GRADE THE NEWS
BROADCAST
Watching the news each night before going to bed hasn’t always been the norm. In fact television only just made its debut in 1939, at New York World’s fair (2011, Edelstein). NBC’s experimental station, W2XBS, started with a test run. (n.d., Northern State University). Two years later, the first commercial is broadcast and commercial TV officially begins. “By 1948, a total of 36 television stations were broadcasting and over 1 million television sets were receiving” (2005, West’s Encyclopedia of American Law). Ever since then, television has grown as an American pastime. “By the late-2000s, television household usage had grown to an average of 57.1 hours per week, comparted to 49.5 hours in the early-1990s” (n.d., Radio Advertising Bureau). Newscasts are now the number one program genre accounting for the weekly hours used on a TV set (n.d., Radio Advertising Bureau). According to a 2013 poll done by Gallup, Television is where 55% of adults get their news (2013, Saad). This is a perfect reason to grade the news; are these 55% getting the best news that they can be? Let’s see.
The three broadcast stations being discussed in this section are known as the “Big Three Networks”: ABC, CBS, and NBC. The competitive relationship these three have today can be traced all the way back to the beginning. Although, each station is different they each have similarities as well. The shows being scored are ABC’s Nightline, CBS’s Evening News, and NBC’s Nightly News. Each of the segments is recorded daily and aired that night. In an attempt to be fair and consistent each segment is graded on the same three days, November 17th-19th. CBS’s Evening News and NBC’s Nightly News are both shown at the same time, whereas ABC’s Nightline is broadcast at a later time.
Grader: Tiffany Berg