1. Home
2. Courses
3. Multichannel TV, Fall 2006

Course Description

The advent of technological innovations in the distribution of television have significantly impacted the role television has played in the US since the era of network dominance in the 1960s and 1970s. This course will examine multichannel television not only as a technological development but also as an agent for television aesthetics, for the economics of global media industries, and for the dynamic relationship between television, culture, and politics in the US.

Instructor

Juan Monroy

Email

• juan.monroy@nyu.edu

Connect

• Course Website
• Blackboard
• Electronic Reserves

Course Materials

Textbook

• Megan Mullen. The Rise of Cable Programming in the United States: Revolution or Evolution? Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. ISBN 0292752733

Additional readings are available as PDF documents on Blackboard.

Blackboard

This course will make heavy use of Blackboard. Please be sure to check it regularly for course announcements, assignment guidelines, required and optional readings, supplemental screenings, presentations from lectures, and your own personal gradebook and attendance records. You may also use Blackboard to submit assignments electronically (see "Submitting Assignments Electronically" below).

To access Blackboard, point your browser to http://classes.nyu.edu, and log in using your NYU Net ID and password. You will find our course under "Courses You Are Taking."

Stay Informed

To stay current on the economics of multichannel television you should subscribe to NATPE Daily Lead.

In addition, you should regularly research the following industry trades, using ProQuest or Lexis Nexis:

• Multichannel News
• Broadcasting and Cable
• C21 Media
• Variety
• Hollywood Reporter
• Wall Street Journal
• New York Times
• Los Angeles Times

Office Hours

Please feel free to stop by my weekly office hours on Wednesday, 2:00–4:00 PM, in the Tisch Common Room (721 Broadway, Ground Floor). If this time does not work for you, please speak with or email me to make an appointment.

Requirements

Weekly attendance

Attendance at all class session is of vast importance, and thus there are no "excused" absences. Our sessions involve intensive group discussion of assigned readings and in-class screenings, which can only occur in class.

If you miss more than two class sessions, those absences will count against your final grade. Missing more than 30 minutes of class, either due to late arrival or early departure will count as one absence.

If you experience a medical, family, or financial catastrophe during the semester, immediately contact your academic advisor, Ventura Castro at Cinema Studies, and me so we can all work together in helping you complete your work through an exceptionally difficult time. Note: coursework for other classes, including film shoots or other crew production work, does not qualify as "exceptionally difficult" circumstances.

Reading

Complete each week's readings before our class session. The lectures will cover material that assumes you have completed that week's assigned readings. I invite you to re-read certain chapters or articles after the class to reinforce the lecture and screenings from our sessions.

Writing

All written work must be submitted on time. Late work will not be accepted, except for "exceptionally difficult" circumstances outlined above. You must also complete every assignment in order to receive a grade for this class.

In addition, all written work must be formatted according to Guidelines for Written Work. In general, your writing must be clear, professional in tone, elaborate any point you make, prove all original assertions, and cite your source for any information that is not "common knowledge." Please print your paper and proofread it for grammar and typographic errors before submitting it. Excessive errors will result in a lower grade. Also, please do not submit assignments via email attachments (see Submitting Files Electronically below).

I police plagiarism vigilantly. Any student who hands in work not their own will receive a failing grade for the course.

Assignments

Timeline of Historical Events

On Blackboard, you will find thirty important events in US and World history that have impacted US television programming, the broadcast industries, and American culture. Arrange those events on a timeline and submit that timeline.

• Due: September 20, 4:00 PM
• Weight: 15%

Ungraded Historical Narrative

Select one of the events listed on the Timeline Assignment page. Write a four-hundred word summary of that event and its relevance for the US television industries.

You must consult at least six independent sources. Three must be primary sources and three must be secondary sources. None of these can be standalone Internet sources.

You must cite any sources according to the specifications of the Modern Language Association or the Chicago Manual of Style.

This assignment will not receive a grade. Instead, I will offer comments on your writing and your research methods. However, you must complete this assignment in order to receive a grade for this class.

• Due: September 27, 4:00 PM
• Weight: 0%

Research Paper Proposal and Bibliography

Your final paper will examine an historical case study occurring after 1970 in multichannel television within an aesthetic, cultural, or industrial framework. You should avoid topics occuring after 2001.

You will do a substantial amount of outside historical research to complete this paper. You should select your final paper topic and discuss it with me as soon as possible but no later than Week 7.

As you work on your final paper, you will prepare a two-page proposal of your research paper. It should also include a "barebones" outline with the topics you will address. Your proposal should include a bibliography with a minimum of twelve independent primary and secondary sources, none of which can be standalone Internet sources. I will return it within a week to provide comments and suggestions.

• Due: November 1, 4:00 PM
• Weight: 40%

Group Presentations on Media Conglomeration

No later than November 1, five groups of students will form and be assigned a media conglomerate, such as Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, News Corp, and NBC Universal.

On November 29, each group will make a twenty-minute multimedia presentation with on each conglomerate's media and entertainment holdings. Those holdings should include content properties, broadcast and cable television networks, broadcast and satellite radio, cable MSOs, direct broadcast satellites, Internet portals, telecommunications providers, and partnerships with other media producers, distributors, and exhibitors.

• November 29
• Weight: 15%

Course Schedule

Exams

Midterm Exam

In the eighth week, you will take an in-class midterm exam. It will consist of three parts. The first part will ask you to identify terms and describe their greater relationship to network and multichannel television. The second part is a series of short essay questions, asking you to discuss a number of issues in the television industries. The third part is a long essay, where you will compose well-argued essay on a matrix of factors affecting television programming in a multichannel environment. In the weeks prior to the exam, I will distribute some possibilities for the long essay.

I will post study questions each week on Blackboard to help you prepare.

• October 25
• Weight: 30%

Course Schedule

Sep 06: Introduction to Multichannel Television

Readings

• Megan Mullen, The Rise of Cable Programming in the United States, "Cable History and Television Theory," 1–28.

Reference

• Susan Tyler Eastman and Douglas A. Ferguson, "Cable System and Satellite Programming," Media Programming: Strategies and Practices, 7th ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 2006. 242–267.

Sep 13: Local and Global: CATV and Satellite

Readings

• Megan Mullen, The Rise of Cable Programming in the United States, "Community Antenna Television, 1948–1968," 29–63.
• Lisa Parks, "Satellite Spectacular: Our World and the Fantasy of Global Presence," Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and the Televisual. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. 21–45.
• Brian Winston, "The Satellite Era," Media Technology and Society: A History: From Telegraph to the Internet. New York: Routledge, 1998. 295–304

Outside Screening

• Excerpt from Our World on CBC

In-Class Screenings

• Excerpt from Our World (1967)
• Behind the Scenes of the Telstar Satellite (1962)

Sep 20: Blue Sky

Readings

• Megan Mullen, The Rise of Cable Programming in the United States, "New Directions for Cable, 1968–1975," 64–93.
• Thomas Streeter, "Blue Skies and Strange Bedfellows: The Discourse of Cable Television," The Revolution Wasn't Televised: Sixties Television and Social Conflict. Ed. Lynn Spigel and Michael Curtin. New York: Routledge, 1997. 221–244.

In-Class Screenings

• TVTV: The World's Largest TV Studio (TVTV, 1972)
• VTR: Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV, 1975)
• TV Party (Monday Wednesday Friday Video Club, 1985)

Sep 27: Pay to Play

Readings

• Megan Mullen, The Rise of Cable Programming in the United States, "The Rise of Satellite Cable, 1975–1980," 94–127.
• Michele Hilmes, "Pay Television: Breaking the Broadcast Bottleneck," in Hollywood in the Age of Television, ed. Tino Balio. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990. 297–318.

In-Class Screenings

• Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (Alexandra Cassavetes, 2004)

Oct 04: Cable TV is Still TV

Readings

• Megan Mullen, The Rise of Cable Programming in the United States, Chapter 5, "Broadcast Television's Resource Starved Imitator, 1980–1995, Part 1," 128–153.

In-Class Screenings

• Broadcast Network and CNN Coverage of November 1988 Election Returns (1988)

Oct 11: Televisuality and Other Innovations of the 1980s

Readings

• Megan Mullen, The Rise of Cable Programming in the United States, "A Scheduling and Programming Innovator, 1980–1995, Part 2," 154–184.
• John T. Caldwell. "Excessive Style: The Crisis of Network Television." Televisuality: Style, Crisis, and Authority in American Television. New Brunswick, N.J., 1995. 3–31.

In-Class Screenings

• Video Weavings (Stephen Beck, 1976)
• Five-Minute Romp Through the IP (Dan Sandin, 1973)
• Triangle in Front of Square in Front of Circle... (Dan Sandin, 1973)
• Video-Taping (Ernie Gusella, 1974)
• Exquisite Corpse (Ernie Gusella, 1978)
• Einstine (Eric Siegel, 1978)
• General Motors (Phil Morton, 1976)
• Select music videos (1978–1989)
• Miami Vice, "Brother's Keeper" (1984)
• Max Headroom, "Blipverts" (1986)

Oct 18: Deregulation I: Fowler's Toaster

Readings

• Victor E. Ferrell, Jr., "The Impact of Television Deregulation on Private and Public Interests," Journal of Communication 39.1 (Winter 1989). 8–38.
• Fred J. Macdonald, "Towards a New Video Order: The 1980s," One Nation Under Television: The Rise and Decline of Network TV. New York: Pantheon, 1990.

In-Class Screenings

• G.I. Joe, "The Pyramid of Darkness" (1982)
• The Transformers, "The Secret of Omega Supreme" (1985)
• Bill Boddy Reminds The FCC of the 1934 Communications Act (Paper Tiger, 1983)

Oct 25: Midterm Exam

Nov 01: Network Branding and Narrowcasting

Readings

• Jane Feuer, "Yuppie Envy and Yuppie Guilt: LA Law and Thirtysomething," Seeing through the Eighties: Television and Reaganism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. 60–81
• Joseph Turow, "Mapping a Fractured Society," Breaking Up America: Advertisers and the New Media World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. 55–89

In-Class Screenings

• Twin Peaks, Episode 1 (1990)
• Northern Exposure, "Brains, Know How, and Native Intelligence" (1990)
• L.A. Law, "L.A. Lawless" (1992)

Nov 08: The Case of Fox

Readings

• Laurie Thomas and Barry R. Litman, "Fox Broadcasting Company, Why Now? An Economic Study of the Rise of the Fourth Broadcast 'Network,'" Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 35.2 (1991): 139–157.
• Alisa Hayley Perren, "Finding a Niche with The Simpsons, January 1990–February 1992," Deregulation, Integration and a New Era of Media Conglomerates: The Case of Fox, 1985-1995 (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas, 2004), 181–234.

In Class Screenings

• Married... with Children, "The Camping Show" (1988)
• In Living Color, "Episode 2.1" (1990)
• The Simpsons, "Krusty Gets Kancelled" (1992)
• Roc, "Nightmare on Emerson's Street" (1992)

Nov 15: Deregulation II: The Telecommunications Act

Readings

• Robert McChesney, "US Media at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century," Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999. 15–77.
• John Allen Hendricks, "The Telecommunications Act of 1996: Its Impact of the Electronic Media of the 21st Century," Communication and the Law (June 1999): 39–53.
• Patricia Aufderheide, "The Missing Space of Satellite TV," The Daily Planet: A Critic on The Capitalist Culture Beat. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

In-Class Screenings

• No Carrier: Accessing the Telecom Act of 1996 (Paper Tiger, 1996)
• Free Speech for Sale: A Bill Moyers Special (1999)

Nov 29: Conglomeration and Convergence

Readings

• Jennifer Holt. "Vertical Vision: Deregulation, Industrial Economy and Prime-time Design." Quality Popular Television. Ed. Mark Jancovich and James Lyons. London: BFI, 2003. 11–31.
• Michael Curtin and Thomas Streeter. "Media." Culture Works: The Political Economy of Culture. Ed. Richard Maxwell. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. 225–250.
• Janet Wasko, "The Disney Empire," Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 28–69

In-Class Screenings

• Roseanne, "We're Going to Disney World" (1996)
• Disney Channel programming

Dec 06: Globalization

Readings

• Edward S. Herman and Robert McChesney, "Media Globalization: The US Experience and Influence," The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism. Washington: Cassell, 1997.
• Chris Barker, "Global Television and Global Culture," Television, Globalization, and Cultural Identities. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1999. 33–59.
• Serra Tinic. "Going Global: International Coproduction and the Disappearing Domestic Audience in Canada." Quality Popular Television. Ed. Mark Jancovich and James Lyons. London: BFI, 2003. 65-87.

In-Class Screenings

• Format Programming
• Human Trafficking (Christian Duguay, 2005)
• Sex Traffic (David Yates, Canada/UK, 2004)
• Crusades: The Crescent and the Cross (Stuart Elliot and Mark Lewis, UK, 2005)

Dec 13: Conclusion: DTV, VOD, and New Directions

Readings

• John Caldwell, "Convergence Television: Aggregating Form and Repurposing Content in the Culture of Conglomeration," Television after TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition, ed. Lynn Spigel and Jan Olsson (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004) 41–74.
• Philip Swann, "Interactive TV: Are You Ready?" TV dot Com: The Future of Interactive Television. New York: TV Books, 2000. 7–22.
• Dossier including emerging distribution technology as reported in current trades.