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Zusammenfassung • Europäische Produzenten begründeten mit erfolgreichen Formaten im Reality-TV und im Factual Entertainment einen neuen Trend in der internationalen Vermarktung von TV-Programmen. • Zeitweilig verschoben sich die Gewichte... more
Zusammenfassung • Europäische Produzenten begründeten mit erfolgreichen Formaten im Reality-TV und im Factual Entertainment einen neuen Trend in der internationalen Vermarktung von TV-Programmen. • Zeitweilig verschoben sich die Gewichte von der traditionell dominanten US-Fernsehbranche nach Europa. • Seit einigen Jahren kaufen US-Konzerne erfolgreiche europäische Produktionsgruppen auf und erneuern ihre führende Position im globalen TV-Markt. • Die Folgen der vertikalen und horizontalen Integration betreffen Produktion, Distribution und Regulierung der Fernsehbranche.
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In this chapter Esser uses TV Formats, such as Big Brother, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? or The Voice, sold internationally for local adaptation, to exemplify and theorise glocalization in television. The format trade has become a... more
In this chapter Esser uses TV Formats, such as Big Brother, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? or The Voice, sold internationally for local adaptation, to exemplify and theorise glocalization in television. The format trade has become a significant and truly global business in the last ten years. It has further homogenized and simultaneously heterogenized television globally. After demonstrating television’s internationalisation in the form of glocal TV Formats, the empirical frame of the format study is used to critically explore some deficient conceptualisations including, the cultural-economic dichotomy, the equation of the local with the national, the ideologically charged notions of ‘de-localisation’ and ‘de-culturalization’ and the possibility of ‘universals’. The format derived reflections, it is hoped, will further our understanding of glocalization processes and research.
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This chapter critically explores common conceptualizations of ‘the local’ and resulting assumptions about what ‘localization’ means. It draws on globalization theories questioning the prevailing notion that the local is bound to... more
This chapter critically explores common conceptualizations of ‘the local’ and resulting assumptions about what ‘localization’ means. It draws on globalization theories questioning the prevailing notion that the local is bound to territory, usually the nation state, and on empirical findings that reveal the complexity, fluidity, diversity and multiplicity of television audiences. In doing so, the chapter challenges several influential, foundational theories in television studies, particularly ‘national audience’, ‘adapting for a national market/audience’, ‘cultural discount’ and ‘preference for the local’. Their reductionism and mythological nature, it is argued, creates blind spots and impedes an advanced theoretical and practical understanding of ‘local’ization. Keywords: defining localization, national television, television audiences, transnational television consumption and reception, cultural reductionism and essentialism
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Book Reviews: TV's Betty Goes Global: From Telenovela to International Brand, Global Television Formats: Understanding Television across Borders, Transnational Television Drama: Special Relations and Mutual Influence between the US and UK, Italian TV Drama & Beyond: Stories from the Soil / Storie...more
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On the basis of the results of a transnational audience study of musical talent show formats in Britain, Denmark, Finland and Germany, this chapter addresses what the authors believe to be a blind spot in television format research,... more
On the basis of the results of a transnational audience study of musical talent show formats in Britain, Denmark, Finland and Germany, this chapter addresses what the authors believe to be a blind spot in television format research, namely the transnational reception of internationally franchised formats. Adopting a transcultural and glocal perspective methodologically and theoretically – instead of a nationally comparative perspective – allows the authors to avoid nation-centric cultural reductionism and instead uncover reception aspects that are either transnational or sub-national. The findings of the study point towards an increasingly complex cultural engagement and sense of cultural space and curiosity in viewers. They also reveal a fascinating display of banal nationalism on one side and banal transnationalism on the other. Consequently, the authors suggest that television format research may benefit from a transcultural and glocal approach to the audience reception of, and engagement with, formats – an approach that avoids falling back on the unproven but widely accepted and perpetuated assumption that the audience appeal of format adaptations lies in the possibility they offer to be nationalized.
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existence of an alternative model invigorates the commercial competition and creates a better overall media system. The final chapter briefly examines the market failure problems associated with delivering the social goods needed in 21st... more
existence of an alternative model invigorates the commercial competition and creates a better overall media system. The final chapter briefly examines the market failure problems associated with delivering the social goods needed in 21st century society. In this, Pickard reimagines, rather more optimistically than many of us might, a media system capable of delivering on the implicit social contract embodied in the First Amendment and the 1934 Communication Act language. The closing chapter cements the currency of the book: instead of simply lapsing into the refrain of “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” it argues for renegotiating our agreement with media industries. A trenchantly historical yet optimistic, carefully researched history, this book is one that all of us should read to revitalize our commitment to a better media environment.
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When, in the 1980s and early 1990s, private commercial television was introduced in the majority of European countries, old fears about the hegemony of American popular culture resurfaced. However, concerns that the attendant influx of... more
When, in the 1980s and early 1990s, private commercial television was introduced in the majority of European countries, old fears about the hegemony of American popular culture resurfaced. However, concerns that the attendant influx of American programmes would weaken national cultures and diminish Europe’s cultural diversity soon eased. Domestic programmes mostly seemed to draw higher audience figures, and from the mid-1990s national production sectors and output were growing. In academia, this led to the quickly cemented and widespread belief that audiences per se prefer local to imported programmes — the appeal of the latter diminished by a “cultural discount” (Hoskins and Mirus, 1988) — and most media scholars came to agree that national television markets would remain strong, followed in importance by geo-linguistic or geo-cultural markets offering close “cultural proximity” (Straubhaar, 1991, 2007; Sinclair et al., 1996; Keane et al., 2007). Television’s internationalization, they opined, was confined by entrenched cultural difference and resilience.
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In 2005, one of four subheadings of an article on trends in entertainment programming published in the RTL Group’s Television 2005 Yearbook read “Format is king” (IP, 2005). It was aptly chosen. Throughout the first decade of the... more
In 2005, one of four subheadings of an article on trends in entertainment programming published in the RTL Group’s Television 2005 Yearbook read “Format is king” (IP, 2005). It was aptly chosen. Throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, formatted shows such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Idols and America’s Next Top Model, developed in one market and sold internationally for local adaptation, proved highly popular with audiences across Europe as well as globally. By the end of the 1990s, formats had come to constitute large parts of the prime-time schedules of private broadcasters. Moreover, they fiercely permeated national top-10/top-20 programme lists compiled on the basis of audience ratings.
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This article is concerned with the international market consolidation in television entertainment production and its implications. The rapid growth of the TV format trade during the past 15 years has led to the formation of large... more
This article is concerned with the international market consolidation in television entertainment production and its implications. The rapid growth of the TV format trade during the past 15 years has led to the formation of large European-led production groups. In recent years, U.S. media conglomerates have bought the largest of these groups. By tracing the groups’ development and the reasons for the U.S. acquisitions and by offering a model for the potential adverse implications this may have for television production and distribution in Europe, this article hopes to make a valuable contribution to media industries and policy research.
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This chapter critically reflects on the transnational reception of Danish television series through findings from explorative audience research in the UK. The multi-modal concept of “authenticity”, which emerged strongly from the analysis... more
This chapter critically reflects on the transnational reception of Danish television series through findings from explorative audience research in the UK. The multi-modal concept of “authenticity”, which emerged strongly from the analysis of the interview transcripts, is used to explore and argue for how “emotional realism” (or the phenomenological process of identification) and “external realism” were major contributory factors in viewers’ enjoyment of Danish series in the 2010s. Aiming to advance our understanding of viewers’ perception and appreciation of realism and authenticity, I conceptualise the terms in relation to globalisation, the (mediated) tourist gaze, and the cognitive and affective processes that determine viewers’ screen experience. I draw on cognitive and affective psychology, neuroscience, and screen theory, as well as theories from anthropology, sociology, and television and tourism studies concerned with globalisation, place, and authenticity. Authenticity is i...
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Audience engagement is attracting increasing attention in various academic disciplines. During the past few years, the industryand technology-oriented conceptualizations of engagement have been challenged by a more audience-oriented... more
Audience engagement is attracting increasing attention in various academic disciplines. During the past few years, the industryand technology-oriented conceptualizations of engagement have been challenged by a more audience-oriented understanding. This article aims at contributing to the development of a more nuanced audience-oriented approach. First, we make a theoretical contribution by bringing together the still limited literature on engagement and its disparate conceptualisations; secondly, we use the analysis of an empirical case study to demonstrate audience engagement as a set of experiences. Our analysis builds on the empirical material produced by two rounds of exploratory focus groups with viewers of musical talent shows in four locations: Saarbrücken/Germany, London/UK, Tampere/Finland and Aarhus/Denmark. From this we identified a number of modes of engagement which derive from both textual and contextual factors. These include character engagement, habitual and ritualis...
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During the 2010s, Danish TV drama series unexpectedly achieved global success. A vital role in this journey by a small European country into the world is occupied by the German and British TV markets. This chapter examines how serialized... more
During the 2010s, Danish TV drama series unexpectedly achieved global success. A vital role in this journey by a small European country into the world is occupied by the German and British TV markets. This chapter examines how serialized Danish TV drama entered these two instrumental markets in very different ways. It considers the specific German and British market dynamics at key moments between 2005 and 2018, alongside wider technological changes and attendant market transformations. The two case studies also reveal the increasingly transnational character of TV production, distribution, and consumption. Theoretically, this chapter aims to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of transnational programme circulation, something that will undoubtedly continue to grow in TV’s online era thanks to the increasingly discerning viewers it creates.
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Introduction / Andrea Esser, Miguel A. Bernal-Merino and Iain Robert Smith -- Defining "the local" in localization or "adapting for whom?" / Andrea Esser -- Transnational Holmes: theorising the global-local nexus... more
Introduction / Andrea Esser, Miguel A. Bernal-Merino and Iain Robert Smith -- Defining "the local" in localization or "adapting for whom?" / Andrea Esser -- Transnational Holmes: theorising the global-local nexus through the Japanese anime Sherlock Hound (1984-) / Iain Robert Smith -- The context of localization: children's television in Western Europe and the Arabic-speaking world / Jeanette Steemers -- Audiovisual translation trends: growing diversity, choice and enhanced localization / Frederic Chaume -- Transformations of Montalbano through languages and media: adapting and subtitling dialect in the terracotta dog / Dionysios Kapsaskis and Irene Artegiani -- Localizing Sesame Street: the cultural translation of The Muppets / Aaron Calbreath-Frasieur -- Television formats in Africa: cultural considerations in format localization / Martin Nkosi Ndlela -- Exploring factors influencing the dubbing of tv series into Spanish: key aspects for the analysis of dubbed dialogue / Rocio Banos -- Jerome Bruner and the transcultural adaptation of 1970s Hollywood classics in Turkey / Laurence Raw -- Tracing Asian franchises: local and transnational reception of Hana Yori Dango / Rayna Denison -- Fiction tv formats in Poland "why bother to adapt?" / Sylwia Szostak -- Analyzing players' perceptions on the translation of video games: assessing the tension between the local and the global concerning language use / Alberto Fernandez Costales -- Glocalization and co-creation: trends in international game production / Miguel A. Bernal-Merino.
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This article is concerned with the consolidation of European TV format production companies during the first two decades of the twenty-first century and its likely impact on the configuration and long-term sustainability of the world’s... more
This article is concerned with the consolidation of European TV format production companies during the first two decades of the twenty-first century and its likely impact on the configuration and long-term sustainability of the world’s leading format production market, the United Kingdom. Theoretically and methodologically influenced by various approaches – critical political economy, meso-level television industries research and scholarship concerned with the locational choice of economic activity – this exploratory study combines the macro-picture of consolidation at the European and international level with a fine-grained case study of the UK television market. It discloses an ecology faced with a range of opportunities and threats, likely to result in marked and enduring changes to UK entertainment.
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Today, the use of internationally licensed television formats, developed in one market and sold for local adaptation, is a widespread practice amongst commercial broadcasters around the world. But how has this trend impacted on public... more
Today, the use of internationally licensed television formats, developed in one market and sold for local adaptation, is a widespread practice amongst commercial broadcasters around the world. But how has this trend impacted on public service broadcasting? Public service stipulations include the provision of content that informs and educates, helps imagine the nation, enriches the lives and culture of its citizens and provides an inclusive public sphere to support democracy. Can internationally franchised programmes fulfil these remits? And to what extent are they employed by public service broadcasters? Responding to criticisms of the international, commodified character of formats in general and their staple, reality TV and lifestyle entertainment more specifically, this article provides a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the use of international formats by Australian, Danish and German public service broadcasters. The article hopes to contribute to media policy debate and...
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The new millennium has seen the franchising of television content escalate. The trade in so-called TV formats, like Big Brother or The X Factor, sold internationally for local adaptation, has multiplied. This article aims to illuminate... more
The new millennium has seen the franchising of television content escalate. The trade in so-called TV formats, like Big Brother or The X Factor, sold internationally for local adaptation, has multiplied. This article aims to illuminate the development of the format trade and the reasons for its acceleration and globalization in the early twenty-first century. It will be argued that franchising has come to play and will continue to play a prominent role in the TV content business: First, because of digital television’s highly competitive, commercial multi-platform ecosystem. Second, because ongoing internationalization and gradual convergence of TV systems globally diminish national barriers of structure and agency; and third, because of the popularity of light entertainment, coupled with formats’ multiple advantages as compared to locally developed programming, specifically TV fiction.
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The last decade has witnessed the growth of TV formats such as Big Brother or The X Factor, developed in one market and sold internationally for local adaptation. This article reveals the scale and significance formatted television... more
The last decade has witnessed the growth of TV formats such as Big Brother or The X Factor, developed in one market and sold internationally for local adaptation. This article reveals the scale and significance formatted television content has attained, drawing on a case study analysis of US schedules from the 2007–2008 broadcast season. The high share of formatted programming found in primetime schedules (an average of 33% of broadcast hours) becomes understandable in light of the context and the advantages formats have for broadcasters and producers. The findings suggest that the franchising of content, both expression and outcome of television's commercial saturation, will continue to play a crucial role in TV schedules around the world. This franchising will contribute to the convergence of television globally, not just structurally but also in terms of concrete, albeit locally modified, content.
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Detailed Table of Contents Figures and Tables Abbreviations Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: The Media in the European Context Part I: The Political Economy of Media in Europe 2 The Structure of (Old) Media in Europe 3 The New Media in... more
Detailed Table of Contents Figures and Tables Abbreviations Acknowledgements 1 Introduction: The Media in the European Context Part I: The Political Economy of Media in Europe 2 The Structure of (Old) Media in Europe 3 The New Media in Europe Part II: The Europeanization of the European Media 4 Europeanizing the Media of Europe 5 The Question of Content: Quality, Availability and Production 6 Audiences and Consumption Part III: Europe as a Cultural and Political Project 7 Public Communication in Europe: 8 Media and European Identity 9 Conclusions References Appendix Index
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Concurrent with the acceleration of the TV format trade in the new millennium, scholarly interest in television formats has grown. ‘Format research’ began in the 1990s, but it took almost twenty years and a booming trade before this field... more
Concurrent with the acceleration of the TV format trade in the new millennium, scholarly interest in television formats has grown. ‘Format research’ began in the 1990s, but it took almost twenty years and a booming trade before this field of study attracted broad academic attention. Format scholarship is international in outlook, following earlier research concerned with the global flow of audiovisual programming. Initially, this flow was described and criticised as one way, from the United States to the rest of the world. Developments in international TV markets and television research in the 1990s led to a revision. Scholars such as Joseph Straubhaar, John Sinclair, Elizabeth Jacka and Stuart Cunningham highlighted the rising significance of ‘geocultural markets’. The TV format business raises again the question of transformations in the patterns and flows of the programming trade. As Paul Torre has aptly noted, ‘new players, new markets, and new dynamics are combining to reformat global media economics’. Moreover, an additional aspect now demands attention: adaptations’ local-global texture. TV formats are sold in the form of a ‘production bible’, spawning numerous local productions—three on average, but in a growing number of cases over twenty, forty or even more different local versions. The ways in which and the extent to which these productions differ from one another; how ‘the local’ finds expression; how the socio-cultural, political and industrial contexts impact on formats and vice versa; and how to evaluate adaptations are all issues that have attracted scholarly interest in recent years. The aspect of localisation has been the focus of the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded Media Across Borders (MAB) network (www.mediaacrossborders.com), ten of whose members have contributed to this issue. Reacting to the notable increase in localisation practices in the audiovisual media, the network aims to illuminate meanings and processes of localisation. It brings together international scholars of television, film and video games, of