post-network work
I don’t think many media-studies folks read this blog, but I thought that I would pose a question that’s troubled me for a while. What do you call a cable content operation like CNN or ESPN? In television studies, “network” generally refers to a content operation that distributes content to a system of local affiliates, which are either independently owned or, increasingly, separate business units. “The Networks” almost always refers to CBS, NBC, ABC, and sometimes FOX, while the CW and PAX are also networks that aren’t part of “The Networks.” In contrast, cable content operations like CNN have a different business arrangement where their content is licensed to local cable operators, so they’re not really “networks” in the sense that NBC is a network.
Both of my readers are probably rolling their eyes right now at this distinction, but it’s both historically important (I’m working on a paper for “Post-Network Television”.) and relevant to the political economy of television. The words “operator” and “provider” refer almost exclusively to local system operators, and my fallback “channel” is just lame. I suppose the solution is to use the “cable” modifier, so CNN is “cable network,” but it would be nice if there was a precise term for these organizations.
This is a good question, and I’m not convinced that there is a good answer. In some of the essays I’ve been reading for my article on the “future” of science-fiction television the phrase “cable network” is used (specifically in reference to Lifetime).
But I agree that a more precise term might help. After all, I might be more likely to refer to the SciFi Channel or the Discovery Channel as cable channels, simply because that’s what they call themselves. I think the two are basically interchangeable even if they are also unsatisfying.
I think ESPN is more than a network or cable entity. I don’t have cable but get most of my sports news from http://www.espn.com and their magazine seems to be doing quite well.
I think of ESPN as a brand tries to transcend all mediums. I assume their hope is to be synonymous with the concept of sport much in the way Nike tries to be.
The idea of ESPN as brand is interetsing, but that loses its specificity as a cable network or channel or whatever. I do think the concept of brand can be extended to a number of cable channels (Lifetime, especially), but I think the differences between the multiple ESPNs (I get at least four) shouldn’t be glossed under the wider concept of the brand.
An interesting test case here would be Oprah’s Oxygen Network, which itself is a cable channel but subsumed under Oprah’s brand identity (and I think there’s little doubt that if Oprah is nothing else, she is a brand).
Thanks for the comments Chuck and Pat. Now that you pointed it out, Pat, ESPN is a bad example, since the brand is slapped on a variety of media properties, including ABC’s sports coverage. (Which I’ve blogged about and forgotten.) To split hairs a bit, my the signified in my naming issue is one of two closely connected things, the “channel” or the aggregation of content that appears as ESPN2 or Food Network or whatever, and the organization that produces this content. I think we’ll have to stick with “cable network,” however imprecise it is.
Chuck, the branding issue is interesting since it tends to mask the production issues and issues of media specificity. I wonder if in ten years we’ll talk about “the classical cable era” like “the classical network era” to refer to the eighties through the mid-nineties when men were men and cable networks just made cable TV.