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Abstract:This article explores the strategic use of cultural diversity as brand management tool in cable television via the case study of The Fosters, a prime-time soap on ABC Family. Specifically, I examine three interrelated facets of The Fosters and its industrial context, namely the program's representation of meaningful cultural diversity, how this meaningful diversity functions as a strategy for ABC Family's brand of "A New Kind of Family," and how media scholars can make sense of a discourse of diversity imbricated in corporate brand management. Instead of dismissing branded diversity, I argue that we should closely examine it to recognize the possibilities and constraints of culturally diverse representations emerging out of and enabled by television brand management.Keywords: Audiences, Branding, Cable, Distribution, RaceImagine the following TV program: a family drama about an interracial lesbian couple raising a multiethnic group of children in which the plot explicitly addresses the following issues: racial and ethnic difference, sexuality and gender, class, and the failure of institutions, especially the foster care system. This program embodies the kind of meaningful diversity for which media scholars frequently ask, but it seems utopian to imagine such a drama would appear on American television. Yet this program exists. It is called The Fosters (2013-) and airs on the Disney-owned cable channel ABC Family. Using The Fosters as a case study, this article explores the strategic use of cultural diversity as brand management tool in cable television. Specifically, I examine three interrelated facets of The Fosters and its industrial context. First, I analyze the program's representation of meaningful cultural diversity. According to Mary Beltrán, meaningful diversity in television occurs when characters of color move beyond token status and appear as complex people with rich interiority and the agency to drive the narrative forward. 2 Second, I demonstrate how this meaningful diversity functions as a strategy for ABC Family's brand of "A New Kind of Family," turning it into what I call branded diversity. I use "branded diversity" to describe the inclusion of cultural diversity in television programming that is motivated by and contributes to a channel's branding strategies. Finally, I examine how media scholars can make sense of diversity imbricated in corporate brand management via a few examples of how meaningful and branded diversity overlap in The Fosters. Instead of dismissing branded diversity, I argue that we should closely examine it to recognize the

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Review of Michael Z. Newman and Elana Levine, Legitimating television: Media convergence and cultural status. New York: Routledge, 2011, paperback, $36.95 (232p) ISBN 978-0415880268.

In this brief overview of The Killing’s American reception, I consider the series’ rise and fall in critics’ eyes and relate these changing perceptions to expectations rooted in AMC’s brand, AMC’s promotional campaign, and the discourse of basic cable drama. I argue that rather than searching for an explanation of The Killing’s ‘failure’, it is more productive to consider this perceived failure as indication of a gap between critics’ expectations and The Killing’s challenge to the narrative structure of the masculinized prime time drama.