Tabloid television, also known as Teletabloid, is a form of tabloid journalism

Tabloid journalism

Tabloid journalism tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news...

. Tabloid television newscasts usually incorporate flashy graphics and sensationalized stories.Often, there is a heavy emphasis on crime, stories with good video, and celebrity

Celebrity

A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...

 news. It is a form of infotainment

Infotainment

Infotainment is "information-based media content or programming that also includes entertainment content in an effort to enhance popularity with audiences and consumers." It is a neologistic portmanteau of information and entertainment, referring to a type of media which provides a combination of...

.

The United States is not the only television market with this television genre of broadcasting - Australia, New Zealand, England and France, to name a few, all have tabloid television program

Television program

A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...

ing that reflects this same down-market, sensationalist style of journalism

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

 and entertainment.

Examples of tabloid television

The basic tabloid television format developed on nationally syndicated

Television syndication

In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

 programs such as Hard Copy

Hard Copy

Hard Copy is an American tabloid news television show that ran in syndication from 1989 to 1999. Hard Copy was aggressive in its use of questionable material on television, including gratuitous violence....

, Inside Edition

Inside Edition

Inside Edition is a thirty-minute American television syndicated news program, first aired on CBS on October 9, 1988. It was originally similar to the programs Hard Copy and A Current Affair, but now more closely resembles a condensed version of breakfast television, exclusively with pre-recorded...

, and A Current Affair, which all incorporate flashy graphics with sensational stories. Tabloid talk show

Tabloid talk show

Tabloid talk shows are a genre of American television programming talk shows that achieved peak viewership during the late 20th century. Airing mostly during the day and distributed mostly through broadcast syndication, this genre originated with The Phil Donahue Show and was popularized by the...

s were extremely popular during the end of the 20th century.

WSVN

WSVN

WSVN, channel 7, is a television station located in Miami, Florida, USA. WSVN is owned by Sunbeam Television, and is an affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company. The station has its studio facilities located in North Bay Village and transmitter based in north Miami-Dade County.WSVN operates a Key...

 in Miami, Florida

Miami, Florida

Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

 was one of the first stations to popularize the tabloid format in local television news. Today, the format is prevalent among FOX

Fox Broadcasting Company

Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

 affiliates such as WNYW

WNYW

WNYW, virtual channel 5 , is the flagship television station of the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, located in New York City. The station's transmitter is atop the Empire State Building and its studio facilities are located in the Yorkville section of Manhattan...

 and WTTG

WTTG

WTTG, channel 5, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Fox Broadcasting Company, located in the American capital city of Washington, D.C...

. FOX's parent company, News Corporation

News Corporation

News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...

, owns The New York Post, a notorious daily tabloid newspaper.

A commonly cited example of tabloid television run amok is a series of reports in 2001 collectively dubbed the Summer of the Shark

Summer of the Shark

The Summer of the Shark refers to the coverage of shark attacks by American news media in the summer of 2001. The sensationalist coverage of shark attacks began in early July following the Fourth of July weekend shark attack on 8-year-old Jessie Arbogast, and continued almost unabated—despite no...

, focusing on a supposed epidemic of shark attacks after one highly-publicized attack on an 8-year-old boy. In reality, there were a below-average number of shark attacks that year.

Parodies of news and entertainment

Drop the Dead Donkey

Drop the Dead Donkey

- Major characters :* Gus Hedges — The unctuous Chief Executive of the company, and yes-man to Sir Roysten Merchant. A management stereotype, complete with clichés and clumsy metaphors, he swiftly transforms GlobeLink from a serious news network to a ratings-chasing tabloid channel...

 (Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

, UK)

Frontline

Frontline (Australian TV series)

Frontline is an Australian comedy television series which satirised Australian television current affairs programmes and reporting. It ran for three series of 13 half-hour episodes and was broadcast on ABC TV in 1994, 1995 and 1997.-Production:...

 (ABC

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

, Australia)

Further reading

• Potter, Deborah (October/November 2003). A Story for All Seasons. American Journalism Review. Found at NewsLab.org (July 16, 2005).

External links

• Tabloid Television at the Museum of Broadcast Communications