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For Example, Celebrity Stories, Which Once Were Not Considered Appropriate ...

For example, celebrity stories, which once were not considered appropriate for news bulletins are seen to reflect audience desire. Hiliart (2004) associates this change in the US with commercial and advertising enterprises and the UK following to become more like the US and it major influx of US based programming that the country receives. Therefore, significant reforms within both US and UK programming, accelerated by the advent of New Media and communication expansionism has meant that themes and structures and debatable topics have shifted. The intrinsic formulae on which Current Affairs programmes previously depended have been forced to alter to include technological advances and also changing audience desire.
New Media has seen a tremendous growth since the early and mid-eighties and is no longer a tool for research scientists but an accessible media for world's population. From the 1980s onwards, the Internet began with what Curran calls the ‘proto-commercial phase' (238). The medium was used to form discussion groups and as an information resource. Nevertheless, from the 1990s the growth of the market into commercial overdrive has meant that cyberspace has become just as much a ground for advertising and current affairs as the television. Television companies, both in the US and in the UK have been quick to take advantage of this, integrating news stories and programming information with downloadable repeats and highlights of shows.
The Internet has given the audience a form of social emancipation, meaning that entertainment is more accessible and perhaps more important to them and has also signified a change in the way people chose to receive information. News and current affairs can viewed briefly whilst at work or accessed rapidly from home internet connections, whenever and wherever they chose. There is now a lesser need for a viewer to choose to sit down to receive information from the television. This, of course, is true for the US and UK markets. Furthermore, these parameters transcend borders.
Satellite and cable television programmes have also played an important part in programming. Both forms were introduced to the UK in the 1980s and Curran states that, ‘In 1999, all but six of the country's 136 operational franchises were owned by just two companies, NTL and Telewest, both in turn controlled by American conglomerates' (277). Therefore, although UK current affairs programmes may have been aiming for niche markets that were applicable only to the UK audiences or to regional audiences within the UK, the seeming benevolent control by US companies has had an impact on programming for Britain.


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