ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book concerns television as an industry and the types of factual entertainment programming it produces. It acknowledges however that television does not operate in isolation but is part of a wider matrix of media discourses through which people acquire ideas and knowledge about society more generally. The book provides an overview of academic debates around changes within factual television, approaches to genre and questions of cultural value before moving on to examine issues relating to the definition and role of entrepreneurship in society and its representation within popular culture. It shows the ways in which the wider viewing public understands both business entertainment formats and the concept of entrepreneurship more generally in society. The book considers the concept of the celebrity entrepreneur and the role played by key business celebrities in converting media capital into various forms of political capital.
