Recent News

17 01 2009

This page features recent news items related to television and American culture. Choose the category to find items tied to specific chapters in the book, or follow the tags to see what’s new about specific facets of television. Subscribe to the RSS feed to stay on top of television!





The Death of Broadcast

28 03 2009

Here’s a nice little article from Time magazine using the end of ER as a bookend for the transition from network to digital convergence, and the ways that technological and industrial changes impact the possibilities of programming. Of course, he doesn’t account for how these transformations are making the business model of television less sustainable in the long run, but nobody has a real answer for that.





Status of racial diversity on TV

21 03 2009

The New York Times offers a brief discussion on the lack of African-American centered programming in 2009. There’s not much about how different cable channels target different ethnic mixes – for instance, Comedy Central has quite a distinct audience composition compared to CNN.





Network TV in the downturn

28 02 2009

Here‘s a good rundown of the state of the TV industry in early-2009 – and it’s not a pretty picture.





Fair Use and this book

16 02 2009

This is a cross-post from my main blog, Just TV. It speaks to the power of media industries, especially in terms of copyright and restrictions on fair use.

Read the rest of this entry »





Should TV browse the web?

16 02 2009

This article outlines the debates within the consumer electronic industry over whether televisions should be full-fledged web browsers, or just stocked with widgets. In two years, I’m sure this article will look dated (from one side or the other).





Television’s endurance as a medium

8 02 2009

An interesting account of how television maintains a strong place in the advertising system despite the decline of other older media and the rise of online.





The challenges of the DTV transition

30 01 2009

Written a few weeks before the scheduled Feb. 17 changeover, this article highlights many of the lingering issues facing viewers. It might be interesting to look back a few months from now to see how accurate the predictions were.





The online TV archive

26 01 2009

Instead of cable reruns, channels like Discovery are putting their archives online in short sensational clips. But what of programs that don’t feature sharks and other sensationalist footage?





Advertising reacts to the economic downturn

26 01 2009

A sure sign of a weak economy is the rise of infomercials and direct-sale ads – now even in primetime network TV!





Fox News adjusts to Obama era

19 01 2009

This article discusses how the Obama presidency might impact Fox News, moving from the leadership to opposition position. What it doesn’t consider much is how MSNBC might take over Fox’s previous role.