National Television Flows and Production This section has looked at an in-depth case study of the geocultural, regional,

and national adaptation of a genre. To broaden understanding of how television programs are produced in the context of international flows of both programs and genres, the next section focuses on a very different kind of analysis of the flow of television programs and genre ideas. It looks at how genres have developed in several world regions and cultural-linguistic spaces. It focuses specifically on how programs have been produced and exported within genre categories, based on a quantitative study based in the television flow tradition that goes back to Nordenstreng and Varis ( 1 974).

Limits to Focusing on National Flows and Production One of the limits of the empirical study of television production and flow

contained in this chapter is that it focuses primarily on nations and on

1 58 Chapter 6 larger cultural units are increasingly important, and so, in addition to a

number of nations, this study also focuses on three significant subnational cultural spaces or markets: Anglophone Canada, Francophone Canada, and the Hispanic United States. These three units are bigger and richer than many nations. Sinclair ( 1999) broke the U.S. Latino market out as a major entity in his study of Latin American television, in a chapter called "The World's Richest Hispanics. " Sinclair (2003 ) also focused on Miami as a major emerging television production center as well as a regional financial and cultural center. Curtin (2003 ) similarly considered Miami one of the major emerging media capitals, transnationally positioned in both the U.S. Latino market and Latin America. I want to recognize the complexity of the television markets and cultural spaces discussed here.

The research in the following section and in Chapter 7 was begun under much more traditional terms of debate, starting in the early 1980s when the discussion of television flows largely involved nations. I want to address that ongoing debate and to make the point that much of the world's television is still produced for, distributed within, and watched by audiences socialized into thinking of themselves as part of a nation. However, I will actively complicate that discussion by also focusing much more in the next chapter (Chapter 7) on production and flow within cultural-linguistic spaces and markets that are transnational, as well as those that are regions, physical or virtual, within nations, with the two closely interrelated. To show how much things changed from the 1 960s to the 2000s, the following discussion is organized primarily by decade and secondarily by genre.

TV Genres and TV Flow in the 1 950s Due to technological circumstances, television in the 1 950s, where it

existed, tended to be localized and even somewhat elitist. The equipment nec essary for filming, taping, and networking TV stations together was expensive

and rare outside of the United States and Europe. Televisions were also quite costly at the time; therefore, audiences were relatively small and restricted.

Regardless, genre development in variety shows, soap operas, drama shows, and other important forms started occurring in several countries very early.

Television genres took shape in Latin America, North America, the larger Anglophone cultural-linguistic market, East and South Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere. Their strong roots in both U.S. and European models are often evident. As discussed above in general and in the specific case of the telenovela, national television systems adapted genres for local production, particularly before television exports began to increase in the 1 960s.

Producing National Television, Glocal and Local 1 59

In Latin American countries, television genres developed slowly through the

1 950s and 1960s. Variety shows, particularly the 4- to 8-hour marathons that still take place on Sunday afternoons and evenings in many Latin American countries, often include game show segments that seem to be copied directly

from those in the United States.

Although Latin American countries developed their own specific styles, particularly in music and comedy, there was a remarkable amount of inter change and influence, particularly in the evening serial dramas known as telenovelas. In the 1 950s and most of the 1960s, broadcast recording tech nology made it relatively difficult for Latin American countries to export programs to each other, but talent, scripts, and ideas flowed around the region. Scripts were often sold across borders, adapted, and translated (Straubhaar, 1 982). If there was not yet a regional market for programming, therefore, a regional base for such a market was being formed by the devel opment of common genres through sales of scripts.

In East Asia, soap operas or serials developed along similar lines, with influences from both national and imported programs However, initially, there was much less flow of scripts and professionals between countries

within the region. Although the U.S. genre had some homogenizing influ ences, national traditions led serials in different directions over time. If some programs on East Asian networks are urban family dramas similar to U.S.

soap operas, East Asians also see a variety of unique historical, costume, and martial arts dramas. Similarly, serial dramas have developed distinct forms in the Middle East and South Asia, where family dramas are still common but programs with overtly religious themes are much more widespread, along with historical and mythological epics.

TV Genres and TV Flow in the 1 960s

To flesh out the analysis of television program and genre development,

I use data that students, colleagues, and I have gathered about television pro duction and flow in terms of their genres and country/region of origin analy sis as empirical evidence of developments over time. That data starts in 1 962. This is then put in a context of genre evolution and adaptation. For reference, the cross-national Table A. 1 in the Appendix shows the proportion of national programming between 1 962 and 2001 that was broadcast in prime time and the number of hours in a total broadcast day. Cross-national Table

A.2 shows the proportion of U.S. programming between 1962 and 2001 that was broadcast in prime time and the number of hours in a total broadcast day. Finally, cross-national Table A.3 shows the proportion of regional pro

gramming from 1 962 through 2001 that was broadcast in prime time and the

1 60 Chapter 6 number of hours in a total broadcast day, and cross-national Table A.4 shows

the proportion of international/unknown/other programming between 1 962 and 2001 that was broadcast in prime time and the total broadcast day

(There is also a full description of the methods employed in generating the data in Appendix A.)

Some countries produced only limited genres in the 1960s, but that was not true of the larger countries, or even some smaller countries with well developed production capabilities. Throughout the whole study period in Japan, almost all genre models, including entertainment (movies, drama shows, soap operas, game shows, variety shows, music shows, com edy shows, and sports shows), information (news shows, discussion shows, secondary education shows, cultural shows, and documentaries), and children's programming (cartoon shows, children's educational shows, other children's programming shows) were kept in good balance (Takahashi,

1 992). Ito ( 1 99 1 ), lwabuchi (2002), and others have pointed out how the Japanese often imported genre models from the United States or Great Britain, in the case of the public station NHK, but tended to indigenize or adapt them to Japanese culture. Indeed, the model for glocalization dis cussed above comes from the broader Japanese pattern of importing global

models in various areas, then localizing them. In Hong Kong, the production of serials, action shows, music shows, and so on developed early. Hong Kong also adapted some imported models but leaned perhaps even more on traditions and infrastructure from their own film industry, much of which had migrated to Hong Kong from Shanghai in the 1930s. That was particularly true for the dominant broadcast television producers, TVB, whose chairman is Sir Run Run Shaw, which developed from a base in the Shaw Brothers film studios (TVB interviews, June 22,

1 999). TVB, therefore, presents an interesting history of blending mainland Chinese influences (it absorbed Chinese film traditions and cooperates on several levels with CCTV of China) and global/U.S. influences, with its own long history as a principal television producer for Asian markets. Taiwan and South Korea began to develop some dramatic programming in the

1 960s, but they placed more emphasis on variety programs. Similar trends occurred in China, which also began slowly opening up to television pro

gramming imported from Hong Kong, at least into the Cantonese cultural linguistic zone of southern China. Italy, France, South Korea, and Taiwan all started off making at least 70% of their own prime-time programs as early as 1 962.

A number of countries, like Cameroon, Chile, Venezuela, and Nigeria, started from more limited ranges of genres in 1 962 (moving to a broader range in the 1 970s and 1980s). Low-cost genres, such as talk shows, music

Producing National Television, Glocal and Local 161

shows, and variety shows, accounted for most o f the initial genre diversity, particularly in domestic programming of the 1 960s.

The United States began to export a great deal in the late 1950s and early

1 960s, a history described in the next chapter. However, many countries in this study (12 of 23 studied in 1962) created more than half of their production in both prime time and the total broadcast day in 1962 (Table A.l). Anglo

Canada produced more than half of its total broadcast day but imported most of its prime-time programming from the United States in 1962 (Table A.2).

TV Genres and TV Flow in the 1 9 70s

Overall, in the 1 970s, while the outflow of U.S. programming to many countries continued to increase, a nationalization of programming swept

a number of regions. According to Ito ( 1 99 1 ), prior to 1 970, Japan was an information-importing country (although the data in Table A.l show it to have been self-sufficient in television even in 1 962), became self-sufficient in the 1 970s, and after 1 980, was an information-exporting country. Sugiyama

( 1 982) showed that Japan exported 4,585 hours of television programming to 58 countries in 1980, compared to about 2,200 hours of programming in

1 971. In Taiwan, national prime-time programming went from 98.2% in 1972 to 89% in 1982 and 97. 1 % in 1 99 1 (Table A. l ) . The main genres were local variety shows, soap operas, and news. India started broadcasting in

1 972 and 1 973, creating 81 % of its own prime-time programs and 82 % of its total broadcast hours. In prime time, Indian and U.S. feature films were most prominent, along with Indian news, information, youth programs, plays, and music. In the total broadcast day, educational programs were also notable in India, which initially focused television on development education

(Kumar, 2006) .

Perhaps somewhat more slowly and less completely, many o f the larger or most-rapidly industrializing nations of the Third World also began to import less, produce more, and even began to export: countries such as Brazil,

Colombia, Hong Kong, Israel, Mexico, and Nigeria, as our Table A.1 indi cates, and also countries outside of this study, such as Argentina and Egypt. In Hong Kong, for example, the nationally produced proportion of prime time rose dramatically from 23% in 1 962 to 64% in 1972 (Table A.l).

In the 1970s, the United States maintained its export presence in televi sion action shows and cartoon shows, but in soap opera and drama shows, U.S. products were replaced by national or regional programming. This was true in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Israel, Mexico, South Korea,

and Venezuela. The main East Asian and Latin American genres in 1 972 were local variety shows, local soap operas (or telenovelas), and news shows.

1 62 Chapter 6 As Hoskins (1991) might have predicted, outside of Indian, Japanese, and

U.S. television self-sufficiency, most of the national productions in most regions in the 1 970s concentrated their efforts in genres to which a heavy cultural discount applied; in other words, countries were focusing on for

mats where the local element was essential: news shows, talk shows, and variety shows, for example. In addition, a number of countries also began

to adapt, localize, and experiment with the genres that they had been importing: comedy shows, soap operas, family dramas, and historical epics

(Moran, 2004). A cultural discount can easily be perceived in comedy gen res, which tend to have many local or at least intracultural references. The data suggest that local audiences were also beginning to seek cultural prox imity (Straubhaar, 1991) in soap operas, drama shows, and other program ming, where the United States was traditionally feared to have a "Wall-to-Wall Dallas" advantage (Collins, 1986).

TV Genres and TV Flow in the 1 980s

In the 1 970s and 1980s, these data show a gradual proliferation and differentiation of television genres. A number of simple production formats-local news, talk shows, simple variety shows, and live music shows-seemed to occur in almost every country that I surveyed. With declining production equipment costs, even small, poor countries could pro duce many hours of these genres. Larger countries also manufactured these low-cost genres, but only to supplement their soap operas, drama shows, comedy shows, and complex variety shows. The largest countries began to add even more expensive genres, such as miniseries adaptations of Brazilian

literary works in Brazil (Fernandes, 1 987). From the early 1970s to the early 1980s, in several East Asian countries, such as Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan, television exhibited strong changes. The national proportions of prime-time and total programming increased to nearly 90% (Table A.1 ) . Japan continued to produce in roughly

the same proportions, with children's shows, news shows, educational shows, and various forms of soap operas and dramas being the most prominent.

These high levels of national production were popular with audiences; how ever, they also reflected government policies designed to reduce imports and raise national production (Ito, 1 991; lwabuchi, 2002; Lee, 1 980). Some mid sized countries such as Chile, Colombia, and Venezuela began to create national versions of some genres, for example, telenovelas and the more lavish

variety shows, which they had previously imported from regional producers. However, some countries produced less in the 1 980s. Chinese national pro duction in 1 982 dropped to about 80% of the total broadcast time and about

Producing National Television, Glocal and Local 1 63

90% of the prime-time broadcasting, however, these portions are very high, consistent with the pattern for East Asian countries. In Europe in 1982, France and Italy were producing less national programming than they had in 1 972.

TV Genres and TV Flow in the 1 990s However, by the 1990s, some smaller countries such as Chile were produc

ing more expensive genres such as telenovelas, whereas larger but poorer countries such as Nigeria were also producing more domestic drama. Domestic production of fiction, as well as new genres such as "reality" programs, was also notable in France and Italy (Bechelloni & Buonanno, 1997).

Many countries (9 of 24 studied in 1 992) showed slight increases in national production from 1 982 to 1 992, but quite a few (7 of 24) showed slight decreases (Table A.1), so the period seemed to be one of consolidation rather than drastic change. A good example was Europe in 1991, where France and Italy still continued a marginal decline in national production,

importing more from the United States, but still self-produced more than half of their prime-time programming. The Asian nations in this study, in contrast, all continued to produce nationally at very high levels (Table A. 1 ) .

B y 1991, local production continued to prosper in Hong Kong. India showed more dramatic series, soap operas, and Indian feature films in prime time. National production was still promoted or even required by most East Asian national policies in 1991 (Man Chan, 1 994). In the Middle East, pro

duction was already strong in Lebanon and Egypt. Lebanon produced 66% of its own programs in prime time and 60% of its total broadcast hours (Table A.1 ) . The African countries in this study continued to raise national production: three fourths of total broadcast time and nearly all of prime time in Nigeria, and two thirds of Cameroon's total programming.

TV Genres and TV Flow in the 2000s One of the notable trends in the 2001 data was the rise of the reality show

genre in a number of countries. In several countries, such as France and Italy, locally produced versions of reality shows like Big Brother tended to replace imported programs on networks that had previously relied on imports. Because such reality shows were local productions of imported formats, I counted then as national productions, although that raised an interesting question for theoretical categorization.

By 2001, 1 6 of the 2 1 countries for which I had information were producing more than half of their own prime-time programming, In fact, 1 0 were producing more than 70% o f their prime time, while 1 5 were producing

1 64 Chapter 6 more than half of the whole broadcast day. That indicates a strong push over

time to nationalize schedules on the main broadcast channels, going well beyond the most popular hours in prime time to fill up much of the rest of the day, pushing out imports from the United States or elsewhere. For exam ple, Italy pushed both U.S. dramas and Latin American telenovelas out of niches that they had previously occupied (Buonanno, 2002).

Several countries or cultural markets-Anglo Canada, Brazil, Chile, China, France, Francophone Canada, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand,

Nigeria, South Korea, and Taiwan-produced a greater proportion of their television programming nationally in 2001 than in 1991 (Table A. 1 ) . That was particularly true in prime time but also included the total broadcast day for most of them. Several countries-Australia, Colombia, Japan, and the

United Kingdom-remained basically the same in national production in 2001 , but all produced more than half of both prime time and the total broadcast day. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States produced about 90% or more of both prime time and total hours for major broadcast

networks (those with more than a 5 % share of the audience, my criterion for who was included in this study).

National Television Flows and Production This section has looked at an in-depth case study of the geocultural, regional,