Television Is The New Television

"The closer the new media future gets, the further victory appears." --Michael Wolff This is a book about what happens when the smartest people in the room decide something is inevitable, and yet it doesn’t come to pass. What happens when omens have been misread, tea leaves misinterpreted, gurus embarrassed? Twenty years after the Netscape IPO, ten years after the birth of YouTube, and five years after the first iPad, the Internet has still not destroyed the giants of old media. CBS, News Corp, Disney, Comcast, Time Warner, and their peers are still alive, kicking, and making big bucks. The New York Times still earns far more from print ads than from digital ads. Super Bowl commercials are more valuable than ever. Banner ad space on Yahoo can be bought for a relative pittance. Sure, the darlings of new media—Buzzfeed, HuffPo, Politico, and many more—keep attracting ever more traffic, in some cases truly phenomenal traffic. But as Michael Wolff shows in this fascinating and sure-to-be-controversial book, their buzz and venture financing rounds are based on assumptions that were wrong from the start, and become more wrong with each passing year. The consequences of this folly are far reaching for anyone who cares about good journalism, enjoys bingeing on Netflix, works with advertising, or plans to have a role in the future of the Internet. Wolff set out to write an honest guide to the changing media landscape, based on a clear-eyed evaluation of who really makes money and how. His conclusion: The Web, social media, and various mobile platforms are not the new television. Television is the new television. We all know that Google and Facebook are thriving by selling online ads—but they’re aggregators, not content creators. As major brands conclude that banner ads next to text basically don’t work, the value of digital traffic to content-driven sites has plummeted, while the value of a television audience continues to rise. Even if millions now watch television on their phones via their Netflix, Hulu, and HBO GO apps, that doesn’t change the balance of power. Television by any other name is the game everybody is trying to win—including outlets like The Wall Street Journal that never used to play the game at all. Drawing on his unparalleled sources in corner offices from Rockefeller Center to Beverly Hills, Wolff tells us what’s really going on, which emperors have no clothes, and which supposed geniuses are due for a major fall. Whether he riles you or makes you cheer, his book will change how you think about media, technology, and the way we live now.

Worlds on screen: the ontology of television series and/as the ontology of film -- Storytelling and worldhood: the screen and us -- "This America, man": tragic reconciliation, television, and The Wire -- The gangster, boredom, and family: Weeds, natality, and new television -- "Boyd and I dug coal together": Justified, moral perfectionism, and the United States of America -- Conclusion

Essays, statements, and videotapes based on "Open circuits : an international conference on the future of television" organized by Fred Barzyk, Douglas Davis, Gerald O'Grady, and Willard Van Dyke for the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

We watch TV on computers, phones, and other mobile devices; television is now online as much as it is "on air." Television and New Media introduces readers to the ways that new media technologies have transformed contemporary broadcast television production, scheduling, distribution, and reception practices. Drawing upon recent examples including Lost, 24, and Heroes, this book examines the ways that television programming has changed—transforming nearly every TV series into a franchise, whose on-air, online, and on-mobile elements are created simultaneously and held together through a combination of transmedia marketing and storytelling. Television studios strive to keep their audiences in constant interaction with elements of the show franchise in between airings not only to boost ratings, but also to move viewers through the different divisions of a media conglomerate. Organized around key industrial terms—platforming, networking, tracking, timeshifting, placeshifting, schedule-shifting, micro-segmenting, and channel branding this book is essential for understanding how creative and industrial forces have worked together to transform the way we watch TV.

The New Television Handbook provides an exploration of the theory and practice of television at a time when the medium is undergoing radical changes. The book looks at television from the perspective of someone new to the industry, and explores the place of the medium within a constantly changing digital landscape. This title discusses key skills involved in television production, including: producing, production management, directing, camera, sound, editing and visual effects. Each of these activities is placed within a wider context as it traces the production process from commissioning to post-production. The book outlines the broad political and economic context of the television industry. It gives an account of television genres, in particular narrative, factual programmes and news, and it considers the academic discipline of media studies and the ways in which theorists have analysed and tried to understand the medium. It points to the interplay of theory and practice as it draws on the history of the medium and observes the ways in which the past continues to influence and invigorate the present. The New Television Handbook includes: contributions from practitioners ranging from established producers to new entrants; a comprehensive list of key texts and television programmes; a revised glossary of specialist terms; a section on training and ways of getting into the industry. By combining theory, real-world advice and a detailed overview of the industry and its history, The New Television Handbook is an ideal guide for students of media and television studies and young professionals entering the television industry.

Now if I just remembered where I put that original TV play device--the universal remote control . . . Television is a global industry, a medium of representation, an architectural component of space, and a nearly universal frame of reference for viewers. Yet it is also an abstraction and an often misunderstood science whose critical influence on the development, history, and diffusion of new media has been both minimized and overlooked. How Television Invented New Media adjusts the picture of television culturally while providing a corrective history of new media studies itself. Personal computers, video game systems, even iPods and the Internet built upon and borrowed from television to become viable forms. The earliest personal computers, disguised as video games using TV sets as monitors, provided a case study for television's key role in the emergence of digital interactive devices. Sheila C. Murphy analyzes how specific technologies emerge and how representations, from South Park to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog, mine the history of television just as they converge with new methods of the making and circulation of images. Past and failed attempts to link television to computers and the Web also indicate how services like Hulu or Netflix On-Demand can give rise to a new era for entertainment and program viewing online. In these concrete ways, television's role in new and emerging media is solidified and finally recognized.

Examines social and cultural phenomena through the lens of different television shows We all have opinions about the television shows we watch, but television criticism is about much more than simply evaluating the merits of a particular show and deeming it ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Rather, criticism uses the close examination of a television program to explore that program’s cultural significance, creative strategies, and its place in a broader social context. How to Watch Television brings together forty original essays from today’s leading scholars on television culture, writing about the programs they care (and think) the most about. Each essay focuses on a particular television show, demonstrating one way to read the program and, through it, our media culture. The essays model how to practice media criticism in accessible language, providing critical insights through analysis—suggesting a way of looking at TV that students and interested viewers might emulate. The contributors discuss a wide range of television programs past and present, covering many formats and genres, spanning fiction and non-fiction, broadcast and cable, providing a broad representation of the programs that are likely to be covered in a media studies course. While the book primarily focuses on American television, important programs with international origins and transnational circulation are also covered. Addressing television series from the medium’s earliest days to contemporary online transformations of television, How to Watch Television is designed to engender classroom discussion among television critics of all backgrounds.

This publication reflects the changes in television, both domestically and internationally and is a useful guide to the legal, economic, and production aspects of the industry.