portunities, although employment growth consis-
tently lagged behind sales growth. DMA figures put
employment at only 869,700 workers in 1990, a fig-
ure that grew at a rate from 2.5 to 2.8 percent per
year through the decade.
The TCPA, a legislative landmark in consumer
protection signed by President George H. W. Bush
in 1991, was intended to reduce the nuisance and
invasion of privacy caused by telemarketing and
prerecorded calls. It specifically limited automatic
telephone-dialing systems, as well as artificial or pre-
recorded voice messages. Congress called on the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to
consider methods to accommodate telephone sub-
scribers who did not wish to receive solicitations. In
its resulting regulations, however, the FCC decided
against a national do-not-call list as being too restric-
tive for companies. Instead, do-not-call lists were to
be implemented on a company-specific basis. At the
time, because of high international calling rates,
overseas-based telemarketers did not yet pose a sig-
nificant problem.
Impact While of significant importance to Ameri-
can business, telemarketing became one of the least
popular aspects of American life during the 1990’s.
This sentiment would help make the national do-
not-call list a reality in the following decade after ju-
risdiction was turned over to the Federal Trade
Commission.
Further Reading
Schulte, Fred.Fleeced! Telemarketing Rip-Offs and How
to Avoid Them. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books,
1995.
Shew, Michael.Dialing for Dollars. New York: Writers
Club Press, 2001.
Mark Rich
See also Advertising; Business and the economy
in the United States; Employment in the United
States.
Television
Definition Programs and series produced for or
broadcast on television
Television in the 1990’s was an influential medium for
entertainment, information, and education. The decade
also introduced potent new genres and offered new means
of access, reflecting a progression of technologies, attitudes,
and trends.
By 1998, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 98
percent of all American households owned at least
one television set, with the average household own-
ing two or more sets. The average time that these sets
were on was between six and seven hours per day.
Through the three major broadcasting networks—
the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), and the Na-
tional Broadcasting Company (NBC)—viewers ac-
cessed a variety of genres, including newscasts, sport-
ing events, daytime dramas (also known as soap
operas or soaps), action and adventure shows, medi-
cal and crime dramas, situation comedies (known as
sitcoms), variety and awards shows, game shows, and
daytime and late night talk shows.
Two more television output modes once reserved
for viewers unable to get traditional reception be-
came increasingly available, making choices multiply.
Cable television expanded to 74 percent of American
households, and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) ser-
vice began reaching millions of rural and urban us-
ers. This led to the advent of new networks to com-
pete with the mammoths and to the creation of
themed broadcasting: Besides the quickly growing
popularity of networks such as Fox, UPN, and the
WB, tens of stations offered select genre program-
ming to specifically identified target audiences.
Genre Programming Several genres already com-
mon in the 1990’s continued to grow in popularity.
The leading networks offered news magazine shows
such as20/20,60 Minutes, andDateline. The revolu-
tionary MTV stayed ahead in the telecommunica-
tions industry with music videos and select shows
such as the sometimes controversialBeavis and Butt-
Head—the latter becoming instrumental in the de-
bate over viewer responsibility and the decision to
rate programming by age-appropriateness. In addi-
tion, the major networks offered some of the most
popular shows of the decade, including top-rated sit-
coms such asFrasier,Friends, andSeinfeldand award-
winning medical, law, and police dramas including
ER,NYPD Blue, and the detective/science-fiction
anomalyThe X-Files. Other popular network shows
wereMonday Night Football,Late Night with David Let-
terman,Murphy Brown,Roseanne,Boy Meets World,The
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, andWings.The Nineties in America Television 837