ABSTRACT
This introduction argues that the production and distribution of television functions as a complex negotiation of what I term “spatial capital,” a value associated with the spaces where television is produced, set, and ultimately consumed. This is not a static value: it is ever changing, under constant renegotiation on a series-by-series and in this case an episode-by-episode basis. The foundation of spatial capital is how a series consciously maps itself within overlapping hierarchies of industry and cultural geography, a process we can see firsthand in two very different efforts to draw a “map” of the U.S. television industry.
