Television was introduced as an experimental technology in the 1920s and 1930s in Europe, Asia, the former Soviet Union, and the Americas, but it was not until after World War II that it was widely adopted as a form of mass communication around the globe. Although television’s innovation and diffusion as a novel technology, establishment and growth as a communications industry, maturation and popularity, and specialization and diversification took decades to unfold, once it became widely publicly available, it quickly materialized as an essential venue for news, information, and entertainment. Television originated as a domestic industry overseen through a variety of national regulatory arrangements, making its transformation from a medium focused on local interests and concerns into an industry with a global reach all the more compelling. This transformation, which was enhanced by the introduction of cable, satellite, and Internet technology, was, in retrospect, influenced by the accomplishments of radio broadcasting, with its ability to transcend national borders and reach unanticipated audiences, and the expansiveness of the film industry, which from the earliest days of the studio system had cultivated an international export market to enhance revenue. In the case of the television industry, export was led by production companies seeking to recoup the costs of production under deficit financing arrangements with the networks and program sponsors. Early global exports were driven mainly by US production companies, and although the United States remains dominant in the sale of finished products, a vast number of nations, production companies, and networks now provide the United States with stiff competition within regional markets and program genres. Deficit financing has been adopted more recently by wealthier non-US nations like the United Kingdom, while less affluent and/or smaller markets rely on other approaches. Ever-emerging technologies, penetrable national borders, remote markets, and viewer interest in programs from other countries are foundational concerns alongside the political economy of regulation that make up the study of the global television industry.
