Promos and InterfacesCOMS 426 (TELEVISION STUDIES)

PROMOS

Gray, Jonathan. "'Coming up Next': Promos in the Future of Television and Television Studies." Journal of Popular Film & Television 38, no. 2 (2010): 54‐57.

PROMOS –

30,000 promos per year on American Networks, in process giving up $4 billion in ad revenue

Promos and Indents

Example – CTV extended promo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWeknOUQAcs

1985 CBC promo – Look Againhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0idZAi5vZBU

CBC Promo – Canada lives here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC4O7SCCh-Y

Indents

Creating familiarity with the characters – bonding with the audience

CBC indent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l4RIBr842I

CTV indent with Jon Stewart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMXQgYfkxTk

Transcending the binary

Art vs promotion

Text vs. ad

Show vs. peripheral

Promo is part and parcel of the whole – we need to look at it in the same way that we scrutinize texts/programs

Promos as “paratext”

Promos quite frequently create a text.

Framing the show – giving the audience a sense of what it is about

Creating tone, mood, and sensibility

Paratext (Gerard Genette) – material surrounding books, e.g. typeface, covers, prefaces

Promos as frames

Intertextual and evaluative allowing viewers to make sense of the show

Establishing audience contact with characters, plots, storylines

Allowing the station a way to brand itself – to show itself as carrying a variety of different programs and therefore, catering to a variety of audiences.

Network/channel is on sale as much as is the program. In fact, the program becomes the way in which the channel sells itself

Indents

Also a way of branding the station/network

Uses star characters or familiar figures as a way of creating a bond with the audience

Framing television viewing

“…textuality and meanings of a channel and of a show are always contingent on one another. To understand a show textually, we may be required to study a channel textually.”

Interfaces

Chamberlain, Daniel. "Television Interfaces." Journal of Popular Film & Television 38, no. 2 (2010): 84-88.

Viewing now occurs through a variety of different platforms – but what does that mean?

- such viewing is now facilitated by the interfaces that are available on these platforms

Predicated on an ideology of usability and simplicity

3 parts of interfaces

1. The physical means of interacting

2. Screen-based displays

3. Dedicated software

Interfaces

Demand and encourage interactivity – inviting viewers

Promising greater control and customization, e.g. wishlists, favorites, playlists.

Control over what and when to watch

Streamline content to suit the user – reducing the degree of findability, navigating and managing huge streams of data

Interfaces – reframe the programs

Introduce new metadata-based aesthetics

Alter the rhythms of the time we spend with television

Reveal struggles among media corporations

“emergent media ontologies of customization, navigation, and control are invested and contested”

Drawbacks

- we are trained to become more efficient television consumers

Illusion of power

Generates user data which can be used by marketers and which is often sold by the interface company to advertisers

Increased surveillance of users