Broadcasting:
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via radio, television, or other. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof.
The original term broadcast referred to the literal sowing of seeds on farms by scattering them over a wide field. It was first adopted by early radio engineers from the Midwestern United States to refer to the analogous dissemination of radio signals. Broadcasting forms a very large segment of the mass media. Broadcasting to a very narrow range of audience is called narrowcasting.
Forms of electronic broadcasting:
Historically, there have been several different types of electronic broadcasting media:
The original term broadcast referred to the literal sowing of seeds on farms by scattering them over a wide field. It was first adopted by early radio engineers from the Midwestern United States to refer to the analogous dissemination of radio signals. Broadcasting forms a very large segment of the mass media. Broadcasting to a very narrow range of audience is called narrowcasting.
Forms of electronic broadcasting:
Historically, there have been several different types of electronic broadcasting media:
- Telephone broadcasting (1881-1932): the earliest form of electronic broadcasting. Telephone broadcasting began with the advent of Theatrophone systems, which were telephone-based distribution systems allowing subscribers to listen to live opera and theater performances over telephone lines, created by French inventor Clement Ader in 1881. Telephone broadcasting also grew include telephone newspaper services for news and entertainment programming which were introduced in the 1890s, primarily located in large European cities. These telephone-based subscription services were the first example of electrical/electronic broadcasting and offered a wide variety of programming.
- Radio broadcasting: radio broadcasting is an audio broadcasting service, broadcasting through the air as radio waves from a transmitter to an antenna and, thus, to a receiving device. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast common programming, either in syndication or simulcast or both.
- Television broadcasting(telecast), experimentally from 1925, commercially from the 1930s: this video-programming medium was long-awaited by the general public and rapidly rose to compete with its older radio-broadcasting sibling.
- Cable radio (cable FM, from 1928) and cable television (from 1932): both via coaxial cable, serving principally as transmission mediums for programming produced at either radio or television stations, with limited production of cable-dedicated programming.