Almost from the inception of television, lovers of the fine arts and high culture have been both excited by the potential for TV to bring the arts into homes and concerned about the possibility that TV won't live up to that potential. Since Federal Communications Commission chairman Newton N. Minow called television a "vast wasteland" in 1961, programmers have been trying to prove him wrong by producing cultural TV designed to enlighten viewers. Even Minow admitted that "when television is good, nothing - not the theater, not magazines or newspapers - nothing is better," and arts-oriented programming aims to be TV at its cultural best.
In America, the loftiest of arts TV has long been associated with the Public Broadcasting Service. PBS regularly airs televised performances of opera productions, ballets, symphonic concerts and musical productions that lie outside the mainstream of popular music, as well as original adaptations of classic literature and fine arts documentaries.
Arts and culture were also a focus during the explosion of new cable networks in the 1980s. The Arts & Entertainment channel dedicated itself specifically to cultural programming, and other documentary-oriented channels such as The Learning Channel, The Discovery Channel and The History Channel produced their share of cultural programming, too.
As the marketing of TV evolved into the 1990s, cultural offerings on cable began to fade. A&E, TLC, History and Discovery shifted their focus from high-brow educational content toward mainstream entertainment, and now these networks offer primarily reality programs and original entertainment series. These days it?s a bit harder to find arts programming on TV, but the arts will always find a niche somewhere in the television landscape.
