State of play

Contemporary 'high-end' TV drama

Robin Nelson

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781847796479
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Women Authors
• Index: Literature

Robin Nelson's State of play up-dates and develops the arguments of his influential TV Drama In Transition (1997). It is equally distinctive in setting analusis of the aesethetics and compositional principles of texts within a broad conceptual framework (technologies, institutions, economics, cultural trends). Tracing "the great value shift from conduit to content" (Todreas, 1999), Nelson is relatively optimistic about the future quality of TV Drama in a global market-place. But, characteristically taking up questions of worth where others have avoided them, Nelson recognizes that certain types of "quality" are privileged for viewers able to pay, possibly at the expense of viewer preference worldwide for "local" resonances in television. The mix of arts and cultural studies methodologies makes for an unusual and insightful approach.

1
Mapping the territory; blurring the boundaries

Conceptual map

This chapter maps out the conceptual framework of the book, introducing the key factors in the force-field of both the production of contemporary TV drama and the relevant core debates in critical analysis of the television medium and its dramatic forms. A key premise to be explored in this book is that a distinctive era of television practice has emerged in the 1996–2006 decade under consideration.

Historically, various optics have helpfully been used to assist in denoting and understanding changes in television culture across spaces and through time. Kaplan’s Rocking Around the Clock (1987), for example, focused synchronically upon a worldwide textual phenomenon, MTV, whilst, in the specifically American context, Feuer’s Seeing Through the Eighties (1995) followed a timeline of sociocultural development diachronically. More recently, Ellis (2000), focusing upon the UK context but with an eye to global developments, has delineated three eras of television, Scarcity, Availability and Plenty, the last approximating to the period under discussion here which, in my judgement, has emerged further than Ellis allows. Taking an approach based on industry economic structures, Behrens (1986) coined the terms TVI and TVII as shorthand for the network era of television in the USA (roughly 1948–75) and post-network era (roughly 1975–95). Following Behrens, Rogers, Epstein and Reeves have proposed ‘TVIII’ to cover the post-1995, digital–global context. They prefer this means of distinction to the ‘broadcast’, ‘cable’ and ‘digital’ characterisations of eras, since, as they rightly point out, ‘broadcast and cable television continue to exist in the “digital era”’ (2002: 55). TV3 (the formulation I will borrow and adapt), whilst it appears to follow on from a periodisation in the USA, applies in fact to world television, since it marks a new era hailing the triumph of digital–satellite capacity to distribute transnationally, bypassing national distribution and, in some instances, regulatory controls. A more nuanced account of the political economy of world television and its cultural impact follows in Chapter 3 but, overall, this study considers TV3 to be a distinctive period arising from a conflation of influences (cultural, technological, industrial, social, aesthetic) with particular implications for TV drama forms and their production, distribution and reception under new circumstances.

As with attempts at the periodisation of the medium, critical approaches in the slowly emergent field of Television Drama Studies have equally gone through phases which have looked in very different ways at textual forms and their impact on audiences. In the 1970s academy, the compositional principles of texts were rather assumed to evoke specific kinds of viewing response. A formalist critique, grounded in more or less overtly Marx-derived “Brechtian” aesthetics, decried television’s realist narrative and “transparent” representational conventions (see McCabe, 1976). In contrast, as Feuer notes ‘Fiske’s work on television reception was widely influential during the eighties in shifting the emphasis away from how texts position the viewer and towards what the viewer does with the text’ (1995: 4). Fiske’s “polysemic” approach in turn militated against estimations of textual quality since, in Schroder’s formulation, ‘The text itself has no existence, no life, and therefore no quality until it is deciphered by an individual and triggers the meaning potential carried by this individual’ (1992: 207). In the 1980s and beyond, the impact on the subjectivity of viewers has been a matter of variously theorised accounts. Ethnographic studies in the 1980s (Morley, 1980; Hobson, 1982; Ang, 1985) appeared to confirm the polysemy of texts by documenting a broad range of readings from socially differentiated reading positions. With the increasing fragmentation of the television audience, social subdivisions and individuals were shown to take different meanings from their viewing experience. Moreover, in the latter half of the 1990s and at the turn of the millennium, the pleasures of television came to the fore, both in its general visual attractions (Caldwell, 1995) and in the cult following of specific groups of dedicated fans (Hills, 2002).

An overemphasis on the openness of the text and the freedom of the reader to make or take from it what he or she will, however, has a number of implications for understanding the circulation of television. As Miller has observed:

Active audience research … in its assertion of the absolute openness of transnational texts, similarly strips the concept of culture of its power in the limitlessness of meaning, while also stripping the vital political notion of ‘resistance’ of its power in suggesting that a local reading of a transnational text actively resists ideological elements of that text. (2000: 7)

The question of how a programme produced in one culture is received and read in another becomes particularly pressing in TV3 when developments in technology afford the ready circulation of programmes worldwide, as noted. In a situation in which American output dominates the export of programmes, it remains important to take into account what people at a range of local levels do with television. But a properly critical account of television’s significance should not lapse into complacency simply because there is evidence that some people read and enjoy texts against their apparent ideological grain. Whilst my approach does not directly involve specific ethnographic study, it aims to understand the cultural implications of distribution and reception more broadly and, to that end, will draw upon the audience research undertaken by others.

As Cunningham and Jacka have pointed out, it would equally be a mistake to resurrect the ‘cultural imperialism’ thesis (see Schiller, 1969 and 1991) simply in respect of the volume of exports from the USA in the world television market. As they succinctly put it, ‘Culture is much more than media even if media are part of culture’ (1996: 6). As we shall see in Chapter 3, furthermore, a post-Fordist dispersal of media power and television production perhaps places the USA in a less dominant position in the world economy than in the past, even though it remains highly influential, particularly in “high-end” drama. Jacka and Cunningham note that, ‘Up to 90 per cent of television fare in many countries is locally originated’ (1996: 30), but they acknowledge that drama is much more likely to be imported than other television forms.¹ In respect of the very expensive “high-end” drama with which this book is primarily concerned, production typically requires co-financing and, in anglophone cultures, North America remains the most likely source of funding partners, though there are European and other initiatives.² The cultural specificities of contributing countries, particularly where one partner is dominant, may be eroded in the process of product development, as examples in Chapter 6 will explore. Cultural exchange in TV3 may be more a road network than a one-way street, to borrow Tracey’s extended metaphor (1985: 23), but the influence of American television style, as much as ideology, remains significant, if only because of its familiarity across the world.

Another significant shift in the understanding of television cultures relates specifically to the political disposition of audiences. The 1970s critique of the “classic realist text” was made, as noted above, from a particular ideological position at a historical moment in which a belief was sustained in the capacity of media forms to make a counter-hegemonic intervention in the socio-political process. The Marxist perspective is, however, one of several modernist ‘grand narratives’ (grands récits) noted by Lyotard (1984) to be unsustainable in the postmodern condition. Social change from heavy to service industry in the economically advanced Western industrial nations is a key factor here. Politics as conceived on the basis of class up to the early 1970s has given way to a more fractured politics of the personal. Partly through a post-Watergate distrust of politicians and partly through a disillusion in the capacity of party politics to address the complexities of world issues, younger generations appear either to focus upon the direct targeting of specific issues (animal rights in scientific research, for example) or to take little interest at all in world political questions. The politics of identity, mobilised significantly by the various phases in the trajectory of the women’s movement and other gender-and sexual-preference-based emancipatory movements has significantly overtaken class and party politics in ‘standpoint epistemologies’ (Williams, 2001: 10). In respect of the study of TV drama, commentators who address political implications today have located their accounts more in the politics of the personal than in the grand historical trajectories of class struggle (Creeber, 2004a).

Just as television research has led to a modification of the old inoculation model of ideological imposition, so too a more balanced conception of the engagements between texts and readers has emerged. Bakhtin’s concepts of heteroglossia and dialogism, the multi-accented sign and its potential for variant readings, has been mobilised in this context.³ His sense that meanings are negotiated in dialogues between utterances would seem at first sight to affirm Fiske’s account of polysemy and the findings of 1980s ethnographers noted above. But Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism, as Miller has remarked ‘grounds polysemy in the actual political, economic, social and ideological statements that shape reception and meaning’ (2000: 9). In discussing the interplay between the local and the global in this study, the potential for cultural influence of the dominant producers and distributors, notably American, will accordingly be acknowledged. In recognising varying degrees of “otherness” or varying degrees of “our-own-ness” in the dialogic negotiations between texts and readers, however, it is not assumed that a supposed semiotic democracy of “personal choice” has redressed imbalances of power across the globe. The more excessive postmodern notions of free-floating signifiers will accordingly be qualified in recognition of a degree of semantic commonality within and across speech communities, even whilst acknowledging that readings are inflected through the prisms of local cultures and microcultures.

This approach makes it possible once again to discuss the forms, compositional principles and implications of texts and to argue that they invite dispositions of viewers, even if they lack the power to determine responses. In evoking differing accounts of the impact of television upon viewers and the modes of engagement viewers might have with television, I prefigure a theme running throughout the book concerning the function of television and the possibility, not to mention the desirability, that TV drama might go beyond its evident capacity to entertain large numbers of people in their leisure hours. My aim, besides locating new products transmitted by fresh means to newly constructed target audiences, is to afford a critical perspective on contemporary television cultures and accordingly I have acknowledged “where I am coming from” in the Introduction. A particular concern will be the ability of national governments under global market circumstances to intervene to sustain the local product which viewers are known to prefer.

“Cinematic” television: a paradox to which the times give proof?

A concern with textuality is pressed by the most recent trend in TV Drama Studies towards analysis of textual aesthetics. This emphasis arises partly from the creative exploitation of the better quality of the medium’s sound and image (see Chapter 5) and partly because, in an age of well-produced DVDs of major television series, it has become possible for close textual readings on repeated viewings, both by fans and academics alike. Above all, however, it is because the “high end” of small-screen fictions aspires to cinematic production values, as will be seen in the discussion of many of the examples in this book. The visual style, the “look”, of TV drama texts has become another key aspect, besides narrative form and other principles of composition, to invite analysis.

The idea that TV drama is increasingly “cinematic” needs a brief commentary at the outset, and the distinctiveness of the television medium will be addressed shortly. First, it should be noted that the impetus to reconceive TV as film comes from the industry, particularly from HBO with its tag line promoting its output as Home Box Office, in which the engagement is on an economic basis like that of the movie theatre, requiring payment directly for a singular “cinematic” experience (‘it’s not TV; it’s HBO’). Secondly, the term might imply an enhanced visual means of story-telling in place of the dialogue-led television play with its theatrical, rather than filmic, heritage. Today’s high budgets for “high-end” TV drama approximate to (though do not quite reach) those of cinema, affording a single camera with post-production editing approach, using 16mm, and exceptionally 35mm stock (or now HDTV) for recording its imagery, rather than magnetic tape. High budgets also afford highly paid star performers, external and occasionally exotic locations and many extras to flesh out the mise-en-scène. Established film directors are being drawn into television (see Chapter 5) and bring a range of filmic vocabularies and grammars into play. Intertextual reference is frequently made to film, as well as television, products and in some instances, as we shall see, there is a conscious use of modernist European cinema techniques.

All this said, however, there are obvious factors which mark TV fictions from their narrative cinema counterparts. Digital technologies, in particular HDTV, are impacting upon both mediums but most on the television production process and its imagery. It remains a moot point whether the much-improved digital television image is the equivalent of that of film, or whether each retains its own visual qualities. But the most obvious difference lies in scope and narrative form, since films typically run for 90–120 minutes and follow a single narrative arc, whilst television series run for perhaps fifty hours over six seasons, adopting multiple narrative forms, and in some instances shifting significantly over time, to sustain themselves. Indeed, it is a doxa of US television that at least four series of up to twenty-two episodes are needed to maximise profits through syndication. Though the industry structure is itself changing (see Chapter 2), long-form series–serial narratives remain the mainstay of the television schedules. Thus, though they may aspire to cinematic visual style, TV dramas nevertheless adhere to a range of distinctive narrative forms. The “cinematic” tag, all too frequently and loosely applied to contemporary television series, might best be understood, therefore, as an enhanced visual style, since modern technologies have certainly afforded a denser visual image and more effective soundtrack (see Chapter 5). This note of caution should inform instances where I also use the term “cinematic” as a shorthand reference subsequently in this book.

Technological advance

In terms of cultural impact, the most significant development in television technology has been the consolidation of cable and satellite distribution by digital means. Cable, the major innovation of TVII cracked the distribution bottleneck in the USA but advanced digital–satellite technology has achieved its break-up in TV3. Satellite beams have for some time been able to reach most of the surface of the globe but satellite technology has developed significantly since its commercial expansion in the late 1970s. Indeed, the feature which contributes to a distinctive TV3 is the emergence in 1994 in the USA of a new generation of high-powered direct-broadcast satellites (DBS) and sophisticated encryption achieved through digital compression. Encryption devices, “digi-boxes”, afford control over who can receive the signal, and thus payment (by subscription or pay-per-view) can be exacted for delivery of services. Together, these developments afforded control over access to satellite signals and thus over distribution. In the UK a parallel development occurred with BSkyB in 1998.⁴

The key impact of digital technology in TV3 lies, then, in distribution and concerns bandwidth, the capacity to distribute content. Besides satellite, more information can be distributed digitally through existing channels (the electromagnetic spectrum and coaxial cable) through a technique of compression. Increased means of distribution and more available space on existing bandwidth means more channels, even where analogue remains the basic platform. Where digital capability has emerged, new modes of communication in television are opened up. At a domestic level, the fibre backbones to networks and the broadband spectrum facilitate interactivity, as with personal computers. Viewers are now frequently enticed to press the red button on their remote handsets to access further information or a new angle on the game. Already, some people access services such as e-mail through their television apparatus and increasingly the ubiquitous domestic small screens, through sharing digital technology, will become one.⁵

In the public sphere, the apparent expansion (through digital compression) of the electromagnetic spectrum has effected a significant change in perception. Where historically it was accepted that, for reasons of spectrum scarcity, the electromagnetic resource had to be held in public trust and managed by state regulatory forces, digital plenitude displaces this conviction. A more individual disposition to the television medium and a privatised viewing experience displace the former communal and public service ethos. Worldwide there has been a drift away from public service to market-oriented television services. Indeed, in the UK there is a question as to whether the government will reserve some of the newly available digital spectrum for increased public service ends or sell it to the highest bidder.⁶

Technology is not, however, determining but functions as just one, albeit significant, element in a force-field. The major impact of the technological innovations above has been facilitated by political shifts in a parallel direction aw...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Editorial note
• Introduction: aims, scope, methods and standpoints
• 1 Mapping the territory; blurring the boundaries
• 2 Distinctive product: three kinds of quality The Sopranos, Shooting the Past, Shameless
• 3 State of play: the TV drama industry – new rules of the game
• 4 Pushing the envelope: “edgy” TV drama Queer as Folk, Sex and the City, Carnivàle
• 5 Techniques, technologies and cultural form
• 6 Between global and national 24 and Spooks; Buried and Oz
• 7 “Quality TV” in context
• 8 Singularity sustained Blackpool, Casanova, State of Play
• References
• Index