Television: A global context

Until very recently, what has prevailed in Britain, as elsewhere in Europe, has
been the system of public broadcasting, involving the provision of mixed
programming with strict control on the amount of foreign material shown on
national channels available to all. The principle that governed the regulation of
broadcasting was that of public interest. In the post-war years, it was television
that became the central mechanism for constructing this collective life and
culture of the nation.
Now, however, things are changing, and changing decisively. During the 1980s,
as a consequence of the complex interplay of regulatory, economic and
technological change, dramatic upheavals took place in the television industry,
laying the basis for what must be seen as the new media order. What was most
significant was the decisive shift in regulatory principles; from regulation in
public interest to a new regulatory regime driven by economic and
entrepreneurial imperatives. Within this changed context viewers are no longer
addressed in political terms, that is as the citizens of a national community, but
rather as economic entities, as parts of a consumer market. No longer
constrained by, or responsible to, a public philosophy, media corporations and
businesses are now simply required to respond to consumer demands and to
maximize consumer choice.
Driven now by the logic of profit and competition, the overriding objective of the
new media corporations is to get their product to the largest number of
consumers. There is, then, an expansionist tendency at work, pushing
ceaselessly towards the construction of enlarged audio-visual spaces and
markets. The imperative is to break down the old boundaries and frontiers of
national communities, which now present themselves as arbitrary and irrational
obstacles to this reorganization of business strategies. The free and unimpeded
circulation of programmes television without frontiers is the great ideal in the
new order. It is an ideal whose logic is driving ultimately towards the creation of
global programming and global markets.
The international market for exported television is made up off numerous
interconnected organizations, institutional actors, and products. Firms in the
global syndication business are extremely diverse, ranging from completely
structured production companies with international syndication divisions to
small, one-person operations selling a single product. Many different
organizational entities make up for the industry from the studios and other
program suppliers to the networks to the companies that specialize specifically in
the preparation, handling and distribution of television products for the
international markets. Institutional actors range from company presidents of
large, multinational media conglomerates to owners of local, community
enterprises in developing nations. Ancillary to these key participants in the
market are other players, including advertising agencies, law and/or government
regulatory agencies and ministries and rating companies. All participants pay
close attention to the health of local, regional and global economies, which
shape overall demand and terms of trade for international commerce in
television programming.

These players co-orient each other through the buying and selling of television
programming. Buying of these programmes is done based on the accumulated
knowledge about what the television industry is expected to provide as
entertainment. Of course, everyone knows that the ultimate goal is bottom-line
profit, but it is those who understand the subtleties of buying and selling cultural
products who are most successful. Indeed, because television programming is so
culturally/symbolically laden and its success and failure so difficult to predict, the
particular challenges it presents as a matter to be managed lie at the very centre
of this marketplace.

Works Cited
Bielby, D. D. & Harrington, C. L., 2008. Global TV: Exporting Television and
Culture in the World Market. California: NYU Press.
Morley, D. & Robins, K., 1995. Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic
Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries. London: Routledge.