| It was described as “the wonderful world of color”
in the title of an early television program. On March 25, 1954, the Radio
Corporation of America began to manufacture color television sets at its
Bloomington, Ind., plant. It initially built about 5,000 of these sets,
known as the model CT-100 color receiver. They retailed for $1,000 apiece.
These sets with 12-inch-wide screens didn’t receive much use that
year, as colorcasting was severely limited at that time. It would be difficult
to imagine life without color television today. To mark the anniversary,
the Census Bureau has assembled a sampling of statistics from its publications
about television and the television industry.
Tuned In
248 million
The number of television sets in U.S. households in 2001.
See Table 1126: <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-03.html>.
87.3%
The percentage of households with at least one TV in 1960. (From the 1960
census – not available online.)
98.2%
The percentage of households with at least one TV in 2001.
See Table 1126: <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-03.html>.
2.4
The average number of TVs per home in 2001.
See Table 1126: <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-03.html>.
1,669
The projected number of hours that adults (age 18 and older) will watch
television in 2004. This is the equivalent of about 70 days.
See Table 1125: <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-03.html>.
94.3%
The percentage of people age 18 and over who said they watched television
in the spring of 2002. Older Americans (age 65 and over) were more likely
to be glued to the tube (97 percent) than any other age group.
See Table 1127: <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-03.html>.
92%
The percentage of children ages 6 to 11 whose parents in 2000 imposed
at least one rule for watching TV, such as types of programs watched,
how early or late the children could watch and the number of hours watched.
The percentage dropped to 73 percent for children ages 12 to 17. <http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p70-89.pdf>
$255.18
The projected spending per person for cable and satellite TV in 2004.
See Table 1125: <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-03.html>.
$34.71
The estimated average monthly rate for cable TV in 2002.
See Table 1144: <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-03.html>.
The Televison Industry
154,000
The number of people employed in the manufacture of television, radio
and wireless communications equipment in the United States in 2001.
<http://www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/view/us01.txt>
21,724
The number of stores that primarily sold televisions and other electronic
equipment in 2001.
<http://www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/view/us01.txt>
$11.7 billion
The annual payroll for the 245,000 employees of 6,692 cable TV networks
and program distribution firms in the United States in 2001.
<http://www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/view/us01.txt>
1,937
The number of television broadcasting networks and stations in the United
States in 2001.
<http://www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/view/us01.txt>
31,235
The number of people working behind the lens as television, video and
motion picture camera operators and editors, according to Census 2000.
<http://www.census.gov/eeo2000/index.html>
$10.7 billion
The payments by television broadcasting firms for broadcast rights and
music license fees in 2001. Such payments constitute the biggest expense
of TV broadcasters. The next highest expense was the annual payroll, $6.5
billion. See Table 1143: <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-03.html>.
$41.8 billion
Amount spent on television advertising in 2002, up from $38.9 billion
in 2001.
See Table 1274: <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-03.html>.
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