What are some of the advantages of live television and why do you think it was the prevailing format during TV's first decade? What are its disadvantages? How is "liveness" (or the illusion thereof) used by TV today?
Live television gives the illusion of audience interaction and authenticity. Because it is cut live, if an actor decided to improvise or forgot their lines, it would be more difficult to hide than if there were multiple takes recorded and mistakes edited out. Live television works best for comedy and interviews because they have a spontaneous element whereas pre-recorded television works best for thorough plots and dramas. Live television is less controlled, even if rehearsed beforehand. It has a "real" quality to it that makes audiences feel as if they aren't being manipulated (at least as much as with meticulously executed and edited pieces). On that note, some television shows are recorded in a manner that makes them feel live, when in reality they were recorded hours before to provide cushion and emergency editing. "Liveness" seems to be less of a current experience, especially with the invention of the DVR. Watching the DVR recorded version of a live show may be convenient, but it doesn't feel the same as watching something live. If you watch something live, you feel like you are in the audience and have a connection with those on screen-- like you are in the same room as them and that if something happened to them, it could be happening to you. You have the opportunity to be, or feel, like the first person viewing the show. You can discuss it with your friends and family, post live tweets as events unfold, etc.
The rise of film and television, really any video based media content, is due in large part to the desire of viewers to see lives and worlds different from their own but still relatable. The first programs of live television drew from performances that were directed at the audience such as radio and vaudeville. A live television host provided a genuine and relatable figure that acted as though he was talking to each individual viewer on a personal level. Networks saw the need to give audiences something familiar while they introduced this new form of entertainment. Live television, however, has disadvantages similar to those of live theatre. The entire performance needs to planned out and usually rehearsed ahead of time and any event that deviates from that plan or any errors have to be dealt with in real time and often a solution is improvised because there are no second takes in live TV. Live television also restricts the production to a space and set, unlike the multitude of sprawling landscapes seen in shows such as Game of Thrones. Despite these confinements, the characteristics of live television still populate present day lineups and are part of the most popular programs. When a show could not be shot live but still wanted the feel of a live program, the live audience feature was introduced to recreate the feeling of a performance directly for the people. When a live audience couldn’t be used, a laugh track was incorporated. Late night talk shows retained the aspect of a host talking to a live audience, which maintains the feeling of a person talking to the viewers at home, even though that broadcast was filmed hours before airing. Even “live” television today runs on a slight delay in case of any wardrobe malfunctions or f-bombs. It is clear that the influence and appeal of live television in TV’s first decade still prevails in the 21st century.
Sometimes even the professional mess up on live tv: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P382JkLXRqA
The business of starting up television would have been all about getting people to watch it. It would have been a strange technology, with many people needing an incentive to spend the money on an expensive piece of machinery. One way to do this is to make the public benefit from being able to participate in a television culture, much like what we have today. Live television is very much an “event”. There are benefits to seeing it when it airs. It allows for great water cooler conversation and allows the viewer to feel like they belong to a group of people who all enjoy and laugh at the same things. The beauty of live TV is that if you miss it, you’re no longer part of that shared experience. The benefits of watching a program live allows for viewers to want to gather to watch television in order to feel part of the whole. This then encourages them to buy their own television sets, ensuring that they would be able to participate in the television culture no matter what. It is an illusion that we maintain today with live reality competition shows. This kind of ‘blink and you’ll miss it” television ensures that people are consuming media in order to feel included while also ensuring that ratings go up.
Love the piece where you mention that live television is like an event. This was very true in the early days and is becoming more of an issue in today's television programming. Ratings for some popular shows are not as high as they used to be as viewers can now watch content on Netflix, YouTube, etc. In order to get viewers back, some companies are doing what a FOX executive is calling "Event-izing", which is the idea of creating programming that is best watched as it happens live in studio. We can see evidence of this in NBC's Sound of Music production that aired in December as well as FOX's upcoming Grease production set to air in 2015. These live musical performances are being produced and performed live in order to increase viewership of network programming and win back audiences that left for new media outlets.
Performing and broadcasting shows live held advantages for early television programs, as well as for modern shows. Today, the line between film and television is almost non-existent, but in the early days they were vastly different. The important difference is that television was derived from broadcast technology, mainly radio. The fact that television was predominantly live not only separated it from the cinema, but also made the medium more inviting and accessible to an audience in their own homes. Like the radio fireside chats from President Roosevelt, a live Milton Burl show is almost as if he is in the living room with you. It makes the performer less than perfect with their mistakes or stumbles, but this is part of the charm. Cinema can be derived and foreign at times, but knowing that what you are watching is really happening somewhere makes an instant, intimate connection with the audience. There are of course slight disadvantages to live broadcast, including more limited staging, lighting, camera-work, etcetera; but most studios thought it was worth the trouble, or found new tricky ways around it (ie: stand in for The Martha Ray Show). The charm of live performance is still exploited today in shows like Saturday Night Live. Some of the most hilarious moments on the show are when actors fumble or improvise. These moments are not inherently funny, but the fact that the audience knows that it is live makes it hysterical.
Live television is like no other format of media and used to this day to entertain fans all over the world. In the early days of television, it was used in order to replicate what had worked in the past, radio and vaudeville. Shows would be transmitted and filmed in real time and sent through to stations across the country. It was a way to bring the spectacle of live theater and comedy performances into the home for a wider audience to see. Bringing entertainment into the home for the family to watch together changed the way that Americans viewed content, and studios had to keep up with it. To this day, many shows we know and love are either live, or taped in front of live audiences. Live sketch comedy shows like Saturday Night Live or studio audience talk shows like The Late Show allow the audience, both in studio and at home, to see a human experience and connect with it in ways that, with other shows, we can’t. No elaborate video effects or editing alterations take us away from the art or information presented on the screen, like recorded shows can. Live television also gives us the illusion that what is happening on screen can happen in real life and to ourselves. Watching a show in your living room as it is happening allows viewers to connect with the content more than the singular audio tones of radio or the unfamiliarity of movie theaters. These live performances and reports also allow us to see what happens when not everything goes right, giving us a deeper connection to the entertainers and reminding us that they are humans just as we are.
Here’s an example of what can happen during a live newscast, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuV1JYgyBxY
Benefits of live television include its spontaneity, surprise, recency, and convenience. First, live television is spontaneous, and this is especially important for comedy, where this improv-like element can add to the humor. Surprise is also another benefit-- no one knows what is going to happen, not even the people on air. This adds a degree of suspense and thrill to watching television. Something could go wrong or something extremely unusual might happen. Live televised sporting events benefit especially from this aspect. Watching a taped football game is no fun, even if you don't know who wins. The live element adds surprise. Live television also is extremely current and can televise news as it's happening, which is important for any news program. You can find out what is happening right now anywhere. Taped news, again, loses its recency. Convenience is the last benefit of live television. Instead of having to go in person to attend a sporting event, you can watch it live from the convenience of your own living room.
Some disadvantages include the fact that mistakes cannot be fixed. If it's live, there's no going back and redoing anything. Whatever airs airs. You film and edit at the same time. In this way, because there's no time to perfect each and every aspect of the raw film, it will never be as polished as something that's been recorded and edited for hours. There's no postproduction, so quality is lesser than recorded television.
I think it was the prevailing format early on in television's history in order to distinguish it from cinema. Why watch television instead of going to a movie? Because it's live. Television was new and they had to sell it as much as possible. The live element was a great selling point. Also, television, as we have discussed, evolved in many ways from radio, which was also often live.
Today, news programs (like CNN breaking news, New Years Live), sporting events (like Monday Night Football, which happening right now), game/variety shows (like American Idol), and comedy shows (like SNL) all use the live format for the various reasons mentioned above.
The live television format offers many advantages, including invoking a feeling of involvement and connection with the audience, and distinguishing the medium from the pre-recorded film industry. On the flip side, disadvantages include a 'one-and-done' style of shooting and a drop in overall program quality.
First, the advantages. Searching for ways to demonstrate the vitality of television to everyday life, TV producers experimented with liveness in ways rarely seen today. Audiences' feeling that they were viewing these events in real time created a sense of participation. Seeing performers stumble most likely humanized them to broad audiences, as well. In addition, while there were certainly unexpected costs accrued during these live programs' productions, one must think that the overhead cost would be less, considering that no episodes were fully produced in advance. For example, if a network cancels a show like Parks and Recreation, midseason, then they would have to eat the remaining episodes, which would already have been filmed.
Of course, disadvantages to the live television format eventually overshadowed the advantages, as one can see that live programs today are virtually all news programs and sporting events (programs that require liveness, or near-liveness, to have salience). Uncertain lengths of action sequences, forgotten lines, missteps in live technical production — all of these combined to create content that simply wasn't as good as it could have been. Only one chance to get it right means that there will be plenty of times you got it wrong, and waning interest in the gimmick of live dramatic programs would spell the end for the genre.
Note: Not necessarily an advantage or disadvantage, but it's interesting that this type of television emphasized the writers, as the short length of time to memorize lines, rehearse blocking, etc., left little room for improvisation or creative directing/editing. The emphasis on writing is still seen today in a program like Saturday Night Live.
Live television gives the illusion of audience interaction and authenticity. Because it is cut live, if an actor decided to improvise or forgot their lines, it would be more difficult to hide than if there were multiple takes recorded and mistakes edited out. Live television works best for comedy and interviews because they have a spontaneous element whereas pre-recorded television works best for thorough plots and dramas. Live television is less controlled, even if rehearsed beforehand. It has a "real" quality to it that makes audiences feel as if they aren't being manipulated (at least as much as with meticulously executed and edited pieces). On that note, some television shows are recorded in a manner that makes them feel live, when in reality they were recorded hours before to provide cushion and emergency editing. "Liveness" seems to be less of a current experience, especially with the invention of the DVR. Watching the DVR recorded version of a live show may be convenient, but it doesn't feel the same as watching something live. If you watch something live, you feel like you are in the audience and have a connection with those on screen-- like you are in the same room as them and that if something happened to them, it could be happening to you. You have the opportunity to be, or feel, like the first person viewing the show. You can discuss it with your friends and family, post live tweets as events unfold, etc.
ReplyDeleteThe rise of film and television, really any video based media content, is due in large part to the desire of viewers to see lives and worlds different from their own but still relatable. The first programs of live television drew from performances that were directed at the audience such as radio and vaudeville. A live television host provided a genuine and relatable figure that acted as though he was talking to each individual viewer on a personal level. Networks saw the need to give audiences something familiar while they introduced this new form of entertainment. Live television, however, has disadvantages similar to those of live theatre. The entire performance needs to planned out and usually rehearsed ahead of time and any event that deviates from that plan or any errors have to be dealt with in real time and often a solution is improvised because there are no second takes in live TV. Live television also restricts the production to a space and set, unlike the multitude of sprawling landscapes seen in shows such as Game of Thrones. Despite these confinements, the characteristics of live television still populate present day lineups and are part of the most popular programs. When a show could not be shot live but still wanted the feel of a live program, the live audience feature was introduced to recreate the feeling of a performance directly for the people. When a live audience couldn’t be used, a laugh track was incorporated. Late night talk shows retained the aspect of a host talking to a live audience, which maintains the feeling of a person talking to the viewers at home, even though that broadcast was filmed hours before airing. Even “live” television today runs on a slight delay in case of any wardrobe malfunctions or f-bombs. It is clear that the influence and appeal of live television in TV’s first decade still prevails in the 21st century.
ReplyDeleteSometimes even the professional mess up on live tv:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P382JkLXRqA
The business of starting up television would have been all about getting people to watch it. It would have been a strange technology, with many people needing an incentive to spend the money on an expensive piece of machinery. One way to do this is to make the public benefit from being able to participate in a television culture, much like what we have today. Live television is very much an “event”. There are benefits to seeing it when it airs. It allows for great water cooler conversation and allows the viewer to feel like they belong to a group of people who all enjoy and laugh at the same things. The beauty of live TV is that if you miss it, you’re no longer part of that shared experience. The benefits of watching a program live allows for viewers to want to gather to watch television in order to feel part of the whole. This then encourages them to buy their own television sets, ensuring that they would be able to participate in the television culture no matter what. It is an illusion that we maintain today with live reality competition shows. This kind of ‘blink and you’ll miss it” television ensures that people are consuming media in order to feel included while also ensuring that ratings go up.
ReplyDeleteLove the piece where you mention that live television is like an event. This was very true in the early days and is becoming more of an issue in today's television programming. Ratings for some popular shows are not as high as they used to be as viewers can now watch content on Netflix, YouTube, etc. In order to get viewers back, some companies are doing what a FOX executive is calling "Event-izing", which is the idea of creating programming that is best watched as it happens live in studio. We can see evidence of this in NBC's Sound of Music production that aired in December as well as FOX's upcoming Grease production set to air in 2015. These live musical performances are being produced and performed live in order to increase viewership of network programming and win back audiences that left for new media outlets.
DeletePerforming and broadcasting shows live held advantages for early television programs, as well as for modern shows. Today, the line between film and television is almost non-existent, but in the early days they were vastly different. The important difference is that television was derived from broadcast technology, mainly radio. The fact that television was predominantly live not only separated it from the cinema, but also made the medium more inviting and accessible to an audience in their own homes. Like the radio fireside chats from President Roosevelt, a live Milton Burl show is almost as if he is in the living room with you. It makes the performer less than perfect with their mistakes or stumbles, but this is part of the charm. Cinema can be derived and foreign at times, but knowing that what you are watching is really happening somewhere makes an instant, intimate connection with the audience.
ReplyDeleteThere are of course slight disadvantages to live broadcast, including more limited staging, lighting, camera-work, etcetera; but most studios thought it was worth the trouble, or found new tricky ways around it (ie: stand in for The Martha Ray Show).
The charm of live performance is still exploited today in shows like Saturday Night Live. Some of the most hilarious moments on the show are when actors fumble or improvise. These moments are not inherently funny, but the fact that the audience knows that it is live makes it hysterical.
Live television is like no other format of media and used to this day to entertain fans all over the world. In the early days of television, it was used in order to replicate what had worked in the past, radio and vaudeville. Shows would be transmitted and filmed in real time and sent through to stations across the country. It was a way to bring the spectacle of live theater and comedy performances into the home for a wider audience to see. Bringing entertainment into the home for the family to watch together changed the way that Americans viewed content, and studios had to keep up with it. To this day, many shows we know and love are either live, or taped in front of live audiences. Live sketch comedy shows like Saturday Night Live or studio audience talk shows like The Late Show allow the audience, both in studio and at home, to see a human experience and connect with it in ways that, with other shows, we can’t. No elaborate video effects or editing alterations take us away from the art or information presented on the screen, like recorded shows can. Live television also gives us the illusion that what is happening on screen can happen in real life and to ourselves. Watching a show in your living room as it is happening allows viewers to connect with the content more than the singular audio tones of radio or the unfamiliarity of movie theaters. These live performances and reports also allow us to see what happens when not everything goes right, giving us a deeper connection to the entertainers and reminding us that they are humans just as we are.
ReplyDeleteHere’s an example of what can happen during a live newscast, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuV1JYgyBxY
Benefits of live television include its spontaneity, surprise, recency, and convenience. First, live television is spontaneous, and this is especially important for comedy, where this improv-like element can add to the humor. Surprise is also another benefit-- no one knows what is going to happen, not even the people on air. This adds a degree of suspense and thrill to watching television. Something could go wrong or something extremely unusual might happen. Live televised sporting events benefit especially from this aspect. Watching a taped football game is no fun, even if you don't know who wins. The live element adds surprise. Live television also is extremely current and can televise news as it's happening, which is important for any news program. You can find out what is happening right now anywhere. Taped news, again, loses its recency. Convenience is the last benefit of live television. Instead of having to go in person to attend a sporting event, you can watch it live from the convenience of your own living room.
ReplyDeleteSome disadvantages include the fact that mistakes cannot be fixed. If it's live, there's no going back and redoing anything. Whatever airs airs. You film and edit at the same time. In this way, because there's no time to perfect each and every aspect of the raw film, it will never be as polished as something that's been recorded and edited for hours. There's no postproduction, so quality is lesser than recorded television.
I think it was the prevailing format early on in television's history in order to distinguish it from cinema. Why watch television instead of going to a movie? Because it's live. Television was new and they had to sell it as much as possible. The live element was a great selling point. Also, television, as we have discussed, evolved in many ways from radio, which was also often live.
Today, news programs (like CNN breaking news, New Years Live), sporting events (like Monday Night Football, which happening right now), game/variety shows (like American Idol), and comedy shows (like SNL) all use the live format for the various reasons mentioned above.
The live television format offers many advantages, including invoking a feeling of involvement and connection with the audience, and distinguishing the medium from the pre-recorded film industry. On the flip side, disadvantages include a 'one-and-done' style of shooting and a drop in overall program quality.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the advantages. Searching for ways to demonstrate the vitality of television to everyday life, TV producers experimented with liveness in ways rarely seen today. Audiences' feeling that they were viewing these events in real time created a sense of participation. Seeing performers stumble most likely humanized them to broad audiences, as well. In addition, while there were certainly unexpected costs accrued during these live programs' productions, one must think that the overhead cost would be less, considering that no episodes were fully produced in advance. For example, if a network cancels a show like Parks and Recreation, midseason, then they would have to eat the remaining episodes, which would already have been filmed.
Of course, disadvantages to the live television format eventually overshadowed the advantages, as one can see that live programs today are virtually all news programs and sporting events (programs that require liveness, or near-liveness, to have salience). Uncertain lengths of action sequences, forgotten lines, missteps in live technical production — all of these combined to create content that simply wasn't as good as it could have been. Only one chance to get it right means that there will be plenty of times you got it wrong, and waning interest in the gimmick of live dramatic programs would spell the end for the genre.
Note: Not necessarily an advantage or disadvantage, but it's interesting that this type of television emphasized the writers, as the short length of time to memorize lines, rehearse blocking, etc., left little room for improvisation or creative directing/editing. The emphasis on writing is still seen today in a program like Saturday Night Live.