In an age of proliferating choices, television nevertheless remains the most popular medium in the United States. Americans spend more time with TV than ever before, and many 'new media' forms, such as blu-ray movies, Hulu videos, and Internet widgets, are produced and delivered by the world's most lucrative and powerful television industry. Yet that industry has undergone profound changes since the 1980s, moving from a three-network oligopoly to a sprawling range of channels and services dominated by a handful of major conglomerates. Viewers can now access hundreds of channels at all hours of the day and can search and select from hundreds of thousands of individual programmes on video and Internet services. This diversity has fragmented the size of television audiences and transformed relationships between viewers and television companies. Unlike the first fifty years of television, today's industry leaders can no longer rely on mass audiences and steady revenue flows from big-budget advertisers, and this in turn affects their programming and production strategies.
"The American Television Industry" offers a concise and accessible introduction to TV production, programming, advertising and distribution. Michael Curtin and Jane Shattuc outline how programmes are made and marketed, and provide an insightful overview of key players, practices and future trends. Although star-driven dramas and comedies continue to attract a great deal of critical praise and audience attention, television is increasingly characterised by niche programming services, that, with modest production budgets, compete for audience attention. In this environment, reality TV genres have emerged as attractive programming alternatives for cable services such as the History Channel and the Food Network. Moreover, programming is increasingly delivered on an a la carte, on-demand basis to a diverse array of viewing devices, such as iPods and cell phones.
The book analyses the corporate strategies, technological innovations and cultural transformations that have driven changes in industry strategy, discourse and practice. Making reference to numerous case examples, the authors identify definitive trends and describe key players in industry and government. These are indeed vibrant but unstable times for the American television industry and this volume explains the major forces that will shape the future of the medium in North America and around the world.

"Television, Tabloids, and Tears " was first published in 1995. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

"I am Biberkopf," Rainer Werner Fassbinder declared, aligning himself with the protagonist of his widely seen television adaptation of Berlin Alexanderplatz. The statement provoked an unprecedented national debate about what constituted an acceptable German artist and who has the power to determine art. More than any recent German director, Fassbinder embodied this debate, and Jane Shattuc shows us how much this can tell us, not just about the man and his work, but also about the state of "culture" in Germany.

It is fascinating in itself that Fassbinder, a highly controversial public figure, was chosen to direct Berlin Alexanderplatz, Germany's longest, costliest, and most widely viewed television drama. Shattuc exposes the dichotomy of institutional support for this project versus the scandalous controversial reputation of Fassbinder as a gay man who flaunted his sexuality and involvement with drugs.

Fassbinder built his reputation on two separate images of the director-the faithful adapter and the underground star; with Berlin Alexanderplatz these two identities came together explosively. Tracing the two artistic paths that led Fassbinder to this moment, Shattuc offers us a look at cultural class divisions in Germany. Her account of Fassbinder's history as an Autor reveals both the triumph and the failure of bourgeois cultural domination in postwar West Germany.

"Hop on Pop" showcases the work of a new generation of scholars--from fields such as media studies, literature, cinema, and cultural studies--whose writing has been informed by their ongoing involvement with popular culture and who draw insight from their lived experiences as critics, fans, and consumers. Proceeding from their deep political commitment to a new kind of populist grassroots politics, these writers challenge old modes of studying the everyday. As they rework traditional scholarly language, they search for new ways to write about our complex and compelling engagements with the politics and pleasures of popular culture and sketch a new and lively vocabulary for the field of cultural studies.
The essays cover a wide and colorful array of subjects including pro wrestling, the computer games "Myst" and "Doom, " soap operas, baseball card collecting, the Tour de France, karaoke, lesbian desire in the "Wizard of Oz, " Internet fandom for the series "Babylon 5, " and the stress-management industry. Broader themes examined include the origins of popular culture, the aesthetics and politics of performance, and the social and cultural processes by which objects and practices are deemed tasteful or tasteless. The commitment that binds the contributors is to an emergent perspective in cultural studies, one that engages with popular culture as the culture that "sticks to the skin," that becomes so much a part of us that it becomes increasingly difficult to examine it from a distance. By refusing to deny or rationalize their own often contradictory identifications with popular culture, the contributors ensure that the volume as a whole reflects the immediacy and vibrancy of its objects of study.
"Hop on Pop" will appeal to those engaged in the study of popular culture, American studies, cultural studies, cinema and visual studies, as well as to the general educated reader.

"Contributors." John Bloom, Gerry Bloustein, Aniko Bodroghkozy, Diane Brooks, Peter Chvany, Elana Crane, Alexander Doty, Rob Drew, Stephen Duncombe, Nick Evans, Eric Freedman, Joy Fuqua, Tony Grajeda, Katherine Green, John Hartley, Heather Hendershot, Henry Jenkins, Eithne Johnson, Louis Kaplan, Maria Koundoura, Sharon Mazer, Anna McCarthy, Tara McPherson, Angela Ndalianis, Edward O'Neill, Catherine Palmer, Roberta Pearson, Elayne Rapping, Eric Schaefer, Jane Shattuc, Greg Smith, Ellen Strain, Matthew Tinkhom, William Uricchio, Amy Villarego, Robyn Warhol, Charles Weigl, Alan Wexelblat, Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Nabeel Zuberi

"Hop on Pop" showcases the work of a new generation of scholars--from fields such as media studies, literature, cinema, and cultural studies--whose writing has been informed by their ongoing involvement with popular culture and who draw insight from their lived experiences as critics, fans, and consumers. Proceeding from their deep political commitment to a new kind of populist grassroots politics, these writers challenge old modes of studying the everyday. As they rework traditional scholarly language, they search for new ways to write about our complex and compelling engagements with the politics and pleasures of popular culture and sketch a new and lively vocabulary for the field of cultural studies.
The essays cover a wide and colorful array of subjects including pro wrestling, the computer games "Myst" and "Doom, " soap operas, baseball card collecting, the Tour de France, karaoke, lesbian desire in the "Wizard of Oz, " Internet fandom for the series "Babylon 5, " and the stress-management industry. Broader themes examined include the origins of popular culture, the aesthetics and politics of performance, and the social and cultural processes by which objects and practices are deemed tasteful or tasteless. The commitment that binds the contributors is to an emergent perspective in cultural studies, one that engages with popular culture as the culture that "sticks to the skin," that becomes so much a part of us that it becomes increasingly difficult to examine it from a distance. By refusing to deny or rationalize their own often contradictory identifications with popular culture, the contributors ensure that the volume as a whole reflects the immediacy and vibrancy of its objects of study.
"Hop on Pop" will appeal to those engaged in the study of popular culture, American studies, cultural studies, cinema and visual studies, as well as to the general educated reader.

"Contributors." John Bloom, Gerry Bloustein, Aniko Bodroghkozy, Diane Brooks, Peter Chvany, Elana Crane, Alexander Doty, Rob Drew, Stephen Duncombe, Nick Evans, Eric Freedman, Joy Fuqua, Tony Grajeda, Katherine Green, John Hartley, Heather Hendershot, Henry Jenkins, Eithne Johnson, Louis Kaplan, Maria Koundoura, Sharon Mazer, Anna McCarthy, Tara McPherson, Angela Ndalianis, Edward O'Neill, Catherine Palmer, Roberta Pearson, Elayne Rapping, Eric Schaefer, Jane Shattuc, Greg Smith, Ellen Strain, Matthew Tinkhom, William Uricchio, Amy Villarego, Robyn Warhol, Charles Weigl, Alan Wexelblat, Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Nabeel Zuberi