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- Volume 8, Issue 1, 2017
International Journal of Digital Television - Volume 8, Issue 1, 2017
Volume 8, Issue 1, 2017
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Can a GVC-oriented policy mitigate the inequalities of the world media system? Strategies for economic upgrading in the TV format global value chain
More LessAbstractThe TV format business has evolved rapidly since the formation of a global format trading system at the millennium, with one notable exception: the UK remains the world’s leading exporter. Considering the UK was once a net importer of (US) TV formats, it is a remarkable turn of fortune that poses two questions: what lies behind it and can the recipe be applied elsewhere? This article argues that British broadcasting regulation helped build a local TV production sector that excels at export, and that it contains the core elements of a global value chain (GVC)-oriented policy. Comparing UK initiatives with other nations and regions (the Middle East, Israel and South Africa) demonstrates the benefits of the British regulatory framework. Using the TV format trade as a case study, this article acknowledges that the world media system may be unequal but, contra to the cultural imperialism thesis and critical political economy theory, it argues that developing countries can take measures to scale their creative industries and, in particular, encourage local TV producers to participate more actively in the TV content GVC. Strategies for economic upgrading, this article concludes, must use IP laws to incentivize creativity, must not restrict international trade, and need to take into account the global nature of the TV content value chain to help local firms position themselves accordingly.
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From Big Brother to Al Maleka: The growing pains of TV format trade in the Arab region
More LessAbstractBroadly defined as the sale of television programmes’ production rights and technologies, the TV format trade is a growing global business. Not only are formats representative of a wide array of programming practices but the process of licensing, casting, producing and ‘using’ these shows has become increasingly developed and sophisticated. This article underscores the coexistence between global TV formats and their locally/regionally originating Arab counterparts. It offers a brief overview of the multiple and localized meanings of formats and an abridged history of formats in the Arab region to reveal three distinct TV format stages: foundation, development and maturity. This article looks for answers to what is driving the maturity of format TV in the Arab region, not by looking at specific programmes but by examining the history, structure and production arrangements of media industries. Using a critical political economy approach, this article is the outcome of production ethnographies conducted in Beirut and Dubai.
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TV formats in anglophone Africa: The hegemonic role of South Africa in the TV format value chain
More LessAbstractThis article examines the television format business in anglophone Africa using a global value chains (GVCs) approach. Examining the format chain value structures and considering the different input and output activities in the global TV-format chain, this article identifies South African media industries as the most dominant players in anglophone Africa. Their dominance is manifested in the different stages of the value chain, from acquisition of format rights to broadcasting of finished programmes to different market segments in the region. This article argues that South Africa’s hegemonic status in the format value chain can be attributed to the formal nature of its creative industries and their configurations within the global/local matrix. South media corporations are embedded into the global media system through their business structures, capital investments, ownership, partnership and strategic alliances. At local level, South African companies have expanded into various African markets. This hegemony is contrasted with countries like Nigeria, who despite being the biggest producer of audio-visual material in Africa, is less active in the global format value chains.
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Formats, cultural security and China’s going out policy
Authors: Michael Keane and Joy Danjing ZhangAbstractThis article investigates the relationship between television formats, cultural security and China’s ‘going out’ policy. Cultural security is a term used within Chinese policy circles to advocate the strengthening of media and cultural pursuits with a view to making them effective instruments of national ‘soft power’, a term coined by Joseph Nye (1990). Whereas ‘going out’ refers to Chinese business expansion internationally, in this article it describes media and cultural industries. We argue that these three elements constitute a new soft power coalition. Building on the existing demand, particularly among diasporic communities for historical dramas, formatting of talent and reality shows allow Chinese cultural identity to be reformed, remade, re-presented and modernized. The article provides background to the emergence of television formats, showing which kinds of programming passes both government scrutiny and the audience test. In the final section it looks at three examples of music talent shows, The Voice of China, I am a Singer, and Sing My Song that effectively function to reconnect domestic and diasporic audiences.
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Localization as negotiation: Producing a Korean format in contemporary China
Authors: Wenna Zeng and Colin SparksAbstractThis article analyses the localization, as Hurry Up, Brother, of the Korean celebrity reality game show format Running Man by the Chinese broadcaster Zhejiang Satellite TV. Based upon field work involving participant observation and interviews with Chinese and Korean production personnel, the article explores the complex forces involved in realizing the final, highly successful, project. It is argued that localization involves the interplay of complex forces, the outcome of which is a process of negotiation. In particular, the article analyses in detail two major players in this production, Korean format consultants and the Chinese production team. It details the distinctively Korean practice of licensing a format without recourse to a formal specification of production details, and Chinese television professionals’ response to these practices. It is shown that the more informal methods employed result in a transfer of decision-making power from the Korean company to the Chinese company in the course of the production. As a television format show produced in China, the production of Hurry Up, Brother necessarily involved interaction with political forces as well as cultural differences between China and Korea. The article concludes with considering the implications of the findings for our concepts of globalization, localization and hybridization.
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The TV format market in Latin America: Trends and opportunities
Authors: Enrique Uribe-Jongbloed and Ethel Pis DiezAbstractThe Latin American incursion and participation in the trade of audio-visual formats is considerably recent, and has become particularly relevant with the rise of the trade in scripted formats. The region’s expertise in telenovelas has given them an edge in this type of formats, with Argentina leading a conscious strategy to take advantage of the market that opened up following the international success of the Colombian Yo soy Betty, la fea (1999). We present here a summary of the latest developments of the format market in Latin America collected from trade magazine reports and in-depth interviews with leading figures in television production and distribution companies. Our research evinces that cultural proximity and volume of television production output are not necessarily predictors of the regional flow of scripted formats in the region.
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Television formats and the United States: New developments in production and distribution
By Paul TorreAbstractThis article explores the variety of television formats bought and sold in the US marketplace or exported abroad, and the variety of companies buying and selling as a part of that market. Companies in the television format trade are adjusting to increased competition, and merging, acquiring and strategically allying to become more creative and efficient and to reach new audiences. The author also analyses the recent shift to programming based on repurposed content and how the saturated US television market is impacting demand for television formats. The author contends that the television format industry is experiencing the shakeout and maturity stages of an industry life cycle, as traditional television responds to audience demands for online content, and formatted content is adapted across platforms. The author analyses and evaluates the future prospects in the US marketplace for formatted media content, both domestically and transnationally.
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TV format sector consolidation and its impact on the configuration and ‘stickiness’ of the UK entertainment production market
By Andrea EsserAbstractThis 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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Book Reviews
Authors: Tom Evens and Andrei RichterAbstractPOLICY AND MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR DIGITAL MEDIA, YU-LI LIU AND ROBERT PICARD (EDS) (2014) New York: Routledge, 312 pp., ISBN: 9780415747714, h/bk, £90
EUROPEAN MEDIA POLICY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, SEAMUS SIMPSON, MANUEL PUPPIS AND HILDE VAN DEN BULCK (EDS) (2016) New York and London: Taylor & Francis, 279 pp., ISBN: 9781138856509, h/bk, £67.50
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