Cable Television Books

Of all the books I had to purchase for Graduate classes, this is really the only book I've found I really do use. A great reference, even if slightly out of date.

Peter B: Is a briliant man... who is surrounded by some problematic "peers." His text is, and should be, the standard for copywriters, but the lack of marketing will make it a hand-maiden to other texts...

This textbook provides a thorough overview of the field of broadcast/cable programming. Industry terms are clearly defined and incorporated into the description of the various topics covered. The book is divided into easily identifiable cataegories, which assists in digesting the material.

It's appropriate that a book of this nature start with a discussion of the central theme, in this case programming. That is done quite well in the first chapter. The constraints unique to the broadcasting industry are at the core of the industry and are addressed in that manner.

Audience research is essential to professional program executives doing their work well. That's the topic of the second chapter. Again, industry terminology is explained.

Numerous broadcast experts had their insight to the various issues throughout the book. There is a diversity of perspectives presented. Various organizational structures are included. Radio, television, cable, national, local, and non-profit are all part of the mix. This book is an excellent overview for readers seeking to be introduced to the subject matter.

The Broadcast/Cable Yearbook continues to be THE reference guide for television and radio stations, as it has been for lo these many years. While there are other reference guides available (such as the M street guide, the FM Atlas, etc.), the BCYearbook is still the only place to find EVERYTHING in one easy to read place.

The Yearbook retains its' easy to find reference guidelines - stations listed alphabetically, by frequency/channel - as well as complete info listings by state and city.

The major drawback to the Yearbook (through no fault of its' own) is how outdated much of its' ownership/network affiliation information becomes almost as soon as it is printed, thanks to the new broadcast phenomenon of mergers and takeovers.

But the Yearbook's strong points remain (as they always have been) it's ability to find information rapidly, such as call letters and frequency/channel. If there is one area that needs improvement, it is the cable TV section, which remains muddled and not very user friendly.

That said, this reference "bible" is still the most valuable tool for those withing the industry, the DXer, and those with a fascination for radio and television.

I just read this book because I was mad at Comcast--long story. While I didn't find it brimming with "dirt" I did find it a quick, interesting read and gave me some of the answers to my questions--why this giant has not been felled by the government...it's all in the message. The Robertses are very clever about how their media messages are presented and swallowed. If you're looking for a pure rant, you won't find satisfaction in this book. If you're looking for a sublimely damning look inside the company that pretty much controls how we watch tv and how much we pay for it, you'll enjoy this book.

This IEEE Press book provides an excellent overview of the cable industry and the technology used for Cable TV, MMDS (Multi-point Multimedia Distribution Service), and Direct Satellite Broadcasting. Although published in 1986 it is still useful to gain an understanding of how the cable business works. I found it to be a good resource in gearing up for a recently completed cable modem (IEEE 802.14)consulting project.

This is a collection of papers written on the technological, market, and policy issues of Integrated Broadband Networks. IBNs were proposed by the phone companies in the late 80s and early 90s, mainly to promote lifting government restrictions on their ownership of video facilities. Most of the technological discussions focus on different fiber-to-the-curb/-home configurations, as well as N-ISDN and B-ISDN. This book also contains papers on forecasting demand for future telecommunications services.

This is a good book for newcomers to the industry. It provided me with some good insights.

Although it was 22 years between editions of this book, the title likely will be familiar to many persons in professional broadcasting and in academics. The 1976 second edition for many years occupied the top-rung of choices for management texts in the field; its endurance no doubt was due in part to the authors success in gauging the long-term impact the social movements of the 1960s would have on broadcast station management's roles and responsibilities.

Similarly, in its new incarnation, Brown and Quaal's work, (with author names reversed for this edition), seems in step with the new electronic media landscape: they have fashioned a work in sync with the economic, organizational, regulatory and technological changes of the recent past. Emphasis in management clearly is placed upon management's role and responsibilities in the age of mergers and bottom-line thinking.

This book seeks a larger audience than a typical textbook, presenting a vast collection of research and literature data in footnotes, endnotes, and in separate historical and numerical displays. It would seem most appropriate as a text for advanced college courses emphasizing the radio-TV-cable industries and for which historical context is especially desired. In addition, this book would seem to fill a niche as a solid reference work for scholars and working professionals interested in a comprehensive survey of the field and a balanced philosophical approach to viewing major management issues. The authors represent both the academic prospective (Brown) and the working media professional (Quaal) and at times reflect this point of difference in their treatment of subject matter. For example, they openly disagree on the broad question of who owns the airwaves-broadcasters or the public. The result for the reader is a work that offers engaging and insightful views of relevant issues from alternate perspectives.

This is a big book, broad in its audience target and exhaustive in its treatment of many subjects. Its mass may be its weakness for many teachers and students who want a more streamlined text with fewer historical side trips and quantitative displays. Moreover, I found it disappointing that the chapter on theory did not present wider representation of traditional management theories: the authors favor the alphabet theories such as X, Y, Z, and in so doing perhaps place too much emphasis upon their own V-Theory of managing. One may need to seek out other published sources on management to get a more representative serving of prevailing management theories.

W. Joseph Oliver, Ph.D. Professor of Communication Stephen F. Austin State University Nacogdoches, Texas

Right off the bat,I think the publishing date of this book is important. It was published in April,2004 and that is a relatively a long time ago for a book of this nature;and on top of that had to be written sometime before that. Therefore anything in the book is 4 years ago or longer. In a world where events , communications and technology are moving so fast,sometimes the old maxim ,"It's hard to see the forest for the trees",sure applies. For that reason,I believe reading this book now,really shows how well the author analyzed the subject.
The title and line on the cover is misleading. It is more about CNN than Fox.A book like this should ,just like the news,be as free from bias as possible.If not free,then at least balanced. That cannot be said about this book. If you look at the background of the author;you see he has a strong Liberal leaning and it comes through over and over again throughout the book. It is evident where the author discusses, on page 192 and 192 ,that Phil Donahue had a homey reassurance,was ernest and nonthreatning,an unmistakable liberal "bent",with frequent guests like Jesse Jackson,Ralph Nader and Gloria Steinmen;but that his show featured a less than stirring debate with a conservative firebrand Pat Buchanan.He doesn't use the same sort of name calling when talking about ,as Hannity would say,"his Liberal friends".
In the early days,CNN had the "Jump"on the competition in News Chanels,for the simple fact that there was no competition.As a matter of fact ,I enjoyed CNN in the early days,especially in world coverage. However, as time went on,this success was taken for granted as a birth right and then we really saw the Chanel take on the left wing,European favoring,UN admiring,US bashing,agendae.The disappointment of their leader,Clinton desecrate the office of President.Bush's election,and the Government's necessity to deal with Teeorism,left them full of hate.Since that time,the liberal left became obsessed with hate so much that any success, internationally or domestically ,angered and disappointed them.They went looking for bad news wherever possible and ignored, or at best glossed over anything positive.Unfortunately ,since the mainstream media is heavily weighted with people of liberal bias ,that is where it went;and CNN lead the way and still does.
The liberal left idea that everyone hates Bush, everyone around the world hates America,Europe is much more enlightened than America,any conservative thought is objectionable and only their ideas are worth discussing,prevailed. The concept of fair and balance,is totally foreign to them.
Enter Fox,with differing points of view,and you have competion in the world of ideas.And Lo and Behold!,not everybody who does not agree with the left,find Fox serves them better than CNN.
This is the point that the author, intentionally or not, misses in this book.Whether the left understand this or not,it seems that they victims of of something or other, and its got to be the viewers who are stupid ,because it can't be themselves.
It is a shame that agendae have come to be such an important factor in news;but the viewer will be the one who will decide what can be trusted and what can't.When you see the "new kid on the block" getting more viewers than all the other "main stream press" combined, it should tell them something;assuming they are listening.
If you think it's bad in the US; try watching Canadian Newschanels.We have the Government supported CBC,which is as liberal, if not more so than CNN.It has no concern whether it gets viewers and viewer support,because,quite frankly ,the Government ,which is heavily slanted Liberal and Socialist,likes it the way it is and supports it regardless whether it is watched or not by the majority.Their idea of balance has been to bring in the BBC; that's right;I'm serious,we need the enlightened,european, socialist anti-american viewpoint! But listen to this,there is now talk of bringing in Al Jazeera...now there's balance for you!
Until last year ,one could not even get Fox News here in Toronto.Finally,the government allows it, and guess where I go now for my news! Can you believe it? We get CNN with our Bacic Package;but if you want Fox,you gotta pay extra. That's my choice,so I do!
I haven't seen a similar book dealing with Talk Radio.The same thing applies there,There has been a series of failures to get support for left wing radio,despite a ton of money and several attempts.Conservative talk radio does very well both in popularity and finacially as Rush Limgaugh says "in the arena of ideas debate" One day he had Al Sharpton on his show.He explained why the liberals were failing,why Siros and Al Franken were going to fail as well.He offered to show Sharpton how to succeed because Limbaugh thought there was a need for a balanced view---Sharpton wouldn't take him up on it.
It isn't books that will provide the answers;the viewers will,though!

The spectacular rise of CNN has been put off by a newer story of Fox News. The Fox news phenomena are discussed here and their rise from taking Greta Van Sustran to Neil Cavuto is explained. While I think they downplay the significance of the second gulf war in really capturing ratings the author does a great job otherwise of tracking fox news rise. Whether you love them or hate them this is a fair and balanced look at how one of the most powerful news agencies today came into being.

In "Crazy Like A FOX" author Scott Collins apparently was capitalizing on the popularity of the Fox New Channel to sell a book about the collapse of the network newscasts, along with the rise and fall of CNN and MSNBC.

Along the way, Collins throws in some tidbits about FOX News' techniques in overpowering these news giants. But like most liberal writers, he fails to grasp the real reason for FOX's popularity: The majority of American citizens, regardless of party affiliation, are conservative and have an innate sense of fairness. These values have bled over into their news-watching habits after the FNC simply offered them an alternative.

With all that said however, I rated this book a 4-star. Mr. Collins guides the reader, in a logical and well-paced narrative, through the back alleys of the cable news business, the powerful characters involved, and the steps and missteps of the players on this world stage. Well worth your reading time.

'Fox News' is an oxymoron

Don't be deceived by the title of this book. It is not about the rise of Fox News, in fact Fox News gets very little coverage. Collins focuses on the internal machinations of CNN (my estimate is that 70% of the book is on CNN), MSNBC (25%) and then Fox (5%).
Worse still, he doesn't seem to understand why Fox has succeeded, even though in the pages of the book the answer is obvious (how does that old saying go about Forests and Trees ...). With his focus on CNN, he pulls out all sorts of reasons that could have contributed to CNN's decline, yet none of them were that significant in terms of viewers and ratings. Similarly, his few snippets on Fox don't explain how it quickly became the leading network.
All the internal machinations that Collins focuses on - the start-up and running of a cable news channel, the programming choices, and the hiring and firing of celibrities - do not explain why Fox has stormed away from the competition. Collins tries very hard to not talk about the elephant standing in the room, the real reason Fox has succeeded - liberal media bias.
He occassionally alludes to it, but only as a digression. It is a pity because a book that explored the ideological differences between the networks would have been a great read (its more Fox vs MSM not just CNN). Fox didn't do anything brilliantly different in setting up and running a news channel. They changed the orientation of the news to be more conservative(in their words they were not going to be "an attack dog against our own country")which survey after survey has shown represents the largest political grouping in the country (around 40%, self-confessed liberals are less than 10%). The reality that Collins does not want to face is that Fox is a channel that reflects America, CNN does not.

I purchased this book hoping to learn more about the specifics of HFC and Telco network design. I was disappointed that find out that this is really not a technical book, but more of a historic walk through how the battle has played out between Cable/DSL and makes allot of predictions for the future I don't really agree with. Maybe this is a good book for potential stock investors trying to predict which broadband technologies will ultimately prevail (if the predictions were more correct) but this is definitely not a book for engineer-techie types.

I admire the author of this book for being provocative, as opposed to simply cataloguing information in the way that virtually all other books of this ilk do.

I don't fully agree with all of Maxwell's predictions -- in particular, his guess that ATM will have a much larger role to play in this part of the network -- but he identifies all the issues.

Hats off for a tech book with a strong point of view and a ton of great insight.

The book gives a good historical perspective, but fails on two major levels (both highly predictive): (1) the author obviously buys into the current baby bell hype and chooses xDSL as a superior technology to cable modems. (2) wireless communications are completely dismissed as cost prohibitive.

The author not only packs his book with information and explanations of residential broadband, but he includes many interesting facts about telecom in general. For example, on page 108 he says "Within a decade, most networked traffic will not travel more than a few miles and will not enter the internet."

I disagree with one reader who found a single reference to the ancient greeks a waste of time; I enjoy authors who are actually educated and well rounded -- they can write a sentence that is clear and do not need to hide behind jargon.

I found his discussions of trends and his logical support of conclusions to be worthwhile. He also throws in miscellaneous facts -- for example, how did he know that most ILECs have roughly half their capital investement in copper?

If any reader wishes to fill the interstices of his mind with telecom & broadband knowledge, this is the book to get.

During the past year, I have thought about my options for a faster internet connection. Although I am satisfied with Pots, many of my friends tell me to get a cable modem. I would gladly lay down $40 dollars a month on a cable modem if the results were greatly significant. To learn a little more about my options I planned to read a book that described each technology from a consumer point of view. When I came across this book on the web, I quickly ordered it. It was an o.k., but not the greatest.

This book was very informative and well organized from a historical point of view. Modems were covered from as far back as the first analog modem of the 1960's, to today's high speed modems (ADSL, ISDN). I totally agreed with Maxwell about communication technologies making money. As information is becoming extremely important, most businesses who need to send information as quickly as possible will certainly lay down the cash.

But what I did not like about this book is the explanation of high speed connections from a residents point of view. Like I said in the beginning, I was counting on this book to supply me with valuable information of high speed connections from an average consumer point of view. I was suprised to read that Maxwell thinks ADSL's are much better than cable modems. I did a little research myself after reading the book and found it to be the other way around. Although ADSL's are reaching more areas,cable modems cover a much larger territory right now. One thing that is great about ADSL's is that it uses existing telephone lines and is a lot better than 56k.

If you want detailed technical information this is not the book. The technical explanations for a few of the technologies were not explained that well and confusing. So I would recommend this book for someone who wants to study the evolution of high speed internet connections.