Blog Post 2: Television is a Catering Service

Isabella Wood – 109094674

CCS 313.01

Brent Smith-Casanueva

Blog Post #2

Television is a Catering Service

The article Television Habits Leaving Cable Behind written by a Staff Writer of the Herald Tribune brings up the point that basic cable Television is becoming outdated. “The raw truth is, television simply fulfilling the needs of viewers anymore. The modern viewing audience has more sporadic habits than the audience of the past.” (1) Now, there are more mediums sprouting for audiences to indulge in their own visual pleasure.

When Television first became popular between the 1950s and 1960s there were a few basic programs with a newscast here and there. All shows had a set time and channel that they were shown on. If you weren’t ready to watch them at the time that they were on, then you missed it and that was that. Not to mention, the channels were also very limited. There were maybe only four or five.

Television now has completely changed in regards to what is available to the public audience. If you want to watch a certain show you can pretty much do that whenever you want to. “The time of watching is varied from live to on-demand.”

(2)

There is also a show for every interest on TV now. If you want to watch a thrilling show about drugs, might I suggest Breaking Bad? Or what if you want to watch a show about people competing to be the best chef? Have you seen Top Chef? What about Iron Chef? Or maybe you’re more in the mood for a comedy. Have you seen the latest episode of New Girl? If you’re in the mood for a genre, no matter how specific it is you will most likely find a show that correlates.

Not only are there many shows, but there are also a multitude of mediums to satisfy this continually developing audience. In the industrial world 98% of households own at least one Television set. (3)

Now producers of shows have to keep up with not only the content of their shows, but also how their show is being shown. The medium that the show is being shown through is just as crucial to the audience as what the show is about. If you have a show shown through only one medium then less people will watch it. Availability is what is most important now. “”The medium is the message” because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.” (4)

The development of Television is due to innovation and connection with the Internet. Now not only are there thousands of channels offered by our cable and satellite providers, but there are also other mediums to show Television shows from. If you have an Apple TV then you can use Netflix, Hulu Plus, Showtime on Demand, HBO GO, YOUTUBE, PBS, and more. That’s just one little box and it offers all of that. It’s more than a lifetime of programs to watch. “TV is more diverse, more diffuse, more popular, more powerful, and more innovative than ever.” (2)

References

1.     "Television Habits Leaving Cable behind." ASU Herald. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.

2.     Miller, Toby, and Andrew Lockett. "P. 175-189." Television Studies. London: BFI Pub., 2002. N. pag. Print.

3.     "Digital Divide: Global Household Penetration Rates for Technology."Bright Side of News. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.

4.     McLuhan, Marshall. "Introduction." Understanding Media. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.

Blog Post #3

Williamscott Sorge

CCS 313

11/25/14

                                                Blog Post #3

            Being that modern technology has changed so drastically since the initial creation of television, the way audiences are targeted and reached in different as well. Looking through the lens of Spigel’s “utopian ideal”, which claims that television is way to unify people from various social barriers, we can see how the transformation of television has affected the audiences of programming. Through the use of modern techniques, this sense of unity has never been more true in both the advertisement of programming and they way things are viewed.

            Looking at television as a constant form of advertising, we can see its apparent attempt and acknowledgement of unification. Television networks are aware that very large populations of people around the country are watching and use phrases like “The nation will watching!” to show the vastness of their audience, the large community that you are a part of by liking this show, and to add pressure and incentive for you to tune in and watch, implying that if you don’t you will be the only one that is not up to date and be somewhat excluded from this community. Through the various methods of viewing television programming, you no longer have to watch at the time of the initial broadcast, it is very easy to catch up with your favorite shows through Netlfix and other online websites, thus furthering the idea of this utopian community that is united through these programs, being able to relate to a common interest regardless of social status.
 

Blog #3

The newly developed television technologies, such as streaming services and 4K television sets, are nothing without a proper audience. For television media, the consumer is also the product, as selling a program to a consumer can have much longer success then selling a single product. While the US audience is a well-tapped market, there have been recent developments with networks like HBO to to utilize these new technologies to reach a new audience; namely China.

"For their part, TV producers want to make audiences, not simply attract viewers"(Miller p. 111). By this Miller means that we must use the developing technologies in order to provide and create content the audience wants. We should make content for the audience, not make content then sell it to the consumer. To this end, one of the bigger audiences left untapped is the China population. Television programs have been heavily censored by the Chinese government, with popular shows such as "The Big Bang Theory," "NCIS," and "The Good Wife" were taken off the air on authorities orders earlier this year.

However, the Chinese Internet firm Tencent Holdings recently announced a partnership with HBO to stream their TV shows, like "Game of Thrones" and "True Detective" to Chinese audiences in 2015. This shows would still be subject to government approval.

"This partnership enables us to distribute some of the most ground-breaking programming in he world through our robust technology platform," said Martin Lau, president of Tencent. This partnership is one of many from US television producers, who have been pumping more than $1 billion into foreign content in order to make a larger foreign audience.

Still, while the content now will be able to be shown to a new audience, the fact that it still will face the harsh regulations of the Chinese government (which prohibits content with obscene or pornographic material, something HBO shows are infamous for) leads into the idea of Television Studies 2.0. The usage of these programs could "allot the people's machine its due as a populist apparatus that subverts patriarchy, capitalism, and other forms of oppression," (Miller p. 124).

While the original intent might have been an attempt to reach reach new audiences thanks to new technologies in television studies,  the programming could have the potential to reach and interact audiences on a new level, so long as government regulation can still be controlled.

Source:
"China's Tencent Partners with HBO for TV Show Streaming." Reuters. Ed. Muralikumar Anantharaman. Thomson Reuters, 25 Nov. 2014. Web. 25 Nov. 2014.

 Miller, Toby. Television Studies: The Basics. London: Routledge, 2010. P. 110-140. Print.

Blog Post #3 - Jaclyn Lattanza

Blog Post #3

Jaclyn Lattanza

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

When Abigail McFee, a sophomore at Tufts University, saw a small television in her friend’s dorm room, “it was [a] little bit weird,” she said, according to Alex Williams who, this year, wrote the New York Times article “For Millennials, the End of the TV Viewing Party.”

Not having a television would have been unheard of 10 years ago, but now with laptops, Hulu and Netflix, it’s not so strange. McFee has never owned a TV set, nor do 90 percent of her friends at school. “When I walk into a dorm room and see one, my first thought is, it’s unnecessary,” she said, “almost a waste of space.”

When John T. Caldwell wrote “Televisual Audience: Interactive Pizza” in 1995, he explained that viewers are an important aspect of television programming. “While the stylistic demands on audience that define televisuality are…necessary, they are typically not sufficient, or exclusive, properties,” he said. Viewer ratings are one statistic that plays a major role in the success of television networks and individual programs. But in order for these calculations to be recorded, viewers must be watching the program on their own personal television.

“By 1993, more than 28 million adults each week watched some television outside of their home, in locations such as the workplace, college facilities, hotels, motels, restaurants, and bars,” Caldwell said. “Such out-of-home viewing is not even reflected in the television ratings.” If television networks do not record a viable amount of viewer ratings, they cannot determine what the overall consensus of the program is.

Since then, the popularity of the Internet and introduction of online streaming services by HBO, CBS and Netflix, have lured viewers away from their television sets even more, making it difficult for networks to accurately track ratings.  

Williams explains that TV programming itself is not the problem, it is how and where they are watching. “Many millennials who have ditched their TVs still actually love television,” he said. “ They may, in fact, watch more of it than ever since unplugging, thanks to the relatively newfound ability to catch up on their latest shows on their phones or tablets anywhere, at any time.”

Andrew Wojtek, a museum event producer who lives in Harlem is one of those people, according to Williams. “I can sit on the couch and watch the new season of ‘Orange Is the New Black’ in a weekend,” Wojtek said.

As the culture of watching television changes, networks continue to alter the way they classify viewers. “Many audiences are now no longer even defined by the home or the family,” Caldwell said.

But according to Williams, there is a bigger issue at hand. “The television set in American life is being shaken for the first time,” he said.

Sources:

Caldwell, John T. “Televisual Audience: Interactive Pizza.” Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1995. 249-83.

Williams, Alex. “For Millennials, the End of the TV Viewing Party.” The New York Times 7 Nov. 2014: Online.

BLOG 3

Demetri Bryant
November 23, 2014
Prof. Smith-Casanueva
Blog 3: Television Studies

                               In the second part of the course we discussed television interactivity from the audience and how the media corporations attempt to keep the audience in its grasp. As the television progressed over time numbers have become increasingly more important. The numbers give these media corporations an idea of who is tuning in, ultimately trying to become number one. Its all about having the number one most watch program as they revealed their secret. In "Televisual Audience" by Caldwell he states "clearly part of the viewers game was watching with consciousness that the act of watching was also simultaneously a kind of ratings vote, a participation in the no longer secret process of head-to-head network competition." To keep competition and growth booming these corporations have to have new ideas and ways to keep the audiences attention. A good way to keep rating high is to stay current with trends in technology. Interactivity has become bigger then ever before.

                               Interactivity now is bigger then the examples Caldwell gave us when referring to Americas Most Wanted and Americas Funniest Home Video. In these examples the viewer is not fully in control as the media corporations can still filter what they want to share to the public. The opinions of the viewer is not fully known to the audience. Interactivity is a self conscious appeal made by the network to its viewers. It is a way for the program to have an relationship with the viewer. Caldwell tells us "under this guise viewers get what they want from the networks. Networks publicly applaud viewer activity and choice. When shows are successful,the, the remote is a populist interactive voting tool. Now the cellphone and internet has become the new voting tool and way to measure TV ratings. He says "interactivity then was not a cybernetic product." In today's world with the era of smartphones it is a cybernetic product. In the past it was just phoning to show the interactivity between viewer and producer with the example of American Idol in the early 2000's (phoning in to vote) and Americas Most Wanted (phoning in to give tips).

                           The Walking Dead is very successful television show for numerous reasons. The Talking Dead airs every Sunday after The Walking Dead finishes. The Talking Dead is great example of interactivity now because it is a podcast dedicated to the AMC TV show The Walking Dead. This podcast allows the fans to vote on polls depending what happened in the previous Walking Dead episode, phone in with questions, comments, or assumptions via phone, Twitter, and Facebook. If one visits their website, you can watch videos of The Walking Dead show, enter sweepstakes, blogs, forums, game apps and interact with the cast on the show. The relationship between audience and network is definitely present and has evolved as technology continues to evolve and shape society. The number of ways to interact continues to increase. This can also contribute to high rating because the website allows for the in case you missed people to visit and stay current. Caldwell tells us that television as become more then something you can hold and push into an appliance and physically move around with a controller. Not only has the conceptual frame which we view television has changed, but the relationship between the public and private spheres that characterized television in the past has been altered. This evident with new ways to interact and the change in technology      

Blog Pot # 3

            For this blog post I will be explaining how the change in television shows through out the years has been a catalysts in altering the way people view them. In “Life after television” Morley suggests that the television plays a role of connection when it comes to tension between home and mobility.” In this blog post I will display how the drastic change of television shows, from “I love Lucy” to “the bachelor”, has transformed the traditional way of viewing of sitting down with your family, in a ‘gated community’ avoiding the outsiders. This change in television has also brought out corruption in media corporations, and I will discuss how one particular show takes advantage of it’s viewers.

            A lot of new reality shows, like the bachelor, have party viewings where people hold parties and a viewing of an episode that will come on. Through research, I have found out that every season of this show, the bachelorette or bachelor himself show up to ones house who is holding a viewing party. These viewing parties are a television viewing practice that is completely different from the way people used to watch television. In the past, according to Morley, people used to avoid those who were not in the same class, when watching television. They hid in their gated communities, unifying the family as one. Now that there are such aspects as ‘viewing parties’, no one is avoided; everyone and anyone is invited into someone’s house to watch a show of the same interest. Morley would suggest  however, that the negative aspect of this new practice of viewing is that those who are of old age, or are not knowledgeable about these new shows, would never be included.

            Now a days people are not just traveling through the changing of a channel but they are traveling to someone’s house to watch a television show. The television role of connection when it comes to tension between home and mobility is non-existing.  This new viewing of television show, however, does support when Morley suggests that people pro-immigration or emigration invite others to their homes, ending up inviting strangers. While researching about these so called ‘viewing parties’ I have heard, but cannot be sure that the corporations are behind it all.  

            If, Apparently, ABC industry chooses those who should have these viewing parties, and already knows before hand where these famous bachelors and bachelorettes were to go to surprise these super fans it would remind me of when Caldwell claims that the media corporations use the audience interactivity for their own ends. Not only do the media corporations have knowledge of who is holding this viewing party, but the person who does have this party, pays the reality star and the industry money for throwing it. The advertisements that the show has persuades people; “if you throw a big viewing party, we may be at your front door” is dishonest. The media industry not only makes money out of this offer, but they also increase the number of people watching their show, due to the fact every super-fan out there wants a reality star to be at their front door.  Hopefully, these rumors that I am hearing about the industry and the viewing parties are false.

            The viewing of television has changed in drastic ways; one does not just watch television in their home with only their family. On the other hand there is the other end of the spectrum, people watch television by themselves on their computers or even smart phones, not just avoiding these strangers, but avoiding their family. Television viewing is always going to change, and the corrupted media corporations will always be out there to take advantage. In the end, they want the biggest numbers of views, whether you are a big fan or are watching the show for the first time, you will be taken advantage of for their own ends.