ABSTRACT
As the world’s leading programme exporter, the American television industry has for decades been a trendsetter in the development of the medium worldwide. American TV exports not only entertain and inform audiences in farflung locales, they also influence local production practices, programme formats, institutional behaviours and audience tastes. As key assets of the world’s largest media conglomerates, the US TV companies appear to be both prosperous and powerful. Yet the latest trends in the industry are somewhat foreboding, as new competitors, restless advertisers and empowered audiences agitate for change. The network oligopoly of the 1960s that confidently controlled the most powerful mass medium in US history has morphed into a constellation of huge multimedia conglomerates that seem far less confident of their abilities to manage audience behaviours and advertiser needs. Consequently, television companies seem to be undergoing a historic shift in their organizational structures, industry strategies and programming practices. US television, which was founded on principles of broadcast networking, is now moving into the matrix era – a shift that is emblematic of transformations taking place at media institutions around the world. Several developments during the 2007 season seemed to herald this change.
The season began with an agreement between national networks and advertisers to include DVR audiences in their ratings reports, basing calculations for each show on the number of live viewers plus those who watch within three days via DVR. At the time, close to a quarter of all US households owned a DVR and the major networks had been pressing advertisers to acknowledge some of these viewers, since they comprise a substantial share of the audience. In return, the networks accepted advertiser demands for ratings of TV commercials as well as programmes. The agreement represented a fundamental change in the ways in which audiences are measured and interpreted. It allowed networks to claim larger audiences for their shows, but it also intensified accountability for the commercial minutes they sold to sponsors. Both parties saw it as an important innovation aimed at coping with dramatic changes in media technologies and audience use patterns.
