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- Volume 8, Issue 3, 2020
Journal of Popular Television, The - Volume 8, Issue 3, 2020
Volume 8, Issue 3, 2020
- Editorial
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- Special Section: ‘Global Distribution and “National Mediations” of Ready-Made TV Shows in Foreign Markets’
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Midsomer Murders AKA L’ispettore Barnaby: How did it find its way into the Italian market and why was it successful?
More LessThis article looks at the process of national mediation of the British TV series Midsomer Murders (1997–present), which has been broadcast on Italian television since 2003 under the title L’ispettore Barnaby. The programme has enjoyed considerable popularity in Italy since its early days and it is still broadcast regularly. The programme was deemed to be an interesting case study in investigating national mediation as it is strongly characterized by what one might call ‘Englishness’. The article first delineates the ways in which Italian broadcasters placed the product within the Italian market, and subsequently explains why it might have been successful.
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Mediating prestige television: The Italian promotion of Big Little Lies and The Deuce
More LessThis article takes the case of Sky Atlantic Italia to examine some of the strategies of national mediation that the player has employed to position itself as the prime Italian outlet of prestige television. First, I analyse the ways Sky has made the promotional rhetoric of US prestige television its own, also pouring it into the production of its original high-end dramas. Second, I focus on the promotion of two HBO series aired by Sky Atlantic, Big Little Lies (2017–present) and The Deuce (2017–19). By comparing these strategies to those originally employed by HBO, I highlight the ways the series were re-packaged for the Italian audience, ultimately reasoning on the meaning alterations brought about by the interplay between exploitation and negotiation of brand identities.
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The food, the place and the ‘real’: Italy’s representations in Master of None
More LessThe US success of Master of None (2015–17) has been partly due to its credible mainstream depictions of Indian American life. However, in its second season, the show’s work on identity stereotypes focuses on Italy, specifically describing customs and traditions, language and food through the eyes of the character Dev, who attends some cooking classes in Modena. From the perspective of an Italian viewer, this creates a sense of disorientation in seeing one’s world represented through stereotypes, and therefore through multiple overlapping cultural filters. The relationship between television and everyday reality is challenged when shows act as ‘food and travel’ tourist guides, a concept that also emerges from a comparison between the Italian setting of Master of None and the pilot episode of the documentary series Chef’s Table (2015–present).
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Reality television and unnatural dialogues: Trends in the Italian audio-visual translation of factual programming
More LessSince the early 1990s, an exponential increase in the demand for foreign TV content has occurred to fill the ever-growing libraries of new speciality channels (and later digital platforms). This process has boosted demand for the translation and adaptation of reality TV series, thus paving the way in Italy, traditionally a dubbing country, for the rise of a new hybrid form of audio-visual translation (AVT), ‘simil-sync’, deemed more cost-effective than dubbing and more user-friendly than subtitling for the local audience. Factual programming has become one of the most successful components of many themed channels, reshaping both Italian television and the national AVT scenario.
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Ready-made TV shows and the role of acquisitions: Investigating some mediations of the Italian and global television industry
By Luca BarraThe acquisition phase has progressively gained a crucial relevance in contemporary television industries. Building on an original research in the field of media production studies, with in-depth interviews of Italian professionals and longitudinal comparisons across the last decade, this article traces the role of acquisitions in the global distribution and national circulation of TV content and synthetizes recent developments in production routines and professional cultures. The goal is to explore this understudied sector, its practitioners and best practices, as well as to highlight the impact of digital TV multichannel and supra-national over-the-top (OTT) players, which have changed these dynamics further.
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The origin of imported TV content and the public service remit in European PSBs: RTVE and the BBC
More LessThis article analyses the role of foreign content in the public broadcasting corporations from two major European markets, Spain and the United Kingdom. Through a quantitative approach to schedules and in-depth interviews with the heads of the acquisitions departments, it is demonstrated that RTVE and BBC, both public media corporations, have a very different approach to the scheduling of acquisitions due to their distinct concept of public service remit. While in Spain this is focused on the cultural diversity of programmes, the approach in the United Kingdom is to only promote British productions.
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Distributing CanCon: CBC strategies for international distribution
More LessThis article tackles the evolution of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation international distribution strategies at the intersection of the contemporary television landscape, by providing a context and definition for Canadian content (CanCon) rules, so as to consider more recent debates on the positioning of foreign streaming services in Canada in relation to existing broadcasting companies. The aim is to problematize media policies, by outlining the present state of the debate and updating the conversation to include global streaming TV players. Key questions are explored, such as whether CanCon rules are outdated forms of cultural protectionism or still represent viable answers to the risks of media imperialism.
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Localization is now claiming its seat at the table: Interview with Saverio Perrino, BBC Studios
By Luca BarraIn an open conversation, Saverio Perrino, then localization executive at BBC Studios, highlights the role of dubbing/subtitling in the global circulation of television content and explains how a large production and distribution company is working to better coordinate the preparation of multiple localized versions. The examples of McMafia (2018–present) and Good Omens (2019), analysed in detail, show the increasing complexity of localization operations for international content owners and distributors, the challenges provided by specific authors and texts, and the pressure for a global day-and-date release that has become the standard for digital audio-visual platforms.
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Making foreign ready-made content great again: VOD platforms and English-language series in Turkey
By Ece VitrinelThanks to a growing television drama industry with notable success beyond its borders, domestic television series have, since the 2000s, become the dominant programme category on broadcast and cable television in Turkey. This article considers the presence of Anglo-Saxon TV series in an audio-visual landscape characterized by a widespread taste for local content. Briefly describing the differences between Turkish and foreign series in terms of format and appeal to audiences, it argues that English-language series may play a more decisive role than local content in the success of video on demand (VOD) platforms, which have been launched relatively late in the country.
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‘Dear Netflix…’: Informal local intermediaries on the periphery of the global VOD market
More LessAcademic discussion of Netflix has already highlighted the labour of localization that the global service has had to carry out or contract in order to operate smoothly across borders. But not much has been said about independent local players who help to align the service with local audiences, doing so often without any authorization or recognition, and who are still looking for a place in the new distribution ecosystem. Employing the perspective of valuation studies, this article discusses the changing business model of a Czech video-on-demand (VOD) directory, Filmtoro, as an example of a new type of local intermediary contributing to the social construction of the global VOD market.
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- Articles
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Domesticity and masculinity in Some Mothers Do ‘ave ‘em
More LessThis article makes a case for the radical potential of the traditional domestic sitcom as a critical cultural vehicle, challenging hegemonic understandings of the form as conservative. Through a detailed consideration of the BBC’s Some Mothers Do ‘ave ‘em (1973–78), one of the most popular examples from the 1970s, it points to the series’ critique of the heteronormative intimacies and domestic configurations that are assumed to be at the heart of traditional sitcom, presenting them as a site of disruption and unease rather than one of stability. The article asks how the character of Frank Spencer is defined by domesticity, appropriating a line of enquiry that is traditionally applied to female subjects and femininities. By queering the critical frame in this way, it opens up a fresh approach to the British sitcom elaborated through a variety of inter- and extratextual material, building on recent studies that have begun to explore what a queer perspective might contribute to the understanding of sitcom and its history (Villarejo 2014; Pugh 2018; White 2018; Miller 2019). Furthermore, by uncovering the queer potential of ‘prime-time’ televisual domesticities, this article suggests that prime-time content could occupy far more radical discursive positions than have been assumed, and complicates traditional assumptions around the relationship between television and domesticity.
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Small-screen psychics: Television performance as dubious achievement
More LessThe recent growth of interest in television performance has resulted in an array of books and articles which, in turn, have provided this area of study with renewed depth and breadth. Many of these contributions share an interest in questions of achievement, utilizing this term as a means of emphasizing the value in analysing performers’ contributions to the style and meaning of television texts. This article evaluates that critical tendency and uses it as a platform to consider instances in which achievement in television performance may also represent a deceptive or ethically dubious endeavour. The discussion builds to an analysis of television ‘mediums’ – individuals who pretend they are receiving messages from the dead – as a means of articulating the ways in which performance can showcase an impressive range of skills and, at the same time, contain fundamental deceptions or obfuscations. As a result, notions of performance achievement may involve complex and even conflicting evaluations.
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- Book Reviews
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You’re Nicked: Investigating British Television Police Series, Ben Lamb (2020)
More LessReview of: You’re Nicked: Investigating British Television Police Series, Ben Lamb (2020)
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 232 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-52612-590-9, £80.00
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Contemporary British Television Drama, James Chapman (2020)
More LessReview of: Contemporary British Television Drama, James Chapman (2020)
London and New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 187 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-78076-523-5, p/bk, £22.99
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Television Rewired: The Rise of the Auteur Series, Martha P. Nochimson (2019)
By Matt HillsReview of: Television Rewired: The Rise of the Auteur Series, Martha P. Nochimson (2019)
Austin: University of Texas Press, 313 pp.,
ISBN 978-1-47731-895-9, p/bk, $34.95
Twin Peaks: TV Milestones Series, Julie Grossman and Will Scheibel (2020)
Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 111 pp.,
ISBN 978-0-81434-622-8, p/bk, £22.99
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