McTV

Abstract

Globalization has intensified interconnectivity among television industries worldwide. Interconnectivity happens through structural and institutional linkages among television systems and industries worldwide, resulting in an increasingly integrated global business governed by similar practices and goals. The dynamics are reflected in the popularity of television formats. On the surface, global dissemination of formats may suggest not only the global integration of the economy of the industry but also the standardization of content. A dozen media companies are able to do business worldwide by selling the same idea, and audiences seem to be watching national variations of the same show. At a deeper level, however, formats attest to the fact that television still remains tied to local and national cultures. Bringing up examples of Latin American cases, this article argues that television is simultaneously global and national, shaped by the globalization of media economics and the pull of local and national cultures.

Ugly Betty and the Emergence of the Latina/o Producers as Cultural Translators

“…The process of adapting Betty for the U.S. mainstream television market brings a rare opportunity to reflect on the conditions in which certain television genres travel and the very challenges faced in domestic markets based on ideas of what works and what travels well. While recent scholarship has touted the increasing rise of an international market of genre-based projects conceived as formats based on their capacity to be filled with national and local cultures and accommodate domestic markets (Bielby & Harrington, 2008;Keane & Moran, 2008;Moran, 2009;Waisbord, 2004), my analysis of Betty reveals the tensions between the global and the local, through the very specific expectations that a telenovela-based project triggered in the professional community. In this particular example, most of this was expressed by the press.…”

Games without Frontiers: Streaming Sports and the Evolution of Digital Intermediaries

“…Silvio Waisbord, writing in 2004, uses TV formats and their adaptability to emphasize how "traces of national belonging are downplayed and even eradicated," which results in "a pasteurized, transnational product detached from national cultures." 34 Similarly, by following the work of the intermediary in the age of streaming, there is evidence of this at the level of the platform. As streaming intermediaries produce their platforms like one would a TV format, which can be cloned or re-skinned for different regions and markets, there is a greater incentive for a more generalized or "pasteurized" transnational product.…”

Glocalised-television content: Interaction with local cultures and impact on audience perceptions

“…When the 'globalisation' became 'glocalisation' with its multi directional effects, the striking rate went high, and globalisation was thus able to bring a cultural change. Tomlinson (1999) says that globalisation will lead to a single global culture effect of connectivity in terms of the economic sphere. This cultural transfusion was intentional or unintentional.…”

“…In this scenario television broadcasting companies were adopting the strategies of globalisation and regional based customization to improve their viewership and this increased the return on investment and the format of global integration of programmes penetrating to every household. Many media houses captured these ideas (Waisbord, 2004). A number of Western serials, reality shows were adapted and Indianized to meet the local culture, religious beliefs, and other ethnic characteristics of the regional viewers of India.…”