Customer Reviews

This Business of Television

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This Business of Television is a landmark volume in our practice (entertainment industry economic forecasting) for three reasons.

Reason # 3: it is incredible that guys of this stature would take the time to compile such an essential and complete perspective of the television business. Goodenough, a seasoned entertainment lawyer, law professor, and a scholar pioneering the study of law and evolutionary biology, brings the structure and rigor, while Blumenthal, a prolific TV, multimedia, and online entertainment producer and businessman brings the been-there-done-that street savvy.

Reason # 2: it is, after all, the business that pays for the content (the subscriber, pay-per-view, advertising, syndication, and the latest, e-commerce revenue models) and the content that drives the migration to new technology (streaming media webcasting and video-on-demand, interactive TV, and wireless). The clear understanding of the financial systems supporting television and video entertainment offered by Oliver and Howard in this book facilitates the modeling of future monetary transactions.

Reason # 1: video programming spread from broadcast to cable and then to satellite in one generation. The last decade found it spreading to the PC via CD-ROM, DVD, and broadband Internet. In the future it will be found on our cell phones, wristwatches, car seat backs, and refrigerators. There will be innovations in business arrangements along the way, but those who cannot converse in the basic economics will be doomed.

This segues into a jacket quote by Morty Morton, former producer of the Late Show with David Letterman, who remarked, "This Business of Television has gotten me through years of moderate success in the TV business. I'm now ready to burn the damn thing and open a restaurant."

This book is so hot that it's been stolen from my office library 3 times. I'm on my 4th purchase of this book. I felt like I could have an intellegent conversation about any aspect of the television business after using this book. It is my main resource for getting quick answers that are easy to understand. This is required reading for those getting started and a great resource for those that have been in the industry a while. It also includes a computer disk containing forms such as U.S. Copyright registration and others found in the book that you can import to your word processor.

Ron Hebert
Producer
2002 Emmy Awards - Pacific Southwest Chapter

Our start-up entertainment company has used the first edition as our essential reference book. We have not found anything else like it. We are excited about ordering the second edition.

This Business of Television is a landmark volume in our practice (micro-economic forecasting for the entertainment industry). Here are the top three reasons why.

Reason # 3: it is incredible that guys of this stature would take the time to compile such an essential and complete perspective of the television business. Goodenough, a seasoned entertainment lawyer, law professor, and a scholar pioneering the study of law and evolutionary biology, brings the structure and rigor, while Blumenthal, a prolific TV, multimedia, and online entertainment producer and businessman brings the been-there-done-that street savvy.

Reason # 2: it is, after all, the business that pays for the content (the subscriber, pay-per-view, advertising, syndication, and the latest, e-commerce revenue models) and the content that drives the migration to new technology (streaming media webcasting and video-on-demand, interactive TV, and wireless). The clear understanding of the financial systems supporting television and video entertainment offered by Oliver and Howard in this book facilitates the modeling of future monetary transactions.

Reason # 1: video programming spread from broadcast to cable and then to satellite in one generation. The last decade found it spreading to the PC via CD-ROM, DVD, and broadband Internet. In the future it will be found on our cell phones, wristwatches, car seat backs, and refrigerators. There will be innovations in business arrangements along the way, but those who cannot converse in the language of economics will be doomed.

<segue> The second edition proudly bears a jacket quote by Morty Morton, former producer of the Late Show with David Letterman, who remarked, "This Business of Television has gotten me through years of moderate success in the TV business. I'm now ready to burn the damn thing and open a restaurant."

The first edition was handy, detailed, and filled with suggestions on where to find further information. I'm glad the revised edition includes a disk. Highly recommended for anyone in the television, video, or CD-ROM production business. And not a bad price, considering the cost of other texts.

This book (textbook) is an excellent resource for just about everything in TV. The disk included is a great utility to have for printing out your own contracts. I only with this book could be updated, say, every two years.

This book explains the business of television which is different than the perception of common consumers. The financial and operational relationships between content producers, distributors, and broadcasters can be very complicated. It covers local stations, syndication, TV networks, cable TV systems, satellite, and other TV industry distribution channels. The trends of premium content production and licensing are covered and they seem to be rising at a growing rate. It covers the history of the television industry from the transition from radio broadcasting to television broadcasting to non-broadcast (cable TV). Local television station ownership and network affiliations is explained. You will learn about how advertising is sold by networks and at local stations. There is a lot of detail provided on how the cable TV industry evolved and the companies that have been and continue to be important to the CATV industry. There are some very good descriptions of TV regulations including broadcast restrictions, advertising limitations, copyright, and privacy. The different types of programming including news, dramas, documentaries, sports, children's, and others are explained along with their basic production needs, There are many sample contracts including releases, distribution agreements, production and use licenses, and others.

Great overview of how the Television business works. Gives actual numbers and business models for different parts of the business. If you're new to TV this book fills in a lot of the background knowledge that you industry vet peers have.

Interested in seeing a 2011 version to see how they cover TV Everywhere, Hulu and OTT.

This is a very interesting title. Easy to read and to comprehend some business aspects.

Some parts of the book were not updated properly, e.g., the overview of Television in South America.

I work in TV. I own a copy of this book and bought another for a new employee so she could come up to speed on the industry. Highly recommended.