Success and the TV Industry
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Success and the TV Industry: How Practitioners Apprehend the Notion(s) of Success in their Discourses within the Anglophone Transatlantic Television Industry Benjamin William Lloyd DERHY KURTZ Submitted for the degree of PhD in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, School of Art, Media and American Studies, (FTM), University of East Anglia 2018 Thesis Defense: 04 December 2017 Examiners: Dr. Catherine Johnson, Dr. Christine Cornea This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. Table of Content Abstract i Acknowledgements ii Studying Success in the Television Industry: An Introduction 1 Introduction: 1 I. Settings, Literature Review and Intervention: 6 a. Research Settings: 6 The Television Industry and The Creative / Cultural Industries 6 Creativity 7 Value of Creativity and Labour in the Industry 9 Quality and Legitimacy 11 The Transatlantic Setting 13 Historical and Current Differences between the US and the UK TV Industry 15 Time Frame of the Research within the History of Television 19 Scripted Entertainment and Genre 20 The Five Entities Studied 22 b. Academic Framework and Intervention: 24 The Intersection of Television and Production Studies 25 Academic Work on ‘Success’ 28 Secondary and Tertiary Fields of Engagement 30 II. Research Questions and Structure of the Thesis: 34 a. Main Research Questions: 34 b. Thesis Structure: 36 Conclusion: 40 I. Reflections on Methodological Approaches and on the Industry 42 Introduction: 42 I. Selecting Research Methods: 43 a. Qualitative or Quantitative Research: 43 b. Value of Qualitative Interviewing: 45 c. Different Types of Interviews: 50 d. Experts Interviews and Interviewees: 52 Definition of Expert Interviews 52 Definition of Experts 53 Re-Visiting Industry Personnel 54 The Interviewees 59 Number of Participants 61 Representativeness and Makeup of the Participating Practitioners 64 e. Face-to-face and Telephone Interviews: 68 f.. Discourses Analysis: 70 II. Applying Those Methods: 74 a. Research Ethics: 75 b. Preparation of the Interviews: 76 c. Conducting the Interviews: 77 d. Transcription and Analysis of the Data: 79 Conclusion: 82 II. How is Power Perceived in the Practitioners’ Discourses? 84 Introduction: 84 I. Conflict between Creativity and Control; Different Theories Collide: 87 a. Antagonism between Financial and Cultural Paradigms: 87 b. Lack of Systematic Contradiction in Non-Managerial Personnel Accounts: 82 c. Establishing the Reasons behind this Alienation: 96 II. Managerial Antagonism to Executive Power; Different Identities for Different Perspectives: 100 a. Creativity to Differentiate Managers-Producers: 101 The Rise of the Super Creative Personnel 102 Presence of Creative Alienation in Show-Runners’ Accounts 103 b. Hierarchical- Functional Conflicts to Unite Them: 105 Creative Producers’ Accounts 105 Non-Creative Producers’ Accounts 110 III. Executives in their Own Words: 115 a. Presenting Their Activity and Themselves: 116 Neutral View – They 116 Collectivist View – We 118 Individualist View – I 119 b. Protecting Their Activity and Themselves: 121 Reverse Footing – You 121 Apprehending Money and the Self: Discursive Defence Mechanism 123 Conclusion: 126 III. How Does the Executive Discourse Prioritise Measurements and Apprehend ‘Success’ 129 Introduction: 129 I. Success Discourse Centred on Audience Sales – The Commercial Discourse: 132 a. Industrial and Discursive Apprehension of the Audience: 133 It’s All About the Audience, but It’s for Somebody Else 133 b. The Impact of Technology on Industrial Practices and the Success Discourse: 138 Representation of Technology and Change in the Executive Discourse 139 Apprehending Novelty and Normalising the Familiar 144 c. Success, Audience and Revenue in the Industry and the Executive Discourse: 147 Turning People into Money 147 Other Sources of Revenue? 151 Other Measures of Success? 152 Prospective Audience... It’s Not Always for Somebody Else 155 II. Success Discourse Centred on Revenues – The Financial Discourse: 158 a. Inbound and Outbound Money flows.. Just a Simple Equation: 159 b. ROI, Profits, Break-Even; Apprehending and Justifying Finance in the Industry: 163 c. Crediting these Earnings; Trade Stories and the Self-Serving Bias: 166 III. Success Discourse Centred on People – The Public Discourse: 172 a. Appreciation and Reach; the Altruistic Discourse: 173 b. Ratings, Demographics, Goals; Not so Different After All: 178 Ratings Matter 179 Who Is Behind All This? 184 Conclusion: 186 IV. How Do Industry Workers’ Approaches of Success Differ From the Industry’s? 190 Introduction: 190 I. Internal Rewards, Relating to One’s Work: 193 a. Proud of the Input: 194 Doing One’s Best 194 Achieving Against the Odds 198 b. Proud of the Output: 200 Ownership and Impact 201 Supporting Influence on the End Result 207 II. External Rewards, Relating to the Programme’s Reception: 212 a. Popularity of the Programme: 212 b. Recognition from Certain People in Particular: 218 Conclusion: 225 Conclusion 229 Introduction: 229 I. Main Interventions of this Research: 230 a. The Seven-Fold and the Three-Fold TV Practitioners Categorisations: 231 b. The Creative-Based Alienation and the Hierarchical-Functional One: 232 c. The Explicative-Defensive Discursive Form: 235 d. The Three Types of Discourses and Domination of Ratings in Success Goals: 237 e. The Domination of Job Satisfaction and Happiness in Personal Goals: 240 f. The Lack of Dissimilarity between the US and the UK TV Industry: 242 II. General Reflections on the Research: 244 a. On This Research: 244 Interviewing Practitioners 244 Analysing the Data 245 b. On the Future Possibilities: 246 Bibliography 250 Appendix 276 I. Interview Request Template: 277 II. Interviews Timetable: 278 III. Interview Questionnaire: 280 IV. Transcription of one interview: 281 Abstract This thesis explores the discourses of success within the Anglophone transatlantic television industry through the semi-structured interviews of sixteen industry practitioners. The TV industry has long been studied in media studies, its working conditions discussed in production studies, its texts scrutinised in TV studies; but what drives the TV industry? What is ‘success’ to television industry practitioners? How do they apprehend it and discuss it? Looking at this key element through those at the heart of it is this research’s purpose, and a necessary step for cultural, production and television studies to better comprehend the industry and what drives it and its members. After discussing the methods selected for this research and bringing forth a new, sevenfold task- based industry categorisation, my research will tackle its subject of enquiry through three main topics: the perception of decision-makers by industry practitioners the industrial executive discourses of success among the different industry constituents (networks/cable/premium/public channels/studios); the personal definitions of success of all practitioners (and their link to industrial/professional success). This research will engage with many academic fields: from discourse analysis and industrial sociology to organisational research and management psychology, through production studies, cultural studies and film/television/media studies, giving it a clearly multidisciplinary scope. With this thesis, I also wish to further help bridge the gap between academic and industrial expertise. By doing so, and making sense of industrial and personal ideas of success, my research aims at developing a new framework for it, thereby proposing to academics a first approach to the notion of success in this industry. i Acknowledgements I would like to sincerely thank the following people for their precious help: Firstly, my family, for their love and support: in particular my mother and my grandmother. My primary supervisor, Dr Keith M. Johnston, whose help, advice and precise feedback were precious for the making of this PhD thesis; my secondary supervisor, Dr Su Holmes, who was always there for the key steps; and Dr Brett Mills, who was interested in my research from the start and without whom I would not have started it at UEA in the first place. I would similarly like to thank Dr Melanie Williams (temporarily replacing Dr Holmes in her role of secondary supervisor) and Dr Mark Rimmer, the examiners from my transfer-up panel, who believed my research to be worthy of a PhD, and gave me helpful advice as well. Also, my gratitude goes to Drs Mark Jankovich, Simone Knox and Henry Jenkins, for their precious advice on various academically-related items, and who thus also helped me become, if I dare say so, an academic. Of course, I would also very much like to thank all my participants for agreeing to do these interviews and for the time they devoted to me: John Bartlett, Donald P. Bellisario, Peter Blake, Nicolas Brown, Velton Ray Bunch, James Callis, Deborah Everton, Vince Gerardis, Michael Goto, James Hedges, Michael Hirst, David Howe, Kevin Lygo, Sara Pascoe, Stephan Pehrsson and Ashley Way, as well as talent agent Nicola Mason-Shakespeare for her help in finding the last of my interviewees. Finally, my thanks go to Dr Christine Cornea and Dr Cathy Johnson for agreeing to be, respectively, the internal and external examiner at my viva, for the time required to read and assess my