Typical Language Mistakes on the Ukrainian TV Channels

Look at today’s television guide and watch some of today’s programs. Identify any examples of the segmentation of programming you encounter. Relate notions of vertical and horizontal programming and segmentation to people’s daily routines and think about how this informs and affects the program choices they make.

Television use has changed over the years. Modern television days and developments in technology, such as the video recorder, the remote control and satellite television, have brought different patterns in the use of television in British homes. We now have more control over what we watch and when we watch it; we are more likely to have access to more than one television set per household; we can surf the stations or switch channels during commercial breaks; and we can even use the television to play computer games or send e-mails. The context of television viewing has also changed in recent years. At one time we could say that it differed from other forms of the media, such as the cinema, because it was never used in the public domain. However, today, television is part of the public environment of pubs and clubs where a big screen allows us to watch a soap wedding or the FA Cup Final outside the boundaries of the domestic context. We use the television for a variety of reasons, many of which will be discussed in forthcoming chapters, but it is important to stress here that it is not a time-wasting activity. For example, we rely on television, especially television news, as a source of information about what is going on in the wider social world. Television also has an important function as entertainment; television viewing figures, which are published in the national press weekly, consistently demonstrate the popularity of fictional programs such as soaps, dramas and sitcoms.