This document discusses new challenges facing TV as viewing habits change. It analyzes how streaming and binge watching are transitioning viewers from "old contracts" with producers to "new contracts". Specifically, it examines how these new viewing patterns impact expectations around: 1) major characters facing consequences, 2) complexity requiring multiple viewings, 3) talent prioritized over beauty, 4) increased graphic content, and 5) less adherence to genre conventions. It raises questions about whether this split will create "two solitudes" of viewership or whether laggards will eventually adapt to new norms.

1. TV: new rules, new
viewers, new challenges
Grant McCracken
grant27@gmail.com
April 22, 2017

2. • new contracts
• new viewers
• new challenges

3. thoughts on bingeing
the Netflix results

4. a change is taking place in
the medium, the viewer
and the producer

5. this presentation looks at
a change in the grammar

6. or to use another metaphor:
the “legal relationship” between
viewer and showrunner

7. there are “contracts”

8. binge and streamingTV change
these contracts
(both cause and effect, actually)

9. it all starts with Buffy

10. “contracts” as an
analytic strategy

11. contract:
the metaphor
• a cultural convention
• binding on producers and consumers
• works as tacit knowledge
• an implicit expectation
• violated by producers at their peril
• penalty: severing connection between show & viewer

12. the transition
• from old contracts to new
contracts
• from old contracts to no
contracts

13. 5 contracts
1.bad things do not happen good people
2.one lookTV vs. second lookTV
3.‘beauty vs. talent’ trade off
4.modulated, blunted vs. rawer and realer
5.convention bound vs. freer - form

14. 1. nothing really
bad could ever
happen to
Jim Rockford

15. may they rest in peace
• Zoe (Kate Mara) on House of Cards
• Ned Stark (Sean Bean) on Game of Thrones
• DS Riply (Warren Brown) on Luther
• Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) on Homeland
• Will (Josh Charles) on The Good Wife
• Peggy (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) and Lamar (Powers Boothe) on Nashville
• James (Dan Bucatinsky) on Scandal
• Moira (SusannaThompson) on Arrow
• Allison (Crystal Reed) on Teen Wolf

16. 2. one lookTV
• the old contract
• “we may not go back,
we may not explain”
• “one and done”
• “no viewer left behind”
• Dr. Exposition, if need
be (thank u, Mike
Meyers)

17. second lookTV
• Buffy and the “sotto voce”TV
• murmur dialogue
• complexity and or nuance
• the showrunner assumes viewer
can go back and will
• or accept the blame
• no Dr. Exposition
• (the Professor onThe Wire)

18. 3. beauty vs. talent
• old contract
• beauty as the necessary
condition
• as much talent as possible
under the circumstances
• new contract
• talent as the necessary
condition
• as much beauty as possible

19. 4. modulated, blunted
vs. relatively realer and rawer
• old contract
• a world that pulls it’s
punches
• horror is evoked if need be
but never shown
• new contract
• graphic to the point of gore
• unflinching
• unforgiving

20. 5. genre vs. free form
• old contract
• genre loyalty
• genres within genres
• Lenny makes a wise crack
• new contract
• fewer “safe assumptions”
• no reliable narrative arc
• we just have no idea

21. what happens to the
US viewing public?

22. culture has
consequences

23. a simple diffusion
adoption
distribution?

24. diffusion shape
with a ‘Moore’s
chasm?’

25. or a “two
solitudes” model
of viewership
(aka a bimodal America)

26. challenges
• is ‘contracts’ a useful metaphor?
• do we have a distinction between old and new contracts?
• will the laggards catch up, will the gap close?
• or is this the new shape of American culture,
not just in politics but in culture?
• what happens to networks and showrunners in the meantime?
• can streamingTV manage “two solitudes” & how?

27. see you on social
@grant27
grant27@gmail.com