From Networks to Netflix A Guide to Changing Channels

Even as the television industry experiences significant transformation and disruption in the face of streaming and online delivery, the television channel itself persists. If anything, the television channel landscape has become more complex to navigate as viewers can now choose between broadcast, cable, streaming, and premium services across a host of different platforms and devices. From Networks to Netflix provides an authoritative answer to that navigational need, helping students, instructors, and scholars understand these industrial changes through the lens of the channel. Through examination of emerging services like Hulu and Amazon Prime Video, investigation of YouTube channels and cable outlets like Freeform and Comedy Central, and critiques of broadcast giants like ABC and PBS, this book offers a concrete, tangible means of exploring the foundations of a changing industry.

Introduction/Channel Listings

Channel 1 – Pop: Television Guides and Recommendations in a Changing Channel Landscape

Derek Johnson

Broadcast Stations and Networks

Channel 2 – ABC: Crisis, Risk, and the Logics of Change

Kristen J. Warner

Channel 3 – The CW: Media Conglomerates in Partnership

Caryn Murphy

Channel 4 – Rede Globo: Global Expansions and Cross-Media Extensions in the Digital Era

Courtney Brannon Donoghue

Channel 5 – PBS: Crowdsourcing Culture Since 1969

Michele Hilmes

Channel 6 – Alabama Public Television Network: Local Stations and Struggles Over Collective Identity

Allison Perlman

Channel 7 – DR: License Fees, Platform Neutrality and Public Service Obligation

Hanne Bruun

Channel 8 – MeTV: Old-Time TV’s Last Stand?

Derek Kompare

Cable and Satellite Services

Channel 9 – WGN America: From Chicago to Cable’s Very Own

Chris Becker

Channel 10 – ESPN: Live Sports, Documentary Prestige, and On-Demand Culture

Travis Vogan

Channel 11 – NBC Sports Network: Building Elite Audiences from Broadcast Rights

Deborah L. Jaramillo

Channel 12 – The Weather Channel: Genre, Trust, and Unscripted Television in an Age of Apps

Jon Kraszewski

Channel 13 - TLC: Food, Fatness, and Spectacular Relatability

Melissa Zimdars

Channel 14 – MTV: #Prosocial Television

Laurie Ouellette

Channel 15 – A&E: From Art to Vice in the Managed Channel Portfolio

David Craig and Derek Johnson

Channel 16 – Spike TV: The Impossibility of Television for Men

Amanda D. Lotz

Channel 17 – Comedy Central: Transgressive Femininities and Reaffirmed Masculinities Nick Marx

Channel 18 – Nick Jr.: Co-Viewing and the Limits of Dayparts

Erin Copple Smith

Channel 19 – Disney Junior: Imagining Industrial Intertextuality

Kyra Hunting and Jonathan Gray

Channel 20 – Disney XD: Boyhood and the Racial Politics of Market Segmentation

Christopher Chávez

Channel 21 – Freeform: Shaking off the Family Brand within a Conglomerate Family

Barbara Selznick

Channel 22 – El Rey: Latino Indie Auteur as Channel Identity

Alisa Perren

Streaming Channels

Channel 23 – Awesomeness TV: Talent Management and Merchandising on Multi-Channel Networks

Avi Santo

Channel 24 – ISAtv: YouTube and the Branding of Asian America

Lori Kido Lopez

Channel 25 – East India Comedy: Channeling the Public Sphere in Online Satire

Subin Paul

Channel 26 – Twitter: Channels in the Stream

James Bennett and Niki Strange

Channel 27 – Twitch.TV: Tele-visualizing the Arcade

Matthew Thomas Payne

Channel 28 – BBC Three: Youth Television and Platform Neutral Public Broadcasting

Faye Woods

Channel 29 – Open TV: The Development Process

Aymar Jean Christian

Premium Television

Channel 30 – Netflix: Streaming Channel Brands as Global Meaning Systems

Timothy Havens

Channel 31 – Hulu: Geoblocking National TV in an On-demand Era

Evan Elkins

Channel 32 – iQiyi: China’s Internet Tigers Take Television

Michael Curtin and Yongli Li

Channel 33 – Amazon Prime Video: Where Information is Entertainment

Karen Petruska

Channel 34 – Playboy TV: Contradictions, Confusion, and Post-Network Pornography

Peter Alilunas

Channel 35 – Starz: Distinction, Value, and Fandom in Non-Linear Premium TV

Myles McNutt

Channel 36 – WWE Network: The Disruption of Over-The-Top Distribution

Cory Barker and Andrew Zolides

Channel 37 – CBS All Access: To Boldly Franchise Where No One Has Subscribed Before

Derek Johnson

Derek Johnson is Associate Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He is the author of Media Franchising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Industries, as well as the co-editor of A Companion to Media Authorship, Making Media Work: Cultures of Management in the Entertainment Industries, and the forthcoming Point of Sale: Analyzing Media Retail.