in 1921 before attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After completing his studies he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic in the 1930s. He continued working on the stage until 1990 both as a director and actor. Although he made some films early in his career, he did not start working regularly in the medium until he was in his sixties; in the course of just over thirty years between 1964 and 1998 he appeared in over sixty films. He was active on television and radio, appearing in numerous plays and interviews, and was also in demand as a narrator. (Full article...)
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What Would You Do? (commonly abbreviated as WWYD, and formerly known as Primetime: What Would You Do? through the program's fifth season) is an American situational hidden camera television series that has been broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) since February 26, 2008. Created by Chris Whipple, the show with a social experiment format follows the reactions of passing strangers as they encounter conflict or illegal activity in a public setting, unaware that it is all staged and being recorded with hidden cameras. Throughout all of its seventeen seasons, the show has been hosted by news correspondent John Quiñones.

Appearing periodically on ABC's Primetime from 2005 to 2007, What Would You Do? became an instant success for the ABC network. Following the 2007 writers' strike, ABC ordered the first season of the show. The series was annually renewed for a second, third, fourth, and fifth season. Starting with the sixth season, the show began to feature guest appearances, which included Barbara Corcoran, Howie Mandel, and Meredith Vieira. Following the seventh season, What Would You Do? aired its first Christmas special in its eighth season. This was followed by guest appearances by Daymond John and Pnina Tornai in the show's ninth season, Winnie Harlow in the show's tenth season, and an era without guests in the show's eleventh and twelfth seasons. A 10-year anniversary special was aired in 2017 as the season finale of the thirteenth season, titled "What Would You Do?: Then and Now", featuring scenarios originally aired on Primetime and in season one being remade with the same actors in the same locations. Following the fourteenth and fifteenth seasons of the show, ABC announced that they would air episodes filmed before the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the show's sixteenth season, as well as a special hosted by Gio Benitez as part of the sixteenth season's season finale. In May 2023, ABC renewed the series for a seventeenth season after a three-year hiatus. (Full article...)
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Celebrity Big Brother is the American adaptation of Celebrity Big Brother and second spin-off of the United States version of Big Brother. It premiered on CBS on February 7, 2018 as counterprogramming to the 2018 Winter Olympics. The series is hosted by Julie Chen Moonves, and is produced by Fly on the Wall Entertainment in association with Endemol Shine North America; Allison Grodner and Rich Meehan serve as executive producers.

The Celebrity HouseGuests for the first season were revealed during a live pre-show of the 2018 Grammy Awards on January 28, 2018. The first season began filming on January 31, 2018 and concluded twenty-six days later on February 25, 2018, when Marissa Jaret Winokur and Ross Mathews were announced as the winner and runner-up of the season, respectively. On May 5, 2018, CBS renewed the series for a second season, which premiered on January 21, 2019. Twelve HouseGuests were announced on January 13, 2019, during a commercial break of CBS's NFL football coverage. The second season lasted for twenty-nine days and ended on February 13, 2019, when Tamar Braxton won in a unanimous vote over Ricky Williams. (Full article...)
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Gene Roddenberry in 1976

Gene Roddenberry (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American screenwriter and producer of several television series, best known for his work in creating the Star Trek franchise. Before his television writing career, he was a pilot in the 394th Bomb Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group of the Thirteenth Air Force during World War II. During his time in the military, he flew the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and was awarded both the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. While working in the Los Angeles Police Department after the war, he began his television writing career, but resigned to concentrate on screenwriting. His first writing award was for an episode of Have Gun – Will Travel entitled "Helen of Abajinan" which won the Writers Guild of America award for Best Teleplay in 1958. In 1964, he registered the idea with the Writers Guild which would define the rest of his career—Star Trek.

The majority of the awards and nominations received by Roddenberry throughout his career were related to Star Trek. He was credited for Star Trek: The Original Series (known at the time simply as Star Trek) during the nominations for two Emmy Awards, and won two Hugo Awards. One Hugo was a special award for the series, while another was for "The Menagerie", the episode which used footage from the original unaired pilot for Star Trek, "The Cage". In addition, he was awarded the Brotherhood Award by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for his work in the advancement of African American characters on television. (Full article...)
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Hattie Jacques (/dʒeɪks/; born Josephine Edwina Jaques; 1922–1980) was an English actress who appeared in many genres of light entertainment including radio, film, television and stage. Jacques's career spanned from 1939 until her death in 1980. She is best remembered for her appearances in fourteen Carry On films and for her professional partnership with Eric Sykes.

In 1939 Jacques became involved in amateur dramatics, appearing as Doris Gow in Noël Coward's short play Fumed Oak. Five years later, after wartime service as a nurse and a welder, she made her professional theatrical debut at the Players' Theatre in the revue Late Joys, a performance that she repeated on television in 1946. From there she became a regular stage performer, appearing in variety shows and Victorian-style pantomimes. (Full article...)
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Roddenberry's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry (August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991) was an American screenwriter and producer of several television series, best known for his work in creating the Star Trek franchise. He began a writing career while he was a Sergeant in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and his first work to be bought by a network was The Secret Defense of 117, although it took four years to be broadcast. During that time, he wrote four episodes of the police procedural Highway Patrol under the pseudonym "Robert Wesley", as the LAPD required employees to seek formal permission to work a second job. After leaving the force, he wrote for several series, such as Have Gun – Will Travel but wanted to become a producer.

He wrote pilots for a series of his own, but these were turned down by the studios until he began work on The Lieutenant. This ran for a single season on NBC on Saturday nights. While involved in that series, he began working on a science fiction premise that became Star Trek. He oversaw the production of the series for the first two seasons, but following budget cuts and the move to an unfavorable timeslot for the third season, he stepped back from working on Star Trek but remained credited as an executive producer. Following the cancellation of the series, he wrote and produced his first feature film, Pretty Maids All in a Row. He also produced several new science fiction pilots: Genesis II (also re-worked into a second pilot, called Planet Earth), The Questor Tapes and Spectre. Of these, Questor was approved to go to a full season, but following disagreements between Roddenberry and the studio over suggested changes, it was canceled. (Full article...)

Season	Episodes	Originally aired		Rank	Average viewers (in millions)
Season	Episodes	First aired	Last aired	Rank	Average viewers (in millions)
1	22	September 27, 2015 (2015-09-27)	May 15, 2016 (2016-05-15)	55	8.05
2	22	September 25, 2016 (2016-09-25)	May 15, 2017 (2017-05-15)	99	4.53
3	13	April 26, 2018 (2018-04-26)	August 3, 2018 (2018-08-03)	—	—

(Full article...)

Season	Episodes	Originally aired
Season	Episodes	First aired	Last aired
1	15	October 14, 2001 (2001-10-14)	March 3, 2002 (2002-03-03)
2	22	September 29, 2002 (2002-09-29)	February 23, 2003 (2003-02-23)
3	22	September 17, 2003 (2003-09-17)	April 5, 2004 (2004-04-05)
4	22	September 7, 2004 (2004-09-07)	February 14, 2005 (2005-02-14)
5	19	September 19, 2005 (2005-09-19)	March 20, 2006 (2006-03-20)
6	19	September 29, 2006 (2006-09-29)	May 14, 2007 (2007-05-14)
7	24	October 5, 2007 (2007-10-05)	June 23, 2008 (2008-06-23)
8	22	October 5, 2008 (2008-10-05)	August 14, 2009 (2009-08-14)
9	23	October 4, 2009 (2009-10-04)	July 16, 2010 (2010-07-16)
10	44	July 19, 2010 (2010-07-19)	April 22, 2011 (2011-04-22)
11	45	July 18, 2011 (2011-07-18)	May 18, 2012 (2012-05-18)
12	40	July 16, 2012 (2012-07-16)	June 21, 2013 (2013-06-21)
13	40	July 11, 2013 (2013-07-11)	July 29, 2014 (2014-07-29)
14	28	October 28, 2014 (2014-10-28)	August 2, 2015 (2015-08-02)

(Full article...)

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The West Wing is an American political drama television series created by Aaron Sorkin and produced by John Wells Productions and Warner Bros. Television. It originally aired on NBC from September 22, 1999, to May 14, 2006, broadcasting 156 episodes over seven seasons. A special episode was also released on October 15, 2020, on HBO Max.

The show follows the lives of White House staffers during the fictional Democratic presidential administration of Josiah Bartlet. The show originally starred Rob Lowe as Sam Seaborn, Moira Kelly as Mandy Hampton, Allison Janney as C. J. Cregg, Richard Schiff as Toby Ziegler, John Spencer as Leo McGarry, Bradley Whitford as Josh Lyman, and Martin Sheen as Bartlet. Over the course of the show's run, the main cast added Dulé Hill as Charlie Young, Janel Moloney as Donna Moss, Stockard Channing as Abbey Bartlet, Joshua Malina as Will Bailey, Mary McCormack as Kate Harper, Jimmy Smits as Matt Santos, Alan Alda as Arnold Vinick, and Kristin Chenoweth as Annabeth Schott. (Full article...)
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The episodes of the anime series Gunslinger Girl are based on the Gunslinger Girl manga series written and illustrated by Yu Aida. There are a total of twenty-eight episodes split over two seasons/series. Set in modern-day Italy, the series revolves around the Social Welfare Agency, a government-funded organisation which is supposed to provide advanced medical care to those in need. This, however, is a cover for a far different agenda: the patients, adolescent girls who have survived traumatic events, are brainwashed into forgetting their past, turned into cyborgs, trained in the use of weapons and used as assassins to battle enemies of the State. Each girl is assigned to an adult whose job is to provide the girl with training and act as a mentor and authority figure. The relationship between the cyborg-girls and their "handlers" forms the basis of much of the plot and varies from the affectionate to the indifferent with varying degrees of results.

The first series' episodes were directed by Morio Asaka, animated by Madhouse Studios, and produced by Bandai Visual, Marvelous Entertainment, MediaWorks, and Madhouse Studios. It adapts the first two manga volumes of the series over thirteen episodes which aired in Japan from October 9, 2003 to February 19, 2004 on Bandai Channel and Fuji Television. Set in contemporary Italy, the series tells about young girls who are turned into cyborgs, trained as assassins by adult male "handlers" and their missions against terrorists and gangsters on behalf of a secretive government agency. A sequel called Gunslinger Girl -Il Teatrino-, directed by Hiroshi Ishiodori and animated by Artland, aired in Japan on Tokyo MX TV from January 8, 2008 to April 1, 2008. It adapts the third, fourth and fifth volumes of the manga over fifteen episodes, with thirteen episodes airing on television and the final two released directly to DVD. (Full article...)
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Terry-Thomas in Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?, 1968

The English actor and comedian Terry-Thomas (1911–1990) performed in many mediums of light entertainment, including film, radio and theatre. His professional career spanned 50 years from 1933 until his retirement in 1983. During this time he became synonymous with playing the "silly-ass Englishman", a characterisation that he had portrayed from his time on the variety circuit.

Terry-Thomas made his film debut as an extra in the 1933 film, The Private Life of Henry VIII, which starred Charles Laughton in the title role; Terry-Thomas continued to undertake a series of small and uncredited film roles while his reputation grew on radio and television. He played his first role on radio in the 1938 BBC tea dance programme Friends to Tea, before spending the Second World War with the Royal Corps of Signals and ENSA, the Entertainments National Service Association. (Full article...)
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The cast of Parks and Recreation at the 71st Annual Peabody Awards in 2012

Parks and Recreation is an American situation comedy created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. The show premiered on NBC on April 9, 2009 and concluded on February 24, 2015 after airing seven seasons. The series stars Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, an ambitious, mid-level bureaucrat working in the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, a fictional town in Indiana. The sitcom features an ensemble cast, including Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott, Rob Lowe, Paul Schneider, Jim O'Heir and Retta, among others.

The show was nominated for a variety of different awards throughout its run, including sixteen Primetime Emmy Award nominations, twice as a comedy series and twice for writing. Parks and Recreation was also nominated for fifteen Critics' Choice Television Awards (three wins), two Art Directors Guild Awards, four Golden Globe Awards (one win), a Peabody Award (one win), a Producers Guild of America Award, five Satellite Awards, and five Writers Guild of America Awards, among other awards. (Full article...)
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The episodes of the 2007 anime television series Blue Drop are based on the manga of the same name written by Akihito Yoshitomi, constituting a prequel to the manga. The episodes are directed by Masahiko Ohkura and animated by the Japanese animation studios Asahi Production and BeSTACK, with the 3D modeling done by Gonzo. The plot of the episodes follows Mari Wakatake's relationship with the enigmatic Hagino Senkōji, a member of an alien race known as the Arume, and the prelude to an invasion by the Arume.

The episodes aired from October 2, 2007, to December 25, 2007, on Chiba TV and KBS Kyoto, with AT-X, Mie TV, Tokyo MX TV, TV Kanagawa, TV Saitama, and TV Wakayama showing the episodes at later dates. The AT-X broadcast started much later than its counterparts, with the first episode airing in November, while most other stations started showing the episodes in October. Unlike most Japanese anime, the title of each episode is given in English. Each title is the name of a flower shown in that episode. (Full article...)

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