The International Student Blog

The average American spends 20 percent of their day watching television, according to Nielsen, a company that measures and records information dealing with television, radio, internet, and more. That means Americans spend 2 months of nonstop TV watching a year. The average child sees 20,000 commercials in a year and sixty-six percent of Americans watch television during dinner. This means Americans are watching more television shows, more movies and more commercials than they ever have in the past. International students studying film in the U.S. have the opportunity to work in the diverse field of television. From writers to producers, grips to cameramen, directors to gaffers, the film industry is non-stop and always needs new people for new projects to meet the demand of this popular pastime.

American television is full of a variety of shows and programming – similar to the rest of the world. The different types of programming are often aimed at informing or entertaining.

Informational programming includes programming such as the news and weather.

Entertaining programming includes programming such as soap operas, sitcoms, sports, movies, some reality shows and game shows.

Infotainment is a new type of program. It presents information in an entertaining way. Examples of infotainment are certain news shows where the host talks about their opinion, documentaries and some reality shows.

Programs are also either scripted, unscripted, or a combination of both. Scripted programs are newscasts, sitcoms, soap operas, dramas and crime shows. Unscripted programs are the original reality shows, as well as shopping networks. With reality shows gaining widespread popularity recently, reality shows are a combination of script and improvisation, unlike in the past, when they were completely unscripted.

International students studying undergraduate programs in film can work not only on television shows but also in the news business, make documentaries, work on television shows and much more.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2015 at 4:26 am and is filed under International Student, International Student Study Section, Study in the USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Written by Jenny Frankel

Jennifer is the Director of Financial Services at Envisage International. Jennifer is a graduate of the University of Florida where she holds a Masters in International Business and a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration. She has lived and worked abroad in Chile, Costa Rica and London, and traveled extensively in South America, Europe and Asia.

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