As I sit here writing this post, I’ve just finished watching the latest episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Vimeo, on my laptop, at the dining table, while my Mum catches up on Doctor Doctor on the PC in our study. It’s an interesting contrast to the ‘shared viewership’ that I spoke of when writing my post about TV in my childhood, and I want to compare TV then to TV now, not just personally but in the broader context of the changing TV landscape. In my first post, I referenced David Morley’s assertion that ownership of a TV is what defines a household (Morley, Shared Territories, p89), and I spoke of this in relation to my own fond memories of shared TV viewing. But can we still say this of TV today? Is the TV still the focal point of the home when so much of what we watch isn’t on an actual television set?

In The Daily Mail, Katherine Rushton writes about the breakdown of this shared viewership when reporting on decreasing TV ratings, stating that, “The television used to be a cornerstone of British family life – something that parents would gather around with their children. But a change in habits means that one in 20 households has now given up their television set altogether.” (Rushton, Why one in 20 families have ditched their TV, online) It seems this move away from traditional TV is particularly motivated by younger viewers, as Australia’s Business Insider reports viewing figures amongst 18-24 year-olds dropped 20 per cent over the year to September 2015 (Udland, The number of people watching TV is falling off a cliff, online).

Reviewing my time-use diary I can certainly see this phenomenon in my own household. Where my mother’s TV viewing is tied almost exclusively to the actual TV (aside from catch-up on the computer), I find myself (in that 18-24 age bracket) watching most often on my laptop, and occasionally on a tablet or even mobile. The 2016 Deloitte Media Consumers Survey asserts that the device on which we watch content is usually whichever is most convenient, and I think this is certainly the case for me – I tend to opt for whatever has the most battery life left or is simply closest to me.

But the figures from the above sources are somewhat misleading in suggesting that TV viewership is decreasing. While I watch lots of content on my laptop and my tablet, rather than my TV set, I still regard it as ‘TV’ in the broader sense, and thus my time-use diary was fairly full – I would say I watch as much TV now as I ever have, if not more. This trend is common amongst my generation, many of whom still watch what might be described as TV content, even if it’s not on an actual TV. Chief executive of the television advertising group Thinkbox Lindsey Clay describes this trend when writing that “[millenials] are by far the biggest viewers of TV watched on other devices. However, we don’t have the figures for this yet . . . But what is clear is that TV remains the dominant youth medium both in terms of time spent watching it, reach and culturally.” (Williams, How young viewers are abandoning television, online)

So perhaps what is changing is not how much we watch TV, but simply how. Graeme Turner and Tinna Jay write about how the existence of smartphones and tablets has caused the once “mass communication” of TV to become “a highly personal medium of individualised, privatised consumption.” (Jay & Turner, Television Studies after TV, p2) A report from The Guardian further characterises the change in the way we engage with TV in alluding to the rise in multi-screening, with nearly fifty per cent of survey respondents admitting to it (The Guardian, author unspecified, Does your family sit round the TV together? online)

And yet, with all this talk of TV become personalised, I can’t help but notice in my own viewing habits that I still prefer watching TV with others. There are plenty of times in my TV diary where I’ve written that I watched something ‘because Mum was watching it’, despite the ease with which I could watch something else on another device. And while I have control over when and where I watch content, there are still shows that I sit down to watch at a scheduled time, whether it be on traditional free-to-air or a YouTube show. Even when watching on my laptop I’ll often plug it into the TV, so I can watch it with my Mum.

So when I look back at my previous post, and the way TV formed the basis for shared experience and family conversation, nothing’s actually changed. For me, although the format, technology and platforms are different, TV is still a medium I enjoy with others. Am I alone in doing so, in this world in which we’re all abandoning our TVs?

Actually, I’m not. The Guardian article on multi-screening suggests that familial TV viewership is on the rise, as multi-screening provides a distraction for when you’ve lost the battle for the remote (The Guardian, online). And while the control mobile and online viewing affords is appealing, I think there’s always going to be a joy in watching TV with others. As one report from Sony stated, “Watching with others is still an important part of the television and video experience for many of us. Some shows still bring families together, in the way they have done for generations . . . it gives us a reason to be with family and friends; something to talk about, and share.” (Cooper, Why We Watch Television, p24)

References:

Cooper, William. Why We Watch Television. United Kingdom: Sony, 2015. Web. 17 Oct 2016.

Deloitte. Media Consumer Survey 2016. Sydney: Deloitte, 2016. Web. 17 Oct 2016. Australian Media And Digital Preferences.

Morley, David. Home Territories. London: Routledge, 2000. Print. 

Rushton, Katherine. “Why One In 20 Families Have Ditched Their TV: Changing Viewing Habits Mean Many Now Watch On Laptops Or Tablets – Or Simply Prefer Life Without One”. The Daily Mail 2016: Online. Web. 17 Oct 2016.

The Guardian. “Does Your Family Sit Round The TV Together?”. 2013: Online. Web. 17 Oct 2016.

Turner, Graeme and Tinna, Jay. Television Studies After TV. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.

Udland, Myles. “The Number Of People Watching TV Is Falling Off A Cliff”. The Business Insider 2015: Online. Web. 17 Oct 2016.

Williams, Christopher. “How Young Viewers Are Abandoning Television”. The Telegraph 2014: Online. Web. 17 Oct 2016.

When we think about ‘quality food’ or ‘quality music’, the definition of what ‘quality’ is seems to depend very much on who you ask, and what their tastes and preferences are. So ‘quality TV’ must be an equally subjective term, right?

WRONG!

As it happens, TV academics have come up with a standard definition (see what I did there) for ‘quality TV’, and it’s not necessarily related to how good you think a show actually is.

So what does define quality TV, and what fits into that category? When discussing this concept in the course, we looked at Sex and the City and Lena Dunham’s Girls, but I want to focus on another one of our screenings that I think is less controversial in being accepted as quality TV – HBO’s True Detective.

True Detective was certainly a critical success, but what is it that gives it that magic quality status when it has a lower Rotten Tomatoes rating than I am Cait (75% vs 84%)? In her chapter HBO and the Concept of Quality TV, Jane Feuer gives a few key characteristics of quality TV that can mostly be seen in True Detective:

1. It’s serialised. (Feuer, HBO and the Concept of Quality TV, p149) While a quality TV episode might have some self-contained stories, its overall purpose is to progress a narrative or character arc that exists over a season. This is particularly evident in True Detective where the driving force of the season is the investigation of a case, framed by characters’ accounts of it 20 years later.
2. Ensemble cast. (Feuer, p149) While True Detective doesn’t have the large and diverse cast of say Cold Feet (which Feuer uses as a case study), it certainly plays on the star power of Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey (in his glorious McConnaissance) to give weight to the drama and attract new viewers.
3. Juxtaposition of comedy and drama. (Feuer, p149) While True Detective definitely errs on the bleak side (which I’ll discuss more a bit later), its moments of levity (such as Marty in episode one saying, “I just want you stop saying odd shit”) punctuate and intensify that bleakness, increasing the poignancy of the drama.
4. Allusion to cinema/other art forms. (Feuer, p151) Feuer talks about the influence of arthouse cinema on Cold Feet, and I definitely think there’s an intentional cinematic look about True Detective, from the wide, overhead shots (such as this stark shot of a burnt-out church) to the expressive lighting.

In his lecture on quality TV, Glen mentioned a few other points that I think are all similarly applicable to True Detective: large budgets, location shooting, risque subject matter, focus on character (Donnar, It’s Not TV, Its HBO: Branding, Genre and Quality TV, slides 29-30) . . . Robert J Thompson even mentions that quality TV is conventionally an hour long (Thompson, Television’s second golden age: the quality shows, p79). But to me the most interesting point is Feuer’s suggestion that quality TV incorporates cinematic or artistic allusions. It’s almost as if to be quality TV, a show has to not be TV at all.

Robert J Thomspon talks about this in The Second Golden Age of TV, writing that, “The worst insult you could give to Barney Rosenzweig, the executive producer of Cagney and Lacey, was to tell him that his work was ‘too TV’. Twin Peaks was universally praised by critics for being ‘unlike anything we’d ever seen on television.’ In a medium long considered artless, the only artful TV is that which isn’t like all the rest of it.” (Thompson, p77)

I think this is particularly relevant to True Detective, coming as it does from HBO, a network known for quality TV and whose advertising rests on the premise: “It’s not TV. It’s HBO.” (Jaramillo, The Family Racket: AOL Time Warner, HBO, The Sopranos, and the Construction of a Quality Brand, p59) Elizabeth Alsop further links this phenomenon of TV that is not TV to True Detective when she writes, “Critically acclaimed genre series such as Game of Thrones and True Detective are using bleak self-seriousness to distance themselves from their lowbrow roots.” She talks not just of cinematic aspirations but even literary overtones, referencing the idea that The Wire‘s fans “have frequently analogized it to Dickens, as if to prevent its being designated as “mere” television.” (Alsop, The Unbearable Darkness of Prestige Television, p4)

This rise in quality TV, and its attempts to move away from what TV is traditionally thought to be, has been going on since the 80s and 90s, when Hollywood producers and actors began to bring some professional credibility to the TV world (Miller, It’s Not TV, pIX). But I think this phenomenon is particularly interesting in the context of the 21st century, as the move towards unconventional TV content is reflected in a move towards unconventional TV formats.

Deloitte’s 2016 media consumption survey states that TV is now primarily watched not on TV but on whatever device is most easily accessible (Deloitte, Media Consumer Survey 2016, online). Indeed, although True Detective is broadcast on TV airwaves, its season one finale hit the news when HBO’s streaming service ]struggled to keep up with the online demand for it and crashed (Fitzpatrick, HBO GO Technical Troubles Mar True Detective Finale, online).

So, we have a show that wants to be a movie that’s being watched on computers, tablets and mobile phones. Are the times a-changing? Is the increasing diversification of TV formats allowing the actual content to venture away from the traditional, leading us to a shiny new age of quality TV? Well maybe it’s not quite that drastic. If you ask Feuer:

” . . . quality drama always claims to be original in relation to the regular TV norms of its era. Yet generically speaking, an analysis of the first four episodes of the show reveals just about every formulaic characteristic . . .” (Feuer, p148)

References:

Alsop, Elizabeth. “The Unbearable Darkness Of Prestige Television”. The Atlantic (2015): Online. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

Donnar, Glen. “It’s Not TV, Its HBO: Branding, Genre And Quality TV”. 2016. Presentation.

Deloitte. Media Consumer Survey 2016. Sydney: Deloitte, 2016. Web. 17 Oct 2016. Australian Media And Digital Preferences.

Feuer, Jane. “HBO And The Concept Of Quality TV”. Quality TV Contemporary American Television And Beyond. McCabe, Janet and Akass, Kim. 1st ed. New York: I B Taurus, 2007. 143-157. Print.

Fitzpatrick, Alex. “HBO GO Technical Troubles Mar True Detective Finale”. Time Magazine 2014: Online. Web. 17 Oct 2016.

Jaramillo, D. L. “The Family Racket: AOL Time Warner, HBO, The Sopranos, And The Construction Of A Quality Brand”. Journal of Communication Inquiry 26.1 (2002): 59-75. Web.

Miller, Toby. “Foreword”. It’s Not TV: Watching HBO In The Post-Television Age. Leverette, Marc, Ott, Brian L and Buckley, Cara Louise. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, 2008. IX-XII. Print.

Thompson, Robert J. “Television’s Second Golden Age: From Hill Street Blues To ER…”. Choice Reviews Online 34.04 (1996): 34-1984-34-1984. Web.