Re the comment that shows are available for viewing online. Yes, if you live in the US. But sites like Hulu.com aren't available outside the US, and what's available on iTunes varies by country. This doesn't mean that there aren't ways around this (using a US IP address, or downloading/streaming the shows through a file sharing site), but I think it's worth noting that for a non-sophisticated internet user (yes, this might kick off a debate of its own, but I mean someone who isn't comfortable with P2P, for instance), the options for watching US shows outside the US are limited. This is also true of shows from some other countries, e.g. you can't watch (the other) ABC's shows outside Australia, or the BBC outside Britain (here's the explanation why: http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/download_programmes/outsideuk) . And then there are issues of download caps also, limiting the practicality/affordability of downloading video. None of these comments are meant to detract from Holly's post, but to shed a bit more light on what's possible re online TV viewing. catherine -------------- Catherine Middleton Ryerson University Toronto, Canada http://www.ryerson.ca/itm/fcty/Middleton/Middleton.html catherine.middleton@ryerson.ca

Message: 3 Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:19:59 -0500 From: Holly Kruse <holly-kruse@utulsa.edu> To: "air-l@aoir.org" <air-l@aoir.org> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Family in the 21st century on TV Message-ID: <C6D7150F.637E%holly-kruse@ad.utulsa.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

On 9/16/09 8:02 PM, "Jason Mittell" <jmittell@middlebury.edu> wrote:

...

At the level of programming, there's no doubt that the full-family hit is a rare exception today (*American Idol* is often pointed to as a hold- out, but even that's fading), and advertisers are less interested in mass appeal across broad audiences than dense homogeneous segments that can be more easily sold specific goods.

FWIW, I understand that ABC Family is trying to expand its audience, with some success, into adult demographics. A few months ago NPR's "All Things Considered" did a story about how ABC Family and Nickelodeon have been positioning themselves as the homes for family sitcoms that would have once been on the networks; and that, in fact, many writers who used to write for network sitcoms are now writing for shows like "iCarly" and "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." Although I've only watched bits and pieces of the latter, I gather that it tackles some fairly serious material. I know that several of these shows, like "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody," do not feature traditional "intact" families, however; but as I recall they feature use of cell phones, etc. And, on a meta level, they are available for viewing online.

Holly

----- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication The University of Tulsa 800 S. Tucker Drive Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse@utulsa.edu or holly.kruse@gmail.com http://personal.utulsa.edu/~holly-kruse