ABSTRACT
A typical weekday evening in an average household in Southwest Poland. A married couple in their early 40s are awaiting the evening showing of one of their favorite series, M jak Miłość (L for Love, TVP, 2000–). When 7:30 pm approaches, the wife is reminded that all the tasks still to be done need to be finished very quickly as in 40 minutes the episode will begin, marking the end of their working day. The husband, busy working in his garage, urges his wife: “Let me know when it starts” (Halawa 2006, 54). The broadcast time of the series is treated as a stable point, a ritual, around which other activities are structured, marking the shift into leisure time. This account, found in Mateusz Halawa’s 2005 field research of the viewing habits of Polish audiences, reveals the essential features symptomatic of viewing habits in Poland, such as a heavy reliance on the broadcasting flow and the importance of the broadcaster as “the intermediary between the audience and the television text,” which is not challenged by alternative modes of watching television (Green 2005, 280).
