Basic Terminology

Television Industry

UNDERSTANDING MEDIA INDUSTRIES I

IN·DUS·TRY/ IND STRĒ/ˈ Ə• South Park Anecdote: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/151040/the-underpants-business

1. Noun: Economic activity concerned with the processing of raw materials and manufacture of goods in factories.

2. A particular form or branch of economic or commercial activity: "the tourist industry".

ALL media texts are part of an industry, whether they are produced under commercial, government, DIY, or public mandates!

Economic aspects appear in ALL media text productions, funding needs to exist whichever form this funding takes!

THE INDUSTRIALIZATION OF CULTURE

Mandate Practices

Conditions

Tech/Reg/Econ

TEXTS

YOU, Your Friends, Yorur

NeighborSocial Trends

Cultural Odor

• Social Trends, Tastes, Traditions

1. Cultural Odor

2. Culture a) aesthetic

b)anthropological citizens/viewers/activists/consumers

• Mandate : primary goal and point of origin/reason non- / commercial

• Different hierarchies of consumer groups

• Conditions: Technology (prod/distrib), Regulation (national/industrial), Economics

(ownership/ funding/ conglomeration)

• Practices: conception, funding, preproduction, production, marketing,

testing, post production, etc. 1. creative, 2. exhibition, 3. auxiliary

• Texts

• Public

BLOG SUGGESTION• Pick a text you really enjoy and look at it in regards to it mandate, asking yourself how

certain conditions and practices may have affected its production. For example, if you are looking at a sitcom, how does that create specific norms for the text itself, by having been assigned this genre?

EXAMPLE of Framework Approach

These TV shows have all been formatted into US television.

• The Ex List

• The Frame

• Homeland

• In Treatment

• Phenomenon

• Traffic Light

EVERY TEXT STANDS IN CONNECTION WITH ALL ELEMENTS OF THE TV INDUSTRY

APPEARANCES HTTP://WWW.THE-MEDIUM-IS-NOT-ENOUGH.COM/2012/05/REVIEW_PRISONERS_OF_WAR_HATUFIM_1X1.PHP

• In many countries in Africa, video-film is the main film-making and film distribution platform.

• Economic, and Political Conditions, Practices and Audience Concerns

• Public Broadcasters are, by comparison to PBS, very wealthy.

Their production output is broader, with more high-end productions.

• PBS often purchases cheaper material from elsewhere

CONDITIONS CHANGE

HOW AND WHY ARE MEDIA TEXTS CREATED?• Communications Technologies

• Mass media Information, Entertainment, Propaganda

• “public sphere”

• Ideologies intentional and unintentional/ dominant MI: processes of embedding these, how they get created, framed, silenced, privileged… rather then questioning what they are

• Agency Circumscribed Agency general upbringing, surroundings, experiences

• Other circumscribing forces: Organizational, political, conventions (genre, practices etc.)

THE “ECONOMIC” IN INDUSTRYRisks Adaptive Strategies

First copy (sunk) costs Low reproduction costs (economies of scale) – losing cultural odor, as in program marker, can however threaten a product’s success

Uncertain markets Overproduction

Public Goods Artificial Scarcity/Windowing

A-List/B-List hiring Conglomeration/Consolidation/Synergy

Fragmentation of Audiences V-H-Integration/Formats/Formatting

MONOPOLY

BLOG RESPONSE SUGGESTION• Come up with an idea for a media text and then walk through the steps to see which

mandate may be best for your product, which issues you will have to deal with, how the text may be affected by conditions. What creative practices may stand in your text’s and/or your level of control’s way?

• Pick a TV program, or news cast show, that you have recently seen, maybe even watch regularly. What were some of the economic risks you think? How would (possibly have) those risks have been minimized by the industry? Can you weigh in on which of the risks may be easier/harder to minimize?

AID MATERIALS:• Trade Presses – Variety, Entertainment Weekly, The Business Journal of Film, TV Broadcasting, Broadband,

Production, Distribution www.videoageinternational.com

• Scholarly Journals – Television and New Media, Television History

• Newspapers - L.A. Times, New York Times

• Blogs – Antenna, JustTV, Extratextuals, CST, Convergence Culture, In Media Res, Social Media

• Classic and Historic TV, International Journalism Sites

• Source Material – Media Industries Research