I love the SuperBowl, but not for the reasons you’d expect. I usually don’t know who’s in it, don’t care who wins it, and don’t watch it. I do, however, love to use it in class when I teach TV Criticism because I’ve found the Super Bowl’s ads are useful texts with which to...
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Tags: advertising, Chrysler, masculiniity, nationalism, Super Bowl, television
Posted in TV | 3 Comments »
When NBC aired its "Brotherhood of Man" promotion before the Super Bowl on Sunday, it provided a useful take on the network's biggest strength...and its potential weakness.
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Tags: 30 Rock, Brotherhood of Man, NBC, promotions, Super Bowl
Posted in Celebrity/Stardom, Current Events, Industry, Perspectives, TV | 1 Comment »
Recent comparisons to the early experience of using an ATM seem to offer quite a bit of potential for describing how we will be buying and watching movies and television shows in the near future.
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Tags: ATMs, Blockbuster, cloud services, digital distribution, geography, interfaces, Netflix, privacy, UltraViolet, video stores
Posted in Current Events, Film, Film, Industry, Industry, Technology, Technology, TV, TV | 11 Comments »
As a fan of musical theater, I’ve been eagerly anticipating the premiere of SMASH, the new NBC drama about the behind-the-scenes adventures of a group of people attempting to open a new musical on Broadway. Though the show is set to premiere after the Super Bowl, NBC has already released the pilot for free...
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Tags: broadway, musical theater, NBC, smash, television
Posted in Current Events, TV | 4 Comments »
While the actual “Must See TV” branding is all but gone, there remains a specter of legitimation surrounding the evening…at least in the eyes of NBC schedulers.
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Tags: branding, Comedy Night Done Right, Must See TV, NBC, Scheduling, Thursday
Posted in TV, TV | 1 Comment »
With NBC's Community and ABC's Cougar Town on hiatus, their respective showrunners' Twitter accounts become key outlets for implicitly or explicitly encouraging fan involvement and/or activism.
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Tags: Bill Lawrence, Community, Cougar Town, Dan Harmon, fandom, Kevin Biegel, showrunners, Twitter
Posted in Internet, Internet, TV, TV | 1 Comment »
Whatever you’ve been doing on the internet in the last few weeks, chances are you ran across something about SOPA. And for good reason—SOPA might just be the most dangerous internet legislation the US government has ever considered.
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Tags: censorship, copyright, intellectual property, internet freedom, net neutrality, PIPA, policy, social media, SOPA, U.S. Congress
Posted in Film, Industry, Internet, Music, Politics, Technology, TV | 2 Comments »
The tantalising return of two episodes of early Doctor Who deserves celebration. But perhaps the tempting notion of two cultures or past/present eras of TV deserves a measure of critique.
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Tags: BBC, Doctor Who, fandom, participatory culture, quality TV
Posted in Columns, Current Events, Doctor Who & Authorship, TV | Comments Off
As the lights rose on a recent late night edition of ESPN’s SportsCenter, anchors Stuart Scott and Scott van Pelt grinned disingenuously, like desperate salesmen sampling crumb cake before demanding we sign for all eight units. ESPN had just wrapped coverage of an utterly forgettable college basketball game that saw No. 5 North Carolina...
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Tags: digital media, ESPN, labor, Lebron James, MLB, NBA, NBA lockout, NFL, television
Posted in Current Events, TV | Comments Off
The four part look at US television, America in Primetime, has been extraordinary, offered me new ideas, and left me reminded of the possibilities of the medium and with renewed thanks that I earn a living studying it.
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Tags: America in Primetime, PBS, Tom Yellen
Posted in Current Events, TV | Comments Off
FOX's new animated sitcom Allen Gregory trades heavily in humiliation. Cynthia Chris examines the comedic resonance of this sort of situation in light of recent events.
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Tags: Allen Gregory, FOX, sitcom, television, The Simpsons
Posted in Perspectives, TV | 3 Comments »
The licensing process for the HBO series highlights the challenge of balancing a level of control over the quality of products related to the series with efforts to both monetize and expand its audience.
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Tags: Dark Horse, franchising, Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin, HBO, Licensing, TV, video games
Posted in Games, Industry, TV | 6 Comments »
Each year, the anticipated fall premiere television season is followed by an equally exciting period: fall cancellation season. The failures of The Playboy Club and Pan Am raise the question of why we turn to period TV, especially post-Mad Men.
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Tags: gender, industry, Mad Men, NBC, Pan Am, ratings, television, The Playboy Club, TV
Posted in Current Events, Perspectives, TV | 1 Comment »
What happens when the television production schedule leads to promotions which are out of date by the time they air?
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Tags: cross-promotion, Gossip Girl, HP TouchPad, NBC, Nick Lachey, Playboy Club, product placement, Sing-Off, The CW
Posted in Current Events, Industry, TV | 4 Comments »
A look at the differences between how Occupy Wall Street is framed on Fox News, MSNBC, and the Daily Show versus how greater, more diverse coverage circulates on Twitter.
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Tags: Fox News, MSNBC, Occupy Wall Street, The Daily Show
Posted in Current Events, TV | Comments Off