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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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"Premiere" is the series premiere of the television series The O.C., which first aired on the Fox network on August 5, 2003. Written by series creator Josh Schwartz (pictured) and directed by executive producer Doug Liman, the episode depicts the introduction of troubled teenager Ryan Atwood (Benjamin McKenzie) into the wealthy lifestyle of the Cohen family in Newport Beach, Orange County, California. The casting directors, Patrick J. Rush and Alyson Silverberg, began selecting the principal cast eight to ten weeks before filming started. Seth Cohen (Adam Brody) was based on Schwartz's experiences at the University of Southern California as a "neurotic Jewish kid from the East Coast in a land of water polo players". Other central characters in the episode are Seth's parents—Sandy (Peter Gallagher) and Kirsten (Kelly Rowan)—and teenage neighbor Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton). The series premiere led the first half-hour of its time slot in viewership. It was generally well received by critics, and earned Schwartz a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Best Screenplay in an Episodic Drama. Originally broadcast and released in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, the episode was remastered in a widescreen ratio for the series DVD, released in November 2007.

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Credit: Adam Kliczek, [1]

CRT TV set "Wisła" ("Vistula") made in Poland, since 1955, by Warszawskie Zakłady Telewizyjne

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... that Czech television reporter and author Vladimír Škutina was arrested and imprisoned twice for his use of political satire?
... that Indian historian R. Champakalakshmi was a script consultant for Bharat Ek Khoj, a television series based on Jawaharlal Nehru's The Discovery of India?
... that in the 1970s, Coors Brewing Company owned Television News Inc., which provided newsfilm to North American TV stations?
... that actor Jonathan Roumie, who plays the character of Jesus Christ in American television series The Chosen, is also an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion in the Catholic Church?
... that the exclusive secret society Hamilton House from the television show Gossip Girl was based on St. Anthony Hall, a social and literary fraternity?
... that among the special events broadcast by the Maine Television Network during its brief existence were a fashion show, a basketball tournament, and an ordination ceremony?

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If there's anything unsettling to the stomach, it's watching actors on television talk about their personal lives.

— Marlon Brando

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...that The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer, a book that analyzes the The Simpsons using philosophical concepts, is the main textbook in philosophy courses offered at some universities?

...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 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 Ralph "Petey" Greene overcame a drug addiction and prison sentence to become an Emmy Award-winning radio and television talk show host and a guest at the White House?

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Cronkite in 1983

Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years, from 1962 to 1981. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trusted man in America" after being so named in an opinion poll. Cronkite received numerous honors including two Peabody Awards, a George Polk Award, an Emmy Award and in 1981 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter.

Cronkite reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombings in World War II; the Nuremberg trials; combat in the Vietnam War; the Dawson's Field hijackings; Watergate; the Iran Hostage Crisis; and the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr., and Beatles musician John Lennon. He was also known for his extensive coverage of the U.S. space program, from Project Mercury to the Moon landings to the Space Shuttle. He was the only non-NASA recipient of an Ambassador of Exploration award. Cronkite is known for his departing catchphrase, "And that's the way it is", followed by the date of the broadcast. (Full article...)

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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 Brad Pitt 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 1Smart TVs on display (from Smart TV)
Image 2The 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 3Comparison of image quality between ISDB-T (1080i broadcast, top) and NTSC (480i transmission, bottom) (from Digital television)
Image 4Ferdinand Braun (from History of television)
Image 5Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is available (from History of television)
Image 6RCA 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 7An early Smart TV from 2012 running the discontinued Orsay platform (from History of television)
Image 8Baird in 1925 with his televisor equipment and dummies "James" and "Stooky Bill" (right) (from History of television)
Image 9Samsung's discontinued Orsay platform (from Smart TV)
Image 10This 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 11Public television in France uses 819 line b&w high definition, from 1959 until 1983 (TF1). (from History of television)
Image 12LG Electronics smart TV from 2011 (from Smart TV)
Image 13First television test broadcast transmitted by the NHK Broadcasting Technology Research Institute in May 1939 (from History of television)
Image 14LG Smart TV using the Web browser (from Smart TV)
Image 15Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by RCA in 1939 (from History of television)
Image 16Hovannes Adamian c. 1900s (from Color television)
Image 17A 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 18RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947 (from History of television)
Image 19Manfred von Ardenne in 1933 (from History of television)
Image 20The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from History of television)
Image 21Philo Farnsworth in 1924 (from History of television)
Image 22Family watching TV, 1958 (from History of television)
Image 23A map depicting digital terrestrial television standards (from Digital television)
Image 24The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953–57) (from History of television)
Image 25DBS satellite dishes (from History of 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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Keith Floyd (1943–2009) was an English broadcaster, restaurateur and food writer. He was brought up in Somerset, England, where his mother taught him to cook. He was educated at Wellington, a local public school, although he left at the age of sixteen. He joined the Bristol Evening Post as a cub reporter—where he worked alongside the future playwright Tom Stoppard. He was commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment in 1963 as a second lieutenant, but his career there only lasted until 1966; he left military service and moved to London and then France, where he worked in several restaurants in various roles.

In 1971 he set up his first restaurant in Bristol—Floyd's Bistro—which proved popular enough for him to open three further outlets in the city. His burgeoning empire soon collapsed and he sailed around the Mediterranean for two years, from where he exported wine to the UK. He also opened a restaurant in the south of France, but this was also unsuccessful and it closed in 1979, when Floyd returned to the UK. He opened another Bristol-based restaurant and wrote a book—Floyd's Food—which was locally published in 1981; this led to a short recipe slot on the local Radio West station. In 1983 one of his customers—David Pritchard, a television producer—suggested to Floyd that he front a television series, which resulted in Floyd on Fish, broadcast on BBC Two in late 1985. Several series followed on the BBC before the Floyd-Pritchard partnership broke up in 1993; a corresponding book appeared with each series. There were no scripts for the programmes, and Floyd ad-libbed throughout; when he ran out of words, he would sip from an ever-present glass of wine to give him time to create the next line. Pritchard's directing style and Floyd's presentation technique produced what the food writer Tom Jaine considers as "cheerful mayhem", although viewers were educated in basic techniques. He went on to say that "Floyd's performances, on or near the stove, were a refreshing departure from the prissy, controlled style then in favour at the BBC, or the alternative mode of half an hour with a French chef whose incomprehensible English made the recipes a mystery." (Full article...)
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Will Young was the winner of the first series of Pop Idol. He has subsequently recorded thirteen top-40 singles and seven top-10 albums.

Pop Idol was a British television talent show that ran for two series, in 2001 and 2003. The show was produced for ITV in a reality television format and aimed to unearth a previously undiscovered singer who could become an international success. Will Young was the winner of the first series and was awarded with a £1 million music recording contract. Young became the most successful contestant with a series of top-five hits, including his debut single "Anything Is Possible" / "Evergreen", which peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart in 2002 and broke chart sales figure records. During the next seven years he recorded two further number-one singles ("Light My Fire" and "Leave Right Now"), while two of his four albums were number-one in the UK Albums Chart. In the second series, Michelle McManus emerged victorious. Her debut single "All This Time" charted at number one in January 2003. Her second single, "The Meaning of Love", charted at a peak of number 16 and an album of the same name reached number three in the UK Albums Chart.

A number of artists who did not win either series of Pop Idol have also had success in the British charts. Gareth Gates, who finished as the runner-up behind Young in the first series, scored a number-one hit with a cover of "Unchained Melody" in March 2002, replacing Young's debut single at the top of the charts. Gates' subsequent releases "Anyone of Us (Stupid Mistake)" and the double A-side "The Long and Winding Road" / "Suspicious Minds" both reached the top of the charts in 2002. After "What My Heart Wants to Say" ended this run of number-one singles, Gates was joined by The Kumars to record the Comic Relief single for 2003, "Spirit in the Sky". He achieved several more top-20 hits in 2003. After three years away from the music industry, Gates briefly returned in 2007 with a new album – Pictures of the Other Side, which charted at number 23 – and two top-40 singles. (Full article...)
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The Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance is a Creative Arts Emmy Award given out by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. It is awarded to a performer for an outstanding "continuing or single voice-over performance in a series or a special." Prior to 1992, voice-actors could be nominated for their performance in the live action acting categories. The award was first given in 1992 when six voice actors from The Simpsons shared the award. From 1992 to 2008, it was a juried award, so there were no nominations and there would be multiple or no recipients in one year. In 2009, the rules were changed to a category award, with five nominees.

Usually, the winner is a voice actor from an animated show, but some narrators of live action shows have won such as Keith David in 2005 and 2008. No winner was named in 1996 or 2007. (Full article...)
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Rental Magica (レンタルマギカ, Rentaru Magika) is a Japanese animated television series . Its episodes are directed by Itsuro Kawasaki and produced by the Japanese animation studio ZEXCS and Victor Entertainment. ZEXCS produced the animation and Victor Entertainment was responsible for developing the music. They are based on the light novel series Rental Magica by Makoto Sando and illustrated by pako, and adapt the source material over twenty-four episodes. The plot of the episodes follows Itsuki Iba, the newly appointed president of Astral, a company that dispatches magicians to perform jobs involving supernatural phenomena, and his interactions with his employees and Astral's competitors.

The episodes aired from October 7, 2007 to March 23, 2008 on Chiba TV and TV Saitama, with the episodes later broadcast on KBS Kyoto, Sun TV, Tokyo MX TV, TV Aichi, TV Hokkaido, TV Kanagawa, and TVQ Kyushu Broadcasting Co. The order that the episodes air in is nonlinear; for instance, the first episode broadcast is the sixth episode chronologically. The exceptions are episodes four, eight, and episodes sixteen through twenty, which are in the same broadcast and chronological order. (Full article...)
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Charlie Brooker is the series creator, and has received seven awards for his work on Black Mirror.

Black Mirror is a British science fiction anthology series created by Charlie Brooker. From 2011 to 2013, the first two series aired on British network Channel 4, as did the special "White Christmas" (2014); the following four series were released on the American streaming platform Netflix from 2016 to 2023. There are twenty-seven episodes in the show's first six series, and an additional interactive film Bandersnatch (2019). Inspired by The Twilight Zone, each episode of Black Mirror is standalone and explores the common theme of technology and its side-effects.

Black Mirror has received positive reception from critics and has been nominated for ninety-nine awards, winning twenty-nine of them. The most acclaimed episodes are "USS Callister", which won four Emmy Awards, and "San Junipero", which won two. Additionally, the interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch won two Emmy Awards. As actors rarely appear in more than one episode, the only people to receive multiple awards for their work on the show are writer Charlie Brooker, who has won seven, and executive producer Annabel Jones, who has won four. The series has been nominated for seventeen British Academy Film Awards, winning two, and fifteen Emmy Awards, winning nine. (Full article...)

Season	Episodes	Originally aired
Season	Episodes	First aired	Last aired
1	13	March 7, 2006 (2006-03-07)	May 16, 2006 (2006-05-16)
2	23	September 19, 2006 (2006-09-19)	May 8, 2007 (2007-05-08)
3	11	September 25, 2007 (2007-09-25)	December 18, 2007 (2007-12-18)
4	22	September 28, 2008 (2008-09-28)	May 10, 2009 (2009-05-10)

(Full article...)

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Moonlight is an American paranormal romance television drama created by Ron Koslow and Trevor Munson, who was also executive producer for all episodes with Joel Silver, Gerard Bocaccio, Gabrielle Stanton and Harry Werksman. The series follows private investigator Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin), who was turned into a vampire by his bride Coraline (Shannyn Sossamon) on the couple's wedding night fifty-five years earlier. In the present day, he struggles with his attraction to a mortal woman, Beth Turner (Sophia Myles), his friendship with his mentor and fellow vampire Josef Kostan (Jason Dohring), and his dealings with other vampires in Los Angeles.

The series was commissioned by Warner Bros. Television in 2007 as a presentation lasting 14–20 minutes. Alex O'Loughlin, Shannon Lucio, Rade Šerbedžija and Amber Valletta were cast in the lead roles, and Rod Holcomb was hired as director. David Greenwalt joined the staff in May 2007 as showrunner and executive producer with Joel Silver; however, health reasons forced Greenwalt to leave the series. All of the original actors, apart from the male lead role, were recast in June 2007 with Sophia Myles, Jason Dohring and Shannyn Sossamon. A retooled, full-length pilot for television audiences was then shot. (Full article...)
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Oh My Goddess!, the manga by Kōsuke Fujishima, has been adapted into five anime versions between 1993 and 2007, including an original video animation (OVA), The Adventures of Mini-Goddess, Ah! My Goddess, and its sequels, Ah! My Goddess: Flights of Fancy and Ah! My Goddess: Fighting Wings.

In 1993, Anime International Company produced a five-episode OVA series based on the manga series. Its success inspired a spinoff TV series entitled The Adventures of Mini-Goddess. Produced by Oriental Light and Magic and initially aired on WOWOW in 1998 and 1999, the plot revolved around the adventures of three miniaturized goddesses and their rat companion Gan-chan, all of whom live in a temple home. In 2005, Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) began broadcasting Ah! My Goddess, a new series directed by Hiroaki Gōda and animated by Anime International Company. It ran for 24 episodes between January 7 and July 8, 2005. A sequel also animated by Anime International Company and directed by Gōda, Ah! My Goddess: Flights of Fancy, aired on TBS between April 6 and September 14, 2006. A two-episode special entitled Ah! My Goddess: Fighting Wings, animated by Anime International Company and directed by Gōda, was broadcast on TBS on December 9, 2007. (Full article...)
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Winslet at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival

English actress Kate Winslet made her screen debut at age fifteen in the BBC series Dark Season (1991). Following more television appearances in the UK, she made her film debut with the leading role of murderess Juliet Hulme in Peter Jackson's crime film Heavenly Creatures (1994). Winslet gained wider recognition for playing Marianne Dashwood in a 1995 film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, for which she received an Academy Award nomination and won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress. The same year, she appeared in the Royal Exchange Theatre's production of Joe Orton's farce What the Butler Saw. In 1997, she starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in James Cameron's romance Titanic, which emerged as the highest-grossing film of all time to that point; it established her as a star and earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination.

Winslet followed Titanic with roles in small-scale period dramas which were critically acclaimed but not widely seen. She played a disillusioned single mother in Hideous Kinky (1998), an Australian woman brainwashed by a religious cult in Holy Smoke! (1999), a sexually repressed laundress in Quills (2000), and the novelist Iris Murdoch in Iris (2001). For the last of these, she received her third Academy Award nomination. Winslet was awarded a Grammy Award for narrating a short story in the children's audiobook Listen to the Storyteller (1999), and she sang the single "What If" for the 2001 animated film Christmas Carol: The Movie. The 2004 science fiction romance Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind marked one of her first roles set in contemporary times, and Winslet followed it by playing Sylvia Llewelyn Davies in Finding Neverland (2004) and an unhappy housewife in Little Children (2006). She received Academy Award nominations for the first and last of these, and went on to star alongside Cameron Diaz in the commercially successful romantic comedy The Holiday (2006). (Full article...)
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Roberts at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival

Julia Roberts is an American actress and producer who made her debut in the 1987 direct-to-video feature Firehouse. She had her breakthrough the following year by starring in the coming-of-age film Mystic Pizza (1988). For her supporting role in the comedy-drama Steel Magnolias (1989), she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. Roberts' next role was opposite Richard Gere in the highly successful romantic comedy Pretty Woman (1990), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy. In 1991, she appeared in the psychological thriller Sleeping with the Enemy, and played Tinker Bell in the Steven Spielberg-directed fantasy adventure Hook. Two years later, Roberts starred in the legal thriller The Pelican Brief, an adaptation of the John Grisham novel of the same name. During the late 1990s, she played the lead in the romantic comedies My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Notting Hill (1999), and Runaway Bride (1999).

In 2000, Roberts became the first actress to earn $20 million, for playing the eponymous environmental activist in the Steven Soderbergh-directed biographical film Erin Brockovich. Her performance won her the Academy Award for Best Actress, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Drama. The following year, she starred in the romantic comedy America's Sweethearts (2001), and reteamed with Soderbergh on the comedy heist remake Ocean's Eleven (2001). Roberts appeared in the 2003 drama, Mona Lisa Smile, which earned her a then record $25 million salary. The following year, she starred in the romantic drama Closer (2004), and also reprised her role in the sequel, Ocean's Twelve (2004). In 2006, she lent her voice to two animated films: The Ant Bully, and Charlotte's Web. Roberts went on to appear in the comedy-dramas Charlie Wilson's War (2007) and Eat Pray Love (2010), following which she starred in August: Osage County (2013), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2016, Roberts played a television producer in the thriller Money Monster and the following year, she played a mother coping with her son's Treacher Collins syndrome in the comedy-drama Wonder. (Full article...)

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