Re: [Air-L] Family in the 21st century on TV
Barry wrote:
I wonder -- and would love evidence -- if TV watching has become more personal TV watching instead of family TV watching -- so shows are narrowcasting their demographics much more. This would be true if each sentient HHold member had their own TV, and if many folks were getting their TV fix thru downloads, podcasts, iPhones, etc. (I know I'm being quasi-redundant here).
This is a fairly well-documented and not-so-recent phenomenon - a good overview (now 12 years old!) is Joseph Turow's *Breaking Up America*, on the rise of narrowcasting and market segmentation across media. I'm pretty sure that more up-to-date statistical evidence is included in a number of the Pew technology use surveys. 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. Virtually no scripted program aims for the full "four quadrants" anymore (young & old across both genders), so the image of the core family as the anchor for television's domestic representations has waned. Interestingly, whenever I teach this topic, my students agree with Turow's diagnosis of market segmentation, but disagree with his judgment that this is a bad thing - they see very little cultural utility to be watching the same programs in the same rooms at the same time as their parents, as they have rarely known that experience. -Jason --- Jason Mittell, Associate Professor of American Studies and Film & Media Culture Chair of Film & Media Culture Department Middlebury College 208 Axinn Center at Starr Library Middlebury, Vermont 05753 (802) 443-3435 / fax: (802) 443-2805 Homepage: http://go.middlebury.edu/mittell Blog: http://justtv.wordpress.com
Hi Barry and Jason, Manuel Castells also mentions this in his The Rise of the Network Society, and offers an alternative to the McLuhan idiom: the message is now the medium. When channels focus on smaller markets, programming becomes increasingly more specific according to the channel that provides it. Or something like that, it was like 13 years ago or so. paul emerson teusner http://teusner.org/ -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Jason Mittell Sent: Thursday, 17 September 2009 11:03 To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Family in the 21st century on TV Barry wrote:
I wonder -- and would love evidence -- if TV watching has become more personal TV watching instead of family TV watching -- so shows are narrowcasting their demographics much more. This would be true if each sentient HHold member had their own TV, and if many folks were getting their TV fix thru downloads, podcasts, iPhones, etc. (I know I'm being quasi-redundant here).
This is a fairly well-documented and not-so-recent phenomenon - a good overview (now 12 years old!) is Joseph Turow's *Breaking Up America*, on the rise of narrowcasting and market segmentation across media. I'm pretty sure that more up-to-date statistical evidence is included in a number of the Pew technology use surveys. 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. Virtually no scripted program aims for the full "four quadrants" anymore (young & old across both genders), so the image of the core family as the anchor for television's domestic representations has waned. Interestingly, whenever I teach this topic, my students agree with Turow's diagnosis of market segmentation, but disagree with his judgment that this is a bad thing - they see very little cultural utility to be watching the same programs in the same rooms at the same time as their parents, as they have rarely known that experience. -Jason --- Jason Mittell, Associate Professor of American Studies and Film & Media Culture Chair of Film & Media Culture Department Middlebury College 208 Axinn Center at Starr Library Middlebury, Vermont 05753 (802) 443-3435 / fax: (802) 443-2805 Homepage: http://go.middlebury.edu/mittell Blog: http://justtv.wordpress.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
Hello all For me by my teenage years I began to watch TV with peers. So the show Friends is aimed at this. I still watch TV mostly only socially with friends. I can barely sit through most shows unless watching with friends. Even in the 1960's it was only the children in our family who woke up early on Saturday to watch cartoons. Peter On 16-Sep-09, at 9:14 PM, Paul Emerson Teusner wrote:
Hi Barry and Jason,
Manuel Castells also mentions this in his The Rise of the Network Society, and offers an alternative to the McLuhan idiom: the message is now the medium. When channels focus on smaller markets, programming becomes increasingly more specific according to the channel that provides it. Or something like that, it was like 13 years ago or so.
paul emerson teusner http://teusner.org/
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Jason Mittell Sent: Thursday, 17 September 2009 11:03 To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Family in the 21st century on TV
Barry wrote:
I wonder -- and would love evidence -- if TV watching has become more personal TV watching instead of family TV watching -- so shows are narrowcasting their demographics much more. This would be true if each sentient HHold member had their own TV, and if many folks were getting their TV fix thru downloads, podcasts, iPhones, etc. (I know I'm being quasi-redundant here).
This is a fairly well-documented and not-so-recent phenomenon - a good overview (now 12 years old!) is Joseph Turow's *Breaking Up America*, on the rise of narrowcasting and market segmentation across media. I'm pretty sure that more up-to-date statistical evidence is included in a number of the Pew technology use surveys.
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. Virtually no scripted program aims for the full "four quadrants" anymore (young & old across both genders), so the image of the core family as the anchor for television's domestic representations has waned.
Interestingly, whenever I teach this topic, my students agree with Turow's diagnosis of market segmentation, but disagree with his judgment that this is a bad thing - they see very little cultural utility to be watching the same programs in the same rooms at the same time as their parents, as they have rarely known that experience.
-Jason
--- Jason Mittell, Associate Professor of American Studies and Film & Media Culture Chair of Film & Media Culture Department Middlebury College 208 Axinn Center at Starr Library Middlebury, Vermont 05753 (802) 443-3435 / fax: (802) 443-2805 Homepage: http://go.middlebury.edu/mittell Blog: http://justtv.wordpress.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
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Peter Timusk, B.Math statistics (2002), B.A. legal studies (2006) Carleton University Systems Science Graduate student, University of Ottawa. just trying to stay linear. Read by hundreds of lurkers every week. kiitos paljon, merci, thank you and muchas gracias for reading.
in my childhood years tv started at 5pm (!) and ended at midnight with the austrian anthem (late 70s). I was allowed to watch from 5-6:30 now there is a special program for mornings which is aimed at a broad spectrum of viewers, than there is program for elderly, at midday starts the program for kids and at noon the shows for youngsters, teenagers and twens. we live in a country where national tv has two channels. one for viewers 50+ and one for the advertiser-relevant twens-40s. I think that it is a very true observation, that nowadays shows are for different groups of viewers - which was not so when shows were made for families (I dream of Jeannie, Falconcrest, Dallas to name a few). I do think that the advertising industry plays a big role in this change when cartoons are made for TV which are made for different age groups and before and between them the ads are tailor- made for the program. Also the decrease in the price of the tv-sets played a role, because in the old days (60s, 70s) only a few families over here could afford more than one tv-sets at home. dominik m rosenauer e dmrosenauer@psycheonline.at h www.psycheonline.at t +43.1.9135584 m +43.664.5315478 Am 17.09.2009 um 11:11 schrieb Peter Timusk:
Hello all
For me by my teenage years I began to watch TV with peers. So the show Friends is aimed at this.
I still watch TV mostly only socially with friends. I can barely sit through most shows unless watching with friends.
Even in the 1960's it was only the children in our family who woke up early on Saturday to watch cartoons.
Peter
On 16-Sep-09, at 9:14 PM, Paul Emerson Teusner wrote:
Hi Barry and Jason,
Manuel Castells also mentions this in his The Rise of the Network Society, and offers an alternative to the McLuhan idiom: the message is now the medium. When channels focus on smaller markets, programming becomes increasingly more specific according to the channel that provides it. Or something like that, it was like 13 years ago or so.
paul emerson teusner http://teusner.org/
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Jason Mittell Sent: Thursday, 17 September 2009 11:03 To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Family in the 21st century on TV
Barry wrote:
I wonder -- and would love evidence -- if TV watching has become more personal TV watching instead of family TV watching -- so shows are narrowcasting their demographics much more. This would be true if each sentient HHold member had their own TV, and if many folks were getting their TV fix thru downloads, podcasts, iPhones, etc. (I know I'm being quasi-redundant here).
This is a fairly well-documented and not-so-recent phenomenon - a good overview (now 12 years old!) is Joseph Turow's *Breaking Up America*, on the rise of narrowcasting and market segmentation across media. I'm pretty sure that more up-to-date statistical evidence is included in a number of the Pew technology use surveys.
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. Virtually no scripted program aims for the full "four quadrants" anymore (young & old across both genders), so the image of the core family as the anchor for television's domestic representations has waned.
Interestingly, whenever I teach this topic, my students agree with Turow's diagnosis of market segmentation, but disagree with his judgment that this is a bad thing - they see very little cultural utility to be watching the same programs in the same rooms at the same time as their parents, as they have rarely known that experience.
-Jason
--- Jason Mittell, Associate Professor of American Studies and Film & Media Culture Chair of Film & Media Culture Department Middlebury College 208 Axinn Center at Starr Library Middlebury, Vermont 05753 (802) 443-3435 / fax: (802) 443-2805 Homepage: http://go.middlebury.edu/mittell Blog: http://justtv.wordpress.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http:// aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
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Peter Timusk, B.Math statistics (2002), B.A. legal studies (2006) Carleton University Systems Science Graduate student, University of Ottawa. just trying to stay linear. Read by hundreds of lurkers every week. kiitos paljon, merci, thank you and muchas gracias for reading.
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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
participants (5)
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Dominik M. Rosenauer -
Holly Kruse -
Jason Mittell -
Paul Emerson Teusner -
Peter Timusk