Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond (Reading Contemporary Television (2024)

“With 22 Episodes a Year”. Searching for Quality in US Network Television: the Cases of 'The Good Wife', 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' and 'Jane the Virgin'

. Brembilla, Lucia Tralli, “With 22 Episodes a Year. Searching for Quality in U.S. Network Television: the Cases of The Good Wife, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Jane the Virgin, in Comunicazioni Sociali, n. 2, 2015

The notion of ‘quality television’ has undergone endless revisions over the last three decades. Given the technological, institutional, economic and aesthetic evolution of the medium, diverse scholars questioned and explored its forms of quality, especially focusing on the US scenario, notably a forerunner and leader in the development and international distribution of TV shows. Applied to the American industry, this ever-evolving definition bears some recurrent fea- tures that make it a sort of ‘super-genre’, a label for TV series that share some ‘prestige’ specifici- ties. Focusing on the US scenario, where nowadays ‘quality’ tends to maily label cable series, this paper aims to identify those prestige specificities and to answer the question: is there such thing as a quality network television in a cable-dominated market? After establishing a theoretical framework by tracing back the evolution of the notion of quality television, the article will focus on three contemporary case studies: CBS’ The Good Wife, The CW’s Jane the Virgin and FOX’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine. We will see how these three series share some aesthetic and narrative tropes that, making the best of broadcast television’s weaknesses and restrictions, aim to appeal to a certain upscale audience, resulting into critical acclaim and awards recognition. In the end, we will argue that several characteristics of quality cable television can actually be applied to a wave of network television productions that, although based on the standard for- mats of broadcast storytelling, could be critically compared to more acclaimed shows, ultimately fitting into the prestige series super-genre.

Not That Kind of Quality. Prestige, Relevance and Value in U.S. Network Television

TV series have been a market driver for quite sometime now, especially the super-genre of quality television, mainly linked to cable and OTT players. We also know that factors such as content abundance, hightened competition and new distribution/consumption opportunities have pushed traditional broadcasters to adjust their business models and up their competitive strategies. In this context, Broadcast networks are struggling the most to reshape their business models, to adjust their differentiation strategies and to up their content standards, while complying to the free-to-air limits – notably, advertisers' meddlings, FCC restrictions, budgetary limits and outworn narrative structures. However, it seems that this struggle between ordinary TV vocation and a quality aspiration is resulting into a wave of innovative network series with quality TV features, like sophisticated narrative, social and cultural relevance, etc. Think about the critically appraised and audience-loved sitcom "Black-Ish" or drama "This is Us" – championing diversity and high quality narrative. However, this paper is about is why certain network quality shows are still on the air (or managed to stay on the air for some seasons), even though they are not as high-rated as the ones I just mentioned - think of "Hannibal", "The Good Wife", "Crazy-Ex Girlfriend", "Jane the Virgin". So my main questioni is: how are networks making money out of these shows? How can they afford to keep them on air for quite some time? I answer this question by analyzing the case of "Jane the Virgin" and ultimately turning to the economics of cultural prestige.

Review of: Viewing America: Twenty-First-Century Television Drama. By Christopher Bigsby. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2013. European Journal of American Studies (Dec. 2, 2014). http://ejas.revues.org/10380 . 9pp.

European Journal of American Studies, 2014

Review: Popular television drama: critical perspectives

European Journal of Communication, 2006

Popular Television Drama: Critical Perspectives

2005

Discussing quality: critical vocabularies and popular television drama

E-Compós

As soap operas britânicas têm uma história enraizada no realismo, um forte senso de comunidade e um tratamento sério de questões sociais. Este ensaio sugere que, no final dos anos 90 e início dos anos 2000, as soap operas britânicas adotaram uma estética mais melodramática com uma ênfase no indivíduo isolado, nas situações extremas, nas paisagens simbólicas e numa polaridade moral. Seguindo Zygmunt Bauman, sugiro que estas mudanças refletem o sentimento de que a idéia de sociedade está sob ataque.

Determinants of the Content and Creation of Modern Television Series. Selected Issues

Creativity. Theories – Research - Applications, 2016

The aim of this article is to present the most important factors affecting the creation and content of two different genres of television series–Polish television sagas and American post-soap operas. The analysis which I have carried out in the field allows the formulation of several conclusions. The creation of the two genres is similar. In both cases the most important people are the producers and scriptwriters and the most important criteria used for the assessment of a production are audience ratings and economic factors. Polish television sagas and American post-soaps are often very different with regard to their content and the ways they present social issues. The reasons for the differences include: genre convention, expectations of viewers, social and cultural context, and the emergence of commercial subscription television in the United States. At the turn of the 21st century HBO, an American pay television provider, followed by other stations began to produce shows which, ...

CONTEMPORARY SERIALIZED TELEVISION.

scripties.let.eldoc.ub.rug.nl

A ‘New Wave’ in British Television Drama

2005

Realities of Change: The changing nature of television in the past twenty years