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From Networks to Netflix

Now in a second edition, this textbook surveys the channels, platforms, and program-
ming through which television distribution operates, with a diverse selection of con-
tributors providing thorough explorations of global media industries in flux.
Even as legacy media industries experience significant disruption in the face of
streaming and online delivery, the power of the television channel persists. Far from
disappearing, television channels have multiplied and adapted to meet the needs of
old and new industry players alike. Television viewers now navigate complex choices
among broadcast, cable, and streaming services across a host of different devices. From
Networks to Netflix guides students, instructors, and scholars through that complex
and transformed channel landscape to reveal how these industry changes unfold and
why they matter. This second edition features new players like Disney+​, HBO Max,
Crunchyroll, Hotstar, and more, increasing attention to TV services across the world.
An ideal resource for students and scholars of media studies, media theory, and
media industries, this book continues to offer a concrete, tangible way to grasp the foun-
dations of television—​and television studies—​even as they continue to be rewritten.

Derek Johnson is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies in the Department of

Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-​Madison. His books include
Transgenerational Media Industries: Adults, Children, and the Reproduction of Culture
as well as Media Franchising: Creative License and Collaboration in the Culture Indus-
tries. He is also the co-​author of Television Goes to the Movies, and the co-​editor of
books including Point of Sale: Analyzing Media Retail.
From Networks
to Netflix
A Guide to Changing Channels
Second Edition

Edited by Derek Johnson

Cover image: © Getty Images
Second edition published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Derek Johnson; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Derek Johnson to be identified as the author of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
First edition published by Routledge 2018
Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data
Names: Johnson, Derek, 1979– editor.
Title: From networks to netflix: a guide to changing channels / Derek Johnson.
Description: Second edition. | New York, NY: Routledge, 2022. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022006578 (print) | LCCN 2022006579 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367568283 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367568245 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003099499 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Television viewers–Effect of technological innovations on. |
Television broadcasting–Technological innovations–United States. |
Streaming technology (Telecommunications)
Classification: LCC HE8700.66.U6 F76 2022 (print) |
LCC HE8700.66.U6 (ebook) | DDC 302.23/45–dc23/eng/20220217
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006578
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006579
ISBN: 978-​0-​367-​56828-​3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-​0-​367-​56824-​5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​09949-​9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/​9781003099499
Typeset in Warnock Pro
by Newgen Publishing UK
Access the Support Material: www.routledge.com/​9780367568245
Contents

Introduction
Pluto TV
Channels, Portals, and the Changing
1
Television Cosmos 3
Derek Johnson

Broadcast Legacies
ABC

2 Crisis, Risk, and the Logics
of Change 25
Kristen J. Warner

The CW
3
Media Conglomerates
in Partnership 37
Caryn Murphy

PBS
4
Crowdsourcing Culture Since 1969 47
Michele Hilmes

Telemundo
Telenovelas for the Twenty-​First
5
Century 59
Juan Llamas-​Rodriguez

v
Contents

TV Globo
Global Expansions and Cross-​media
6 Convergence from Broadcast to
Streaming 69
Courtney Brannon Donoghue

MeTV
Old-Time TV’s Last Stand? 79
7
Derek Kompare

Cable and Satellite Survivors

NewsNation
Local Broadcasting, National
8 Cable Channels, and the Evolution
of WGN 91
Christine Becker

Cartoon Network
Adult Swim and the Evolving Use
9
of “Edge” 101
Jacob Mertens and Lauren E. Wilks

Nick Jr.
Shifting Conglomerate Strategies
10 from Scheduling to Intellectual
Property 111
Erin Copple Smith

Freeform
Shaking off the Family Brand within
11
a Conglomerate Family 121
Barbara Selznick

Comedy Central
Trying to Grow Up by Getting
12
Younger 133
Nick Marx

vi
 Contents

Bravo
Branding, Fandom, and the Lifestyle
13
Network 145
Martina Baldwin and Suzanne Leonard

AMC
14
Story Sync and Frictionless Fandom 155
Suzanne Scott

Starz
Distinction, Value, and Fandom in
15
Premium TV 165
Myles McNutt

Playboy TV
Contradictions, Confusion, and
16
Post-​network Pornography 175
Peter Alilunas

El Rey
Latino Indie Auteur as Channel
17
Identity 185
Alisa Perren

Streaming Ventures
Netflix
Streaming Channel Brands as
18
Global Meaning Systems 201
Timothy Havens and Ryan Stoldt

YouTube
The Interface between Television
19 and Social Media Entertainment 213
Stuart Cunningham, Smith Mehta,
Gabriela Lunardi, and Guy Healy

vii
Contents

iQIYI
China’s Internet Tigers Take
20
Television 223
Michael Curtin and Yongli Li

Amazon Prime Video

Scale, Complexity, and Television
21
as Widget 235
Karen Petruska

The Roku Channel

22
Vertically Integrated Connected TV 247
Ramon Lobato and Eleanor Patterson

OTV | Open Television

23
The Development Process 259
Aymar Jean Christian

Revry

24 Making the Case for LGBTQ
Channels 269
Julia Himberg

iROKOtv
25
Drama for the “Small-​Small” Screen 279
Tori Omega Arthur

Crunchyroll
Contested Authenticity in the
26 Creation of Niche Brand
Communities 291
Susan Noh

Viki

27 Governing Transnational Fandom
via Platforms 301
Wan-​Jun Lu

viii
 Contents

Twitch.tv
28
Tele-​visualizing the Arcade 311
Matthew Thomas Payne

Television Plus
Hulu
Negotiating National and
29 International Streaming 325
Evan Elkins

Hotstar

30 Reimagining Television Audiences
in Digital India 335
Shanti Kumar and Aswin Punathambekar

AbemaTV

31 Where Broadcasting and Streaming
Collide 347
Marc Steinberg

Mango TV
32
The Rise of a State-​Controlled
Entertainer 357
Xiaoying Han

Disney+​
33
Imagining Industrial Intertextuality 367
Kyra Hunting and Jonathan Gray

ESPN+​
Subscribing to Diversity,
34
Marginalizing Women’s Sports 377
Jason Kido Lopez

ix
newgenprepdf

Contents

Peacock
Network Heritage, Olympic Dreams,
35 and the Transformation of
NBC Sports 387
Deborah L. Jaramillo

HBO Max
Media Conglomerates and the
36
Organizational Logic of Streaming 399
Gregory Steirer

Paramount+​
“Peaking” Subscriber Interest in
37
Legacy Television Franchises 409
Derek Johnson

List of Contributors 423

Index 431

x
Introduction
 1
Pluto TV
Channels, Portals, and the
Changing Television Cosmos
Derek Johnson

In 2006, the chunk of ice and rock known as Pluto lost its status as the ninth planet in
our solar system. Prominent in the International Astronomical Union’s decision was
Pluto’s failure to “clear the neighbourhood around its orbit” (“Resolution B5” 2006, 1).
Instead of commanding a distinct path in its nearly 250-​year revolution around the Sun,
Pluto’s orbit intersects with several other objects in the distant Kuiper Belt. In this new
assessment, Pluto was overshadowed by larger bodies like Neptune that retained the
legacy of planet status. Yet reclassified as a “dwarf planet,” Pluto also reflected increas-
ing scientific awareness of a crowded solar system still full of potential for discovery.
Astronomers first spied a similar dwarf planet, Eris, only a year prior. Thus, this reas-
sessment did not signal astronomers’ decreased investment in Pluto so much as the
development of increasingly complex models for making sense of our solar system and
attending to objects beyond the largest, most familiar planets alone. In Pluto, one can
see a convergence of orbits and the emergence of new ways to explain the mysteries of
solar space.
The aptly named Pluto TV prompts similar reflection on converging conceptual
frameworks in the television industries and the emergence of new distribution plat-
forms that require reassessment of how we understand the medium of television.
Launched in the US in 2014, Pluto TV is a free, ad-​support streaming television (FAST)
service that embraces the possibilities of digital platforms, while emulating the prac-
tices and experiences of broadcast television. The service is just one player in a vast
“post-​network” television economy in which “viewers now increasingly select what,
when, where to view from abundant options” (Lotz 2014, 28).
Previously, viewers had to choose between television channels: in broadcast televi-
sion, this meant an assigned frequency on the electromagnetic spectrum to which an
over-​the-​air receiver could be tuned to access regularly scheduled programming; as

DOI: 10.4324/9781003099499-2 3
Derek Johnson

cable and satellite providers delivered television to homes in new ways, the expanded
bandwidth of coaxial wires increased the number of channels that could be fed to tele-
vision screens, first by dozens and then hundreds. The business of television distribu-
tion depended on control of these channels, making decisions about what programs
would be scheduled when. Programs made in television production needed go through
this distribution bottleneck and secure carriage on a channel to be seen by viewers.
The increasingly networked era of the 21st century, however, disrupts legacy models
of network and cable distribution; the internet enables new forms of television pro-
duction and distribution to thrive outside the power of traditional channel gatekeepers
(Christian 2018). Many viewers now watch television via apps on mobile devices, Wi-​Fi
enabled set-​top boxes like Roku or Apple TV, or preinstalled on internet-​connected
television sets (Johnson 2019). Just as easily, television programming can be accessed
from any web browser. With so many new points of online access to television, legacy
distributors have lost control over the old channel space.
In this context, Pluto TV competes in the US alongside Netflix, Hulu, Disney+​, and
many other online services that “collect, curate, and distribute television programming
via internet distribution,” and, as such, have been described by Amanda Lotz (2017)
as portals. While they may be the “online equivalent” of the television channels that
defined the broadcast and cable era, the portals of the digital age engage more often in
curation than scheduling, giving viewers choices from vast menus of program offerings
via complex interfaces that encourage and personalize on-​demand decision-​making
(Lotz 2017). Both Lotz and Catherine Johnson (2014; 2019) explain the distinctiveness
of portals by virtue of their nonlinear capacity. Whereas broadcast, cable, and satellite
channels rely upon a linear model of time—​the uniform programming schedule offered
to all viewers—​online television portals enable consumers to choose what to watch
when and, thus, allow multiple pathways through the television experience. Trying to
capture and hold viewer attention, linear channels construct what Raymond Williams
called “flow”—​a meaningful sequence of viewing segments, from program to adver-
tisement to promotions, which he saw as “the defining characteristic of broadcasting
simultaneously as a technology and as a cultural form” (1974/​2003, 86). As program-
mers construct sequences from one program segment to the next (often across adver-
tising breaks), the aim is to get viewers to “go with the flow,” as Jostein Gripsrud (1998)
once put it, to stay tuned rather than exploring other channel choices. Portals, however,
empower users to construct their own individualized sequences, selecting, pausing, or
restarting whenever they want. While linear channels have a “capacity constraint” (Lotz
2017) that limits their program offerings to what can be scheduled in a twenty-​four-​
hour period, the menus of nonlinear portals can be as capacious as acquisition budgets
allow. Choices from them are limited only by the free time of an individual viewer. The
power of the programmer recedes as portals enable viewers to decide what to watch in
what order, with different sequences for each user.
Portals, arguably, do not eliminate flow—​meaningful viewing sequences still exist,
easily evidenced if we “binge” TV programming. The interfaces for services like Net-
flix also encourage some potential choices over others by giving some programs more
prominent placement and defaulting to “autoplay” features that automatically cue up

4
 P l u to T V

the next program without user input. Conversely, while portals do privilege user choice
over uniform scheduling, it is worth noting that broadcast viewers have always had
some choice between linear channels; sequences of flow were never entirely under dis-
tributor control. Nevertheless, portals have unquestionably given viewers more power
to construct those sequences themselves, with nonlinear affordances prioritizing the
quantum potentiality of the database over any one pathway through it. The nonlinear
power of portals has, therefore, led to still more terminology that emphasizes their exis-
tence as digital platforms. As Ramon Lobato explains, “platforms are commonly defined
as large-​scale online systems premised on user interaction and user-​generated content”
(2019, 36). TV portals are only rarely open enough to allow users to make and upload
their own content the same way social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter do;
the difference between the closed distributional system of Netflix and user-​generated
content of YouTube is vast. Yet the construction of robust interfaces for curating and
supporting user choice over scheduled programming makes it important to consider
portals equally in terms of the nonlinear user interaction affordances of platforms as
the linear scheduling logics of channels.
Using concepts like channel, portal, and platform, as well as the distinction between
linear and nonlinear, the classification of a television service like Pluto TV may remain
a matter of some debate. While Pluto TV does deliver some on-​demand content online,
it presents its user experience primarily within the linear logics of broadcast and cable
television. Whether the user watches on a web browser or an app on a smartphone
or smart television set, the Pluto TV interface emulates the electronic programming
guide one might find on a cable TV service. Viewers select from over 200 channels
numbered between 1 and 1,000, each offering programming that begins and ends at
certain times for all. There is also no required login or viewer account; as of 2022, Pluto
TV’s branding campaign encouraged viewers to simply “drop in.” Although it unfolds
through online distribution platforms, the video service provided by Pluto TV is largely
linear: a singular experience of viewing time moves forward with or without the viewer.
Like its astronomical namesake, Pluto TV reveals convergences in the basic concep-
tual frameworks that we might use to make sense of the television industries. While
the dwarf planet Pluto may consist largely of ice, online television services like Pluto
TV demand attention to water and the fluidity extending across the concepts of chan-
nel, flow, and streaming. Just as scientists contemplate differences between planets and
dwarf planets, those of us studying television must reflect on the relationship between
channels and portals as digital platforms reconfigure our view of the distribution land-
scape. What exactly is Pluto TV?
This is not to say that television studies needs taxonomical debate in which we
merely seek to classify objects. True, many astronomy buffs have taken umbrage at
the reclassification of Pluto, making clear that these definitional distinctions do matter.
Yet obsessing over distinctions between planet and dwarf planet, channel and portal,
is less productive than using these concepts in dialogue with one another and zeroing
in on their interrelationships. Whether Pluto is or is not a planet is ultimately an arbi-
trary judgment call; so, too, may be the question of whether Pluto TV is a portal or a
television channel. But when we stop to think about Pluto, and confront ourselves with

5
Derek Johnson

FIGURE 1.1 The free Pluto TV streaming experience re-​creates the linear logics of broadcast
and cable television, including its programming grids and advertisements.

the overlapping range of possibilities afforded by our analytical categories, we can look
beyond a single object to contemplate a more dynamic system (solar or industrial); we
must look at the full range of objects passing through that system, accounting for differ-
ences but also, just as importantly, relationships between them. Being a dwarf planet
does not fully divorce Pluto from all planetary considerations; instead, it prompts us
to think about Pluto’s relationships to planets like Neptune that shape its orbit and the
industrial “neighborhood” it shares. Similarly, recognizing Pluto TV a portal driven by
interactive platforms does not mean we should ignore its shared orbits with traditional
linear television channels. Instead of using these classifications to subdivide the study
of television—​where some of us study channels and others study portals—​we might
instead use them to identify where dialogue and conversation can take place to better
grasp the complexity of the television industries. How can we understand channels and
portals in unison to comprehend the vast system of industrial players in orbit around
this thing we call “television?” Can we resist the idea that something like Pluto TV must
be either a channel or a portal and instead conceptualize it as both?
The book you are reading now aims to support that conversation, asking how tele-
vision channels—​and our understandings of them—​have been transformed and com-
plicated by the industrial shifts of the early 21st century. From Networks to Netflix
extends from an assumption that there are multiple manifestations of television indus-
tries that need to be accounted for, each with their own specific contexts, logics, and
practices. Each chapter takes a specific broadcast network, cable and satellite chan-
nel, or streaming video service as its focus, and in doing so, the book guides read-
ers to parse the differences between these television economies, as well as the shared
orbital trajectories among them; the book presumes that different kinds of television
economies are interoperative and that our view of the industrial cosmos is incom-
plete without attending to them all. Interest in traditional, linear television channels

6
 P l u to T V

requires attention to portals that reshape established industry practices—​pressures

that have cultural and political consequences. Our study of more recently emergent
portals, however, cannot be complete without attention to the persistent gravitational
pull of bloated giants whose legacy status affords them continued power and force
of mass in the event of collision. It is indeed tempting to characterize contemporary
television industries in terms of a struggle between legacy channels adapting to new
conditions, on one side, and the new portals that threaten to replace them, on the
other. But that struggle is more complex than it first appears. Instead of embracing the
potential opposition implied in its title, From Networks to Netflix aims for the more
inclusive interpretation, asking readers to consider the diverse cultural economies of
television as distinct but integral parts of the contemporary industry landscape (Lotz,
Lobato, and Thomas 2018), linked in a process of mutual transformation. While the
industrial transformations that cultivated Netflix and its ilk are crucial to comprehend,
these new players are not an endpoint that frees us from considering older television
institutions that persist and adapt rather than being supplanted. Even as significant
differences must be accounted for, these channels and portals share an orientation
around television that can lead to convergences and collisions—​potentially reshaping
whole systems.
This book takes television as the nucleus of the industrial systems under
examination—​which may be more controversial than it first sounds. Many users of
platforms like Netflix, Hulu, or even Pluto TV may not believe they are “watching tele-
vision” when accessing video content distributed via the internet and accessed through
laptops and mobile devices. For many companies engaged in these video economies,
too, “television” may not be the core enterprise. Tech companies like Alphabet and
Amazon deploy portals like YouTube and Prime Video, respectively, in pursuit of far
more ambitious goals than cornering the market for television program distribu-
tion. Even for legacy media conglomerates like Paramount Global or Disney, focus on
respective television channels like Comedy Central or ESPN may only serve larger cor-
porate goals of brand integration across film, publishing, music, and more. We cannot
consider the Apple+​subscription video portal as an industrial enterprise in orbit of
the medium of television, for example, without granting that Apple has also colonized
many other planets defined by different media technologies and platforms. Perhaps the
whole industrial solar system of television is caught in the gravitational pull of another
greater media phenomena, with Apple at the center of the galaxy. But even if there are
“interstellar” phenomena to account for, we can still perceive some forms of television
industry at a solar scale.
As a result of these convergences between television and digital platforms, there is
debate in media studies about the degree to which newer portals can be illuminated
by and through televisual principles or whether they need unique treatment as digital
phenomena. Ramon Lobato argues that the conceptual frameworks we bring to bear
upon platforms like Netflix matter because they impact the assumptions, conclusions,
and analyses we might make (2019, 21). Insufficient, in that view, would be attempts
to “wheel out the standard theories of television studies and apply them to Netflix”
(45). Similarly problematic, however, would be a perspective that “obscures Netflix’s

7
Derek Johnson

structural relationships with established screen industries” (21). Instead of an either/​

or choice between television and digital media studies, Lobato proposes a “both/​and”
approach to “move between these ways of knowing” (44–​45). By foregrounding tele-
vision in its analysis of Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and other tech players, this book
might initially appear to resist that both/​and approach. However, it is through the inclu-
sive study of channels in relationship to portals—​of networks alongside Netflix—​that
this book hopes to help produce something better than the standard theories for either.
Instead, it posits that television is in a process of constant transformation that can be
better understood through critical examination of different industry sectors, platforms,
and shared relations across them. As such, the standard theories need to be constantly
updated and refined. Against the transformative power of portals, we can see that the
channels are changing, too. Our study of television industries must change with them.
This both/​and model widens the scope television and our basic definitions of it.
Lobato describes Netflix as a boundary object (2019, 1), but television has long existed
in the borderlands between different media and refused firm borders. We might easily
recognize the cultural form of television in terms of specific generic priorities and
longform programming conventions organized in terms of episodes and series (Lotz
2017). Yet as much as they have relied on series production, television channels have
long carried former theatrical films; the rise of cable prompted experimentation with
shortform programming, including music videos; streaming video puts user-​generated
content alongside programming made in Hollywood. Television forms are also cultur-
ally specific; the episodic television forms familiar in the US, for example, may not be
the norm everywhere. If television is a flexible cultural form, it also resists techno-
logical determinism. Television may have emerged as a broadcast medium in which
signals were transmitted over the air to viewers who received them on television sets
via antenna, but the disruption of that technological basis began long before streaming
television. Cable and satellite technologies already transformed the broadcast nature
of television, with signals wired into homes and bounced from outer space from points
of transmission from all over the world. Recognizing television’s movement from the
set in the living room to one’s digital device is only the next step in recognizing the
technological dynamism of the medium. As they have attempted to manage and profit
from these cultural and technological transformations, television industries have
proven difficult to essentialize, too. Television cannot be singularly defined by either
advertising or subscription economies, nor can it be reduced to mass marketing or
niche strategies. Media companies have developed many different competing institu-
tional logics and practices, while producing the slippery cultures and technologies at
the foundations of television. These blurred boundaries and parallel manifestations
of television industry are further amplified by the forces of globalization. While tele-
vision industries maintain national and regional market territories, the increasing
distribution of programming across those boundaries requires attention to conver-
gences between multiple television industries. Amid these shifts, we may see “friction”
between distinct television industries as much as flow (Tsing 2004): clashes of culture
as globalization creates new conjunctures for industry to engage with diverse audi-
ences, communities, and tastes.

8
 P l u to T V

Television is, therefore, hard to pin down; the channels and portals trying to make
sense of (and money from) television orbit a truly unstable object. Yet industry efforts to
manage and rationalize despite that instability provide invaluable insight into the nature
of television, showing how it operates and how it is imagined into being in specific
contextual instances. There is nothing inevitable or natural about television channels
(or portals); they reveal how television forms and technologies have been historically
organized by industrial forces. The shapes that channels have taken and new forms
they will take follow the efforts of different companies competing and collaborating to
organize television in economically advantageous ways. Television is not a neutral set
of technologies, but also a system of institutions in which human agents embedded in
industrial relationships manage and deploy those technologies. Television thus requires
a critical understanding of media and power—​one that recognizes industry as a con-
tested, often contradictory system of meaning making and practice (Havens, Lotz, and
Tinic 2009, 236–​237). This critical understanding benefits from approaches based in
cultural studies attuned to what Lawrence Grossberg calls the conjuncture: “a way of
constructing contexts” in which “the identity, significance, and effects of any practice
or event (including cultural practices and events) are defined only by the complex set of
relations that surround, interpenetrate, and shape it, and make it what it is” (2010, 20).
From that radical contextualism, we can grasp that the specificity of television, amid all
this flexibility, emerges in significant part in the contexts where television industries
seek to produce it. To say that television industries produce television is, on the one
hand, painfully obvious. On the other hand, this statement more provocatively suggests
that television becomes legible and meaningful as a medium through the activities of
industries seeking to mold its flexible potential into something stable and controllable
(and, thus, predictable and profitable).
This makes the television channel—​and its nonlinear descendants—​a generative lens
for understanding the medium across its multiple, overlapping, and unfixed industrial
manifestations. Despite diverse programming potentials, competing economic mod-
els, and changing technologies, these broadcast networks, cable and satellite program-
mers, and streaming services have all sought to acquire content, generate awareness,
and maximize the audiences that they attract. Channels matter because they are sites at
which distributors produce contexts for television to be produced and consumed; anal-
ysis of these contexts can contribute to burgeoning discussions in media distribution
studies aimed at explaining the power dynamics that determine how culture circulates
(Curtin, Holt, and Sanson 2014; McDonald, Havens, and Brannon Donoghue 2021;
Perren 2013). The television channel is not universal and unchanging—​it now shares
its orbit with portals, their platforms, and the new contexts that they generate; but as
historically specific instances in which media institutions impose order and organiza-
tion on this unruly medium, channels and other sites of distribution reveal the process
whereby television is continually made and remade, circulated and recirculated.
This mutability matters because the strategies, policies, and priorities pursued by
television industries have cultural and political consequences. The construction of
television markets depends on the production of knowledge about the value of differ-
ent kinds of programs and, just as importantly, different kinds of audiences. Strategies

9
Derek Johnson

for managing and deploying technology within television industries determine who
might be able to access the medium, participate in its production, or take pleasure in
its consumption. The potential to effect change in and through television depends on
the beliefs, stories, and communities shared by those working in distribution and the
opportunities for diversity and inclusion in that television work.
An emerging online television service like Pluto TV, therefore, offers a vantage point
to examine the transformation of television in the 21st century, the rethinking of chan-
nel logics, and the impact of that distributional transformation on the culture and busi-
ness of television. However, a single perspective alone will not be sufficient; this book
must ultimately present a range of case studies to provide contextual insight into the
changing functions and practices of television services across the broadcast, cable, sat-
ellite, and streaming sectors. Those will follow in future chapters; but let us turn first
to Pluto TV, discovering what its industrial orbit can tell us about the persistent and
dynamic power of the television channel—​and why that power matters.

THE CHANNEL AFTERLIFE OF PLUTO TV

While the solar system metaphor can only take us so far, it is nevertheless worthwhile to
consider the mythologies upon which those planets (and now dwarf planets) have been
named. In ancient Greek and Roman cosmologies, Pluto was ruler of the underworld,
the realm of the afterlife occupied by the souls of the dead. This underworld was a king-
dom of the dead separate from the world of the living—​though tales would be told of
mortal heroes like Orpheus who crossed those boundaries.
Pluto TV further evokes its namesake in its reliance on television programming that
passes from one distributional realm to another and its insistence upon the value of
channel logics amid the new platform affordances of streaming. Television program-
ming has an afterlife, too. Typically, the long-​term ownership and exploitation rights for
an individual television series rest with the studio that produces it; studios then license
distributors to make use of that programming for a limited contract term. Often, major
distributors control their own production studios and produce programming internally
to retain these long-​term exploitation rights. Broadcast networks, cable and satellite
channels, and streaming services are all distributors who invest in the production and
acquisition of content and use it to build a larger package of programming (whether
across a broadcast schedule or laid out as options in an on-​demand menu). The dis-
tributor that first licenses a television series will not be the last: after being used in
one distributional context (say, ad-​supported broadcast television), a program may next
appear in another (subscription video online). The business of television programming
is a “regime of repetition” in which the forms and practices of the rerun have dominated
(Kompare 2015, 1). Pluto TV steers hard into this economy of repetition.
While many streaming services like Netflix and Disney+​differentiate themselves in
a competitive streaming market by securing long-​term, exclusive distribution rights to
first-​run programming, Pluto TV relies on the reuse of content that has already thrived
in broadcast or cable distribution. Pluto TV was acquired by ViacomCBS in 2019, before
that media conglomerate changed its name to Paramount Global in 2022. During that

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time, Pluto TV has developed no significant original or exclusive programming strat-

egy; instead, as part of this conglomerate, Pluto TV draws upon a vast programming
library controlled by studios under this corporate umbrella, such as Star Trek: The Next
Generation, CSI, Survivor, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This makes Pluto a lit-
eral realm of afterlife in streaming for programs that once thrived on the CBS broad-
cast network or Viacom cable channels like Nickelodeon. Yet Pluto TV’s embrace of
television’s afterlife extends beyond corporate boundaries, too. Its licensing operations
include external deals with AMC Studios to make reruns of The Walking Dead available
for free to streaming viewers. In that case, zombie-​themed programming supports a
zombie TV platform in which old series haunt the world of online television.
Just as important as what programs are available, however, is Pluto’s presentation of
that programming. Most streaming platforms, of course, participate in the economy
of repetition: even as Netflix and its competitors highlight exclusive original series in
their promotional efforts, they rely equally on acquisition of old television favorites to
generate subscriber interest. While typically much cheaper to acquire old reruns than
secure original content, Netflix will pay handsomely for programming with an already
proven audience, as when it paid $500 million for five years of exclusive distribution
rights to Seinfeld (Chow 2021). Pluto TV is not unique for trading in reruns. How-
ever, Pluto TV presents repeated content within an interface that also remediates the
channel logics of broadcast and cable television. The viewer who decides to “drop in”
meets with a channel listing grid and programming schedule. In the far-​left column is
a list of numbered channels, each with a unique name and theme. The columns to the
right communicate what programs are available on each channel over the next several
hours. Navigating this interface in December 2021, one could see that Channel 162,
Pluto TV Game Shows, scheduled an episode of the 1990 series Supermarket Sweep
from 11:30 a.m.–​12 p.m., followed by two episodes of the 2007 series Are You Smarter
than a Fifth Grader? from 12–​2 p.m., and then the 2010 dating series Baggage from 2–​
2:30 p.m. Each half-​hour or hour block includes several advertisements and promotions
to round each program to an even increment of schedule-​friendly time. Pluto TV thus
reinserts the television channel grid into the world of streaming television. While more
prestigious portals like Netflix and HBO Max compete in the market for subscription
video on-​demand (SVOD), Pluto TV provides a service better described as ad-​based
video on-​demand (AVOD). Other AVOD services like Peacock deploy similar grid
interfaces to present programming options to their users, pairing continuity of broad-
cast television advertising economies with continuity of scheduling practices.
This means that online television distribution can embrace and transform channel
logics as much as confound them. Streaming portal interfaces, while new, help man-
age the problem of choice that viewers have faced since the broadcast era. Broadcast
viewers have never enjoyed control over what network distributors (like NBC, CBS,
and ABC in the US) might schedule at any one moment; however, those viewers can
still choose between scheduled programs on each network’s channel. Viewers have thus
required guides to help them navigate channel choices. When first published in 1953,
TV Guide magazine featured black-​and-​white channel listings, with localized versions of
daily broadcast schedules produced for over 100 different markets in the US. TV Choice

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Derek Johnson

and TV Magazine performed similar functions in the UK and France, respectively, while
local newspapers throughout the world printed programming schedules for readers, too.
By the 1960s, TV Guide was the single most circulated US magazine (Farber and Bailey
2001, 397). As cable and satellite systems expanded channel choices, cable services like
the TV Guide Network brought these navigational aids to the television screen itself by
giving viewers an electronic programing guide. TV Guide Network was a channel about
channels, displaying to viewers the hundreds of choices available to them as cable and
satellite subscribers. But as the internet came to offer even better search functions (and
more content choices), the TV Guide Network faced pressure to be more than a “way-
station” for television viewing, but also a “destination” in and of itself (Motavalli 2004).
Ultimately, TV Guide’s on-​screen listings were retired in favor of using the channel space
to create Pop, a traditional entertainment channel launched in 2013.
With the passing of onscreen channel listings—​and the growing dominance of
portals—​one might assume these navigational guides have become obsolete. Able to
search, choose, and stream programs on demand rather than relying on the program-
ming schedules of broadcast and cable channels, Netflix users have no need for pro-
gram listings. Yet Pluto TV’s channel interface reasserts the value of channel logics and
the persistence of navigational needs in an age of portals. While it embraces the logics
of the channel, Pluto TV cannot be reduced to a single channel offering; instead, it is
a portal to channels. Pluto TV’s platform does not emulate a single broadcast, cable,
or satellite offering, but instead an entire package familiar to current and former cable
subscribers. The Pluto TV Game Show channel exists alongside choices like Stories
by AMC (Channel 135), BET Pluto TV (Channel 174), MTV Pluto TV (Channel 178),
Logo Pluto TV (Channel 187), and Comedy Central Pluto TV (Channel 465). None
of these channels offer an identical service to what might be available via cable sub-
scription; the paid cable subscriber watching CNN or Fox Sports at any one moment
would see something different than the free, barebones lite versions offered on Pluto
TV’s Channel 209 and Channel 705, respectively. Nevertheless, the Pluto TV platform
evokes the feeling of navigating linear television via an onscreen programming guide,
even in the space of nonlinear portals.
That feeling is still a quite powerful one for some viewers. Praising Pluto TV as
“the best streaming service you’re not using,” Vulture columnist Rebecca Alter (2021)
described the experience as an antidote to the “decision paralysis” that can accompany
the choice offered by SVOD menus. Instead, Pluto TV was “frictionless”—​viewers sim-
ply download the app to their devices (many smart television sets even come with Pluto
TV preloaded), and without creating an account, they are “immediately greeted with
some sort of content in progress” (Alter 2021). For Alter, the appeal of this channel
platform came from feeling: Pluto offered “comforting obscurities that lend themselves
to background viewing.” While prestige subscription services could be demanding, the
Pluto TV experience was “just vibes…Pluto will fill a hole in your screen-​time-​tired
heart that you didn’t even know was there.” To say Alter viewed Pluto’s linear television
channel logics nostalgically would be an understatement. Like Orpheus of myth, she
could not help but look back toward the land of television past, even when moving for-
ward into the dynamic world of streaming television.

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But Pluto TV’s embrace of channel logics to organize online television experiences
does not end there. On the Pluto TV portal, the program itself attains channel status.
Individual television series have their own dedicated channels running one episode after
another, twenty-​four hours a day. In 2021, Channel 142 played nothing but Baywatch;
Channel 297 offered nonstop The Amazing Race; Channel 508 was all Three’s Company.
Many of these dedicated channels drew from series like CSI, Star Trek: The Next Gen-
eration, and Dark Shadows over which the ViacomCBS/​Paramount conglomerate con-
trolled distribution rights, repurposed to support the AVOD economy of Pluto TV. This
even included Cops on Channel 367, which the conglomerate’s Paramount Television
division had produced since 2013, until it decided in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives
Matter protests to cancel the controversial series (Porter 2020). While the conglomer-
ate stopped investing in the production of new episodes, it continued to distribute the
disgraced series on Pluto TV, now with its own dedicated channel. Here, the tangible
political consequences of industry transformations can be glimpsed, as cancellation
does not preclude the afterlife of television racism in streaming.
The program-​as-​channel logic of Pluto TV raises questions about viewer choice and
what counts as “on-​demand” programming. While Pluto TV is a FAST service, Via-
comCBS touted the $340 million price paid for it in 2019 as a means of joining the
“burgeoning field of AVOD” (“Trends” 2019). Indeed, the Pluto TV user can bypass
the default channel grid interface to access a limited “on-​demand” programming menu
(though certainly a shallower catalog than one would find on Netflix; as of late 2021,
Pluto TV’s on-​demand menu offered 100 TV dramas and 83 TV sitcoms, most of them
deep cuts in the ViacomCBS/​Paramount library unlikely to have significant sales poten-
tial elsewhere). But it is the live, “drop-​in” experience that Pluto TV uses to distin-
guish itself in the AVOD market, and the existence of programs as channels suggests
some power of viewer choice over what to watch when. When CSI is its own channel, a
viewer can choose to watch the series at any time. Of course, the viewer has no control
over which episode happens to be available, but the channel creates the impression of a
more targeted choice than watching anything the CBS network might have scheduled
at a particular moment. Nevertheless, there is arguably little more “on-​demand” about
watching Pluto TV’s CSI channel than tuning in to a cable channel running a CSI mar-
athon (unless one recognizes that the choice between TV channels has always been an
“on demand” choice). All this is to say that while Pluto TV carries the logics of the chan-
nel forward into the realm of streaming, it also reinscribes scheduled programming
within the nonlinear logics of on-​demand choice, even when that choice is limited.
In addition to assimilating on-​demand logics, Pluto TV also integrates streaming
video forms native to the online environment into the space of the scheduled TV chan-
nel. While the Pluto TV viewer can access all these well-​worn properties from the
ViacomCBS/​Paramount library, it also finds an affordable source of content in videos
originally created for online distribution—​offering an afterlife to them, too. Pluto TV
offers channels dedicated to online gaming, for example. Channel 805 repurposes video
content carried by major game news sites IGN. Meanwhile, on Channel 801, Gamer,
Pluto TV scheduled in late 2021 programs like Strictly Gaming, which were compila-
tions of “let’s play videos” drawn from streaming video sites like YouTube and Twitch.

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Derek Johnson

Thus, the streaming portal did not just preserve old television channel logics; it also
extended them in a way that subsumed video cultures native to the internet. Those, too,
could now be made part of a television grid. Meanwhile, the scheduled television grid of
Pluto TV could colonize the spaces of the internet, too. In 2021, sites like TVLine.com
featured embedded video content from Pluto TV’s channels, displaying to web users
programming already in progress according to the “live” channel schedule, complete
with timestamps to indicate when programming had begun and when it would end.
Writing five years earlier, TechCrunch writer Tom Goodwin considered the per-
sistence of channel logics with far less exuberance than Rebecca Alter did in Vulture in
2021. For Goodwin, channel logics had become “wildly irrelevant” in a digital age: a poor
organizational principle for billion-​dollar decisions in a television business increasingly
oriented toward streaming. Now that services like Netflix allowed viewers to decide
what, when, and where to watch, time-​shifted viewing had become “the predominant
form of TV” for valuable, connected consumers. This made Netflix fundamentally more
relevant than traditional television still bound by channel and scheduling logics: “the
centerpoint of TV remains the electronic programming guide and it’s never changed.
It shows irrelevant channels vertically and now on an irrelevant timescale”. From this
viewpoint, Pluto TV embraces irrelevance in the face of more connected, interactive
alternatives; as Goodwin put it, “To take the entirely anachronistic device of the TV
channel, and replicate it as an app, is stupid in the extreme.” (Goodwin 2016) And yet,
the future (so far) appears to follow a different trajectory than Goodwin imagined—​
where “stupid” channel logics persist in the FAST economy of Pluto TV, embraced in
turn by SVOD services once celebrated for freeing us from the tyranny of programmer
choice.
In 2021, Netflix added a “play something” button to its main login page, giving users
the opportunity to bypass the selection interface and jump straight to “a series or film
we know you’ll love based on what you watched before.” If that algorithmically based
decision failed to appeal, the viewer could choose to “play something else” drawn from
Netflix’s new releases or a series the user had already started. While still distinct from
the programming guide interface of Pluto TV, Netflix nevertheless acknowledged the
limits of viewer choice: “There are times when we just don’t want to make decisions”
(Johnson 2021). This new feature returned some decision-​making power to the distrib-
utor; Netflix’s power as a curator now overlapped more with the power of programmers
to make decisions for the imagined viewer. Of course, this was still a highly individu-
alized imagined viewer compared to a one-​size-​fits-​all schedule grid; but this interface
redesign acknowledged that the future of television did not point inevitably or exclu-
sively in the direction of viewer choice alone. The continued power of industry-​made
programming choices manifested in late 2021, when ViacomCBS announced it would
add eighteen “24/​7” channels to its SVOD Paramount+​service, comparable to those on
Pluto TV. This move reflected the strategic priorities of Tom Ryan, the founder of Pluto
TV who had been named president and CEO of ViacomCBS streaming the previous
year. “Even in the era of on-​demand, there is clearly a strong consumer appetite for
reimagined linear channels that provide effortless, lean-​back entertainment,” explained
Ryan, who described the new strategy as “[i]‌nspired and informed by the winning model

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Pluto TV pioneered and popularized” (Spangler 2021). As a newly launched SVOD

service, Paramount+​carried more prestige than the FAST Pluto TV; nevertheless, in
terms of strategy and executive vision, the Pluto model appeared to be just as if not
more powerful in charting the future of ViacomCBS/​Paramount in online television.
Paramount+​was already being reimagined to adopt channel logics Pluto TV adapted
from linear television. Linear television channels had been transformed in the move to
streaming, and then, in turn, reimagined what nonlinear streaming television could be.
The Pluto TV platform demands that we consider the logics of channels and portals
together. It may be a dwarf planet of sorts in the streaming economy, rarely attracting
the kind of attention that Netflix, Disney+​, or HBO Max do in the US. We may very
well have trouble seeing it when looking through our critical telescopes at the night sky
of the television industries. But if we take the time to study it, we can see that it shares
orbital space with legacy channels like CBS and Nickelodeon while carving a path that
intersects with the new programming practices of portals like Netflix. Those shared
orbits are potentially precarious ones. The potential for one industry body to collide
with the orbit of another means that by the time you read this chapter, Pluto TV could
no longer exist. But even if Pluto TV is knocked off its orbit or entirely obliterated
by these convergences, it still effected some gravitational pull on the greater system.
Streaming portals will continue to grapple with the channel logics that Pluto TV—​and
many other platforms—​have imported into online television. Rather than reclassify
Pluto TV and make a hard determination of its status as channel or portal, as the Inter-
national Astronomical Union did its namesake, the most useful approach might rec-
ognize it as “both/​and.” From that understanding, we might study the contemporary
television industries not solely in terms of their differences with legacy media systems,
but also their continuities.

LINEAR AND NONLINEAR PATHWAYS

We cannot see these shared orbits, and potential convergences and collisions, by look-
ing at only one object alone. Only by charting as much as we can of the industrial fir-
mament, identifying significant objects, and theorizing their interrelationships can
we build a systemic, contextualized understanding of the television industries. Each
chapter that follows examines a single television channel or service (though, often,
this requires attention to major predecessors and competitors, too). These case stud-
ies show how their respective channels identify and distinguish themselves, how they
reposition themselves in the face of disruption, and why they matter to the past, pres-
ent, and future of television. Exploring television distribution from different cultural,
economic, regulatory, and infrastructural positions, this book guides readers toward a
critical understanding of the abundance of transforming services and choices currently
characterizing the medium.
In its organization, the book grapples with different kinds of channels and portals
while recognizing their points of overlap. It begins by examining the legacy institutions
of broadcast television with the ability to exert tradition and convention to preserve
what they can of a once profitable status quo. Considered next is the survival—​by no

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Derek Johnson

means guaranteed—​of the cable and satellite channels that expanded the programming
choices available to viewers but now risk losing the subscription economy to online
television services. The upstart platforms that pose this threat thus demand significant
attention, too, revealing how disruptions of old channel logics come from portals tied
not just to digital media, but also the forces of globalization. In the face of that increas-
ingly digital and global television economy, however, the book finally turns back to leg-
acy distributors that have adapted to the streaming economy of portals and sought to
reassert the power of their channels in the television industries through some of the
very strategies and platforms that threatened it. The arc of the book, therefore, is not
a simple shift from networks, which die out, to Netflix et al. as undisputed inheritor of
industry power. Instead, the title From Networks to Netflix implies a starting point and
an unresolved process, from which we might ask where the path leads next.
The reader may also consider the advantages and disadvantages of the book’s ordered
sequence of chapters for illuminating these tensions between networks and Netflix,
channels and portals. On the one hand, the table of contents evokes a menu of channel
and portal offerings. Few readers will tackle this book all at once, and many will use the
table of contents to choose between chapters—​much as they might choose from a list of
channel apps on a digital device or programs in an on-​demand menu. The reader should
be encouraged to follow nonlinear pathways through the book as best serve personal
interests. On the other hand, the book can also unfold in a fairly linear way. As just
described, there is a designed arc to follow from chapter to chapter, section to section,
which aims to create a preferred flow though these contextual case studies of television
distribution. It is ultimately up to you, as the reader, to decide how to proceed (taking
cues from your instructor if you are reading this assigned in a course). Will you lean
back and follow the designed flow of the book-​as-​channel? Will you chart you own path,
using the book-​as-​portal to follow your own questions about television? Or, can you
adopt a “both/​and” perspective? To make this final outcome more likely, it will be useful
not only to preview the chapters that follow in linear sequence, but also to highlight a
small handful of the nonlinear pathways in which you might also read across them.
The first set of chapters examines the “Broadcast Legacies” of networks whose over-​
the-​air channels cultivate large audiences, often with the expectation of balancing pub-
lic obligations and commercial profits. Each of these chapters also shares a concern for
programming and its relationship to network channel structures. Together, they also
demonstrate how the world of broadcast television distribution is a channel space being
reorganized by the forces of digitization and globalization.
Diving into the network business, Kristen J. Warner explores risk and crisis manage-
ment in personnel and programming shifts at US distributor ABC, explaining the calcu-
lations that informed strategies attuned to diverse and inclusive programming. Caryn
Murphy emphasizes the importance of ownership in that network economy, reveal-
ing how The CW benefited as part of the ViacomCBS/Paramount conglomerate and
how that relationship generated lucrative streaming revenues for the legacy television
institution. Michele Hilmes identifies the funding models used to support the US Pub-
lic Broadcasting System (PBS), contextualizing them as a crucial precursor to crowd-
sourcing and other forms of economic support for participatory culture in the digital

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age. Examining Spanish-​language television, Juan Llamas-​Rodriguez reveals how US

broadcaster Telemundo has adapted the enduring telenovela genre to serve changing
distribution technologies and tastes in that local market. Courtney Brannon Donoghue
shares this concern for the global telenovela and considers its utility to broadcasters
working across different cultural and linguistic contexts, as Brazil’s TV Globo deploys
the genre as part of a conglomerate strategy for managing media convergence. The need
for broadcasters to contend with new technologies and platforms continues in Derek
Kompare’s chapter on MeTV, a small “diginet” that combined new digital channel
space with nostalgic uses of old network programming to generate continued value in
broadcasting’s economy of repetition. Together, these chapters reveal how network
channels continue to function, but also their need to adapt in the face of competition,
crisis, and change.
The second group of chapters shifts focus to “Cable and Satellite Survivors” that
continue to distribute content to US subscribers. Many operate in the same commercial
vein as broadcasters who sell audiences to advertisers, but these channels also receive
carriage fees from cable and satellite providers as part of a subscription economy. The
abundance of choices creates a competitive, fragmented market in which channels
carve out narrow appeals defined by specific demographics and tastes. With fewer
viewers to hold onto, these channels must often undergo massive shifts in branding and
mission to weather the changes transforming television. The new priorities that result
from these shifts often reveal what—​and who—​is most valued to television distributors
as they negotiate the fragmented channel landscape.
Christine Becker traces this imperative for industrial flexibility in her chapter on
NewsNation, a cable channel that has metamorphosed several times in response to
changing distributional infrastructures. Jacob Mertens and Lauren Wilks argue that
Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim programming block has depended on the cultivation
of “edgy” programming appeals flexible enough to adapt even as they attract intense
engagement from prized demographics. By contrast, Erin Copple Smith explores the
failure of Nick Jr. to make late-​night appeals to parents, explaining how linear cable and
satellite channels struggle to serve multiple markets, and revealing what streaming plat-
forms might learn from these struggles. Beyond scheduling experiments, change can
manifest in total channel rebrands, as Barbara Selznick demonstrates in her examination
of ABC Family’s rebirth as Freeform and identification of a new target audience. Nick
Marx reveals the industry cultures and promotional practices through which Comedy
Central continued to privilege masculinized definitions of its programming genre, even
in pursuit of younger viewers and a politics of inclusion. The effort to cultivate specific
audiences—​and the different values ascribed to them—​inspires Martina Baldwin and
Suzanne Leonard to examine how Bravo used social media and appeals to authenticity
to generate fan engagement with its channel. Yet Suzanne Scott argues that AMC’s
efforts to facilitate “frictionless” fan engagement reflects industry discomfort with
many of the creative and discursive practices of fandom. If properly managed, however,
fans remain valuable for premium channels like Starz, where, as Myles McNutt argues,
the cultivation of an “economy of affect” can help maintain a subscriber base. How-
ever, as Peter Alilunas explains, premium channels such as Playboy TV can struggle to

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motivate audiences to pay for what they can find for free online (pornographic or other-
wise). Alisa Perren’s chapter on El Rey demonstrates how distributors—​especially those
appealing to minority identities and communities—​scramble to sustain themselves in
this volatile cable and satellite landscape, often looking to a better future online.
The third and largest group of chapters thus looks to the innovative “Streaming Ven-
tures” that have established this new frontier in online television distribution. Their
nonlinear television platforms highlight the power of new technologies—​and upstart
firms from the tech world—​to disrupt the channel logics of television. These chapters
also insist on investigation of the national frameworks in which television channels
historically operated, their time-​bound linear schedules often bound in geographic
space, too. Online television opens television distribution to a wider field of global
players—​though the nation might not fully disappear in that process. However, in that
globalizing market, television can also become a more participatory space animated by
creators, communities, and fans with growing access to those platforms.
While Netflix dominates US streaming distribution, Timothy Havens and Ryan
Stoldt focus on its global ambitions, arguing that the portal has adapted broadcast and
cable branding strategies to translate its service and programming appeals across local
markets. Stuart Cunningham, Smith Mehta, Gabriela Lunardi, and Guy Healy exam-
ine the conditions under which video content is created for distribution on YouTube,
revealing how social media entertainers in India, Brazil, and Australia create new career
pathways that interface with global television industries. Michael Curtin and Yongli Li
highlight new strategies for reaching audiences amid the convergence of television and
digital media in their chapter on iQIYI, a Chinese streaming portal shaped by the entry
of tech industry giants into television and continued state oversight of a commercializ-
ing economy. Karen Petruska explores industrial convergences by contextualizing the
subscription streaming strategy of Amazon Prime Video within the tech giant’s larger
retail business, locating a future for television outside traditional media distribution
models. Yet old channel logics retain relevance in these new distributional contexts, as
Ramon Lobato and Eleanor Patterson show in their investigation of The Roku Chan-
nel, in which broadcast and cable models serve the needs of vertical integrated tech
companies.
Moreover, while portals call attention to the power of global tech giants, they also
create new openings for communities historically excluded by legacy television. Aymar
Jean Christian unpacks the program development process of Open TV, an indepen-
dent television portal that enables greater participation in online television by queer
creators and people of color. Julia Himberg explores how these challenges are managed
by Revry, an online video platform that seeks to disrupt the programming and market
logics of “mainstreaming” that characterized cable television’s imagination of LGBTQ
channels, revealing how television portals can pursue inclusion and profit simultane-
ously. Tori Arthur explores the entrepreneurialism of iROKOtv, in which streaming
distribution across Nigeria, Africa, and a global diaspora demands transnational pro-
gramming aesthetics to accommodate the range of digital devices to which it might be
delivered. Susan Noh explores how Crunchyroll, in its adaption of narrowcast econ-
omies to streaming, pursued transnational anime programming that would resonate

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with fan users’ investment in the politics of racial authenticity. Wan-​Jun Lu expands
this investigation of fandom by showing how the global platform Viki governs the labor
of the volunteers who subtitle its programming, reinforcing hierarchies between fans
with different cultural and linguistic literacies. Examining how the social media plat-
form Twitch.tv applies a televisual framework to its gameplay videos, Matthew Thomas
Payne invites us to consider how distribution portals can inherit television’s cultures of
spectatorship while transforming them in significant ways.
While these new portals undoubtedly transform television culture, they have not yet
rendered legacy channels obsolete. Thus, the last group of chapters collectively examine
the efforts of legacy media conglomerates and television channels to adapt their strat-
egies and practices to online video distribution—​often adopting new brand names to
suggest they have been augmented and superpowered by the affordances of digital plat-
forms, producing a new “Television Plus” through this metamorphosis. These services
are thus contexts that reveal not just shifting relations of power in the television indus-
tries (from channels to portals, for example), but also the potential for legacy channels
themselves to transform (for channels to become portals).
Initially a joint venture by US broadcast networks seeking to control their own
online television platform, Hulu provides an excellent starting point for considering
the transformation of legacy institutions; as Evan Elkins explains, Hulu still imposes
national boundaries around television, even as television technologies and industries
continue to destabilize. Launched by the Star India conglomerate (and now owned by
Disney), Hotstar offers a context for Shanti Kumar and Aswin Punathambekar to reveal
how digitized distribution in India and the South Asian diaspora prompts reimagina-
tion of television audiences within legacy screen industries. Examining the entry of
legacy broadcasters into the Japanese streaming market, Marc Steinberg argues that
Abema TV troubles neat industry boundaries and requires attention to complex sym-
biosis between linear and nonlinear distribution models. To interrogate state legacy
power, rather than corporate, Xiaoying Han reveals how Mango TV, a Chinese platform
controlled by the Hunan provincial government, leverages broadcast institutions and
relationships to navigate an increasingly privatized online television market.
These adaptations of legacy distribution have meaningful impact on program pro-
duction and user experiences of television genres. Kyra Hunting and Jonathan Gray
show how Disney+​leverages a network of intertextual connections forged across the
history of the Disney conglomerate and its library holdings. Investigating the experi-
ence of engaging legacy television channels in new online platforms, Jason Kido Lopez
shows how the ESPN+​interface further marginalizes women’s sports despite promo-
tional promises to use the potential of nonlinear platforms to be more inclusive. Con-
sidering the persistent value of sports programming to legacy television institutions,
Deborah L. Jaramillo contextualizes the centrality of Olympics coverage to the launch
of the Peacock streaming service within the longer history of NBC Sports and previ-
ous struggles to support new cable ventures. Gregory Steirer reveals how the launch
of HBO Max reflected seismic changes in organizational structure as WarnerMedia
grappled with increasing pressure by parent company AT&T to integrate its previously
siloed legacy media divisions. The final chapter considers the programming privileged

19
Derek Johnson

by these conglomerate strategies, revealing how Paramount+​perpetually extends well-​

worn broadcast and cable “franchises” to attract subscribers to legacy streaming portals
and to entice them to keep paying for that new service as time goes on.
While these four sections offer a thoughtful pathway through the industrial cos-
mos of television, you are recommended to consider other journeys beyond a linear
approach that starts at the top of the table of contents and works its way down. Equally
productive paths might be those that look across sections to see common trajectories,
tensions, and tactics among broadcast networks, cable and satellite channels, and por-
tals. Readers interested in media ownership, for example, would benefit from consider-
ing The CW, Freeform, and HBO Max in dialogue, for example. These chapters also tell
deeper stories about specific conglomerates operating across different distributional
contexts: the chapters on ABC, Freeform, Hotstar, Disney+​, and ESPN+​provide a win-
dow onto the Walt Disney Company’s efforts to maintain its old legacies while building
new ones; the chapters on The CW, Comedy Central, Nick Jr., and Paramount+​pro-
vide equal insight into the Paramount Global conglomerate beyond the glimpse already
offered by the examination of Pluto TV.
Many of these chapters collectively reveal how changing channel logics bring about
new ways of thinking about television audiences. The reader who makes connections
across MeTV, Cartoon Network, Freeform, Playboy TV, and Hotstar will gain stron-
ger insight into the way television institutions value audiences and assumptions made
about those audiences in the industrial imagination. That insight reveals the power of
the changing television channel to build distributional networks upon the hegemonic
ideals of race, gender, class, and sexuality, as we can see in the chapters on ABC, Com-
edy Central, Bravo, Crunchyroll, and ESPN+​. In response, the El Rey, Open TV, and
Revry chapters suggest the power of portals to rethink how those identities are imag-
ined, by whom, and who might be included in the television industries on that basis.
Meanwhile, television’s mediation of national and local identities manifests across the
case studies of TV Globo, NewsNation, Netflix, Hulu, and iQIYI. Reading across chap-
ters also reveals the potential power of audiences in the television industries, whether
as fans for AMC, Bravo, and Starz, or as sources of productivity for Viki. Those inter-
ested in the questions of flow raised by Pluto TV could follow them across Nick Jr,
AMC, and Paramount+​, to name just a few. Even those interested in the intersection of
television and gaming might see productive connections across Twitch.tv, Abema TV,
and ESPN+​.
As this is the second edition of this book, the insights of these chapters can also
be read against those offered in the initial 2018 publication, many of which have been
made available on a companion website (www.routledge.com/9780367568245). There
the reader can find additional case studies of channels and platforms not covered in
this new edition, including, but not limited to, Pop, TLC, The Weather Channel, ESPN,
MTV, Spike TV, A&E, Disney XD, WWE Network, BBC Three, and AwesomenessTV.
Whether still in operation or defunct, all these television distributors provide addi-
tional context for understanding the industry changes under investigation.
While the reader should be encouraged to find their own personalized paths through
the book, perhaps the strongest recommendation is this: consider using these chapters

20
 P l u to T V

as templates to engage in your own investigation and analysis of the many more chan-
nels not featured in this volume. Take the ideas you learn here and use them to build
your own contextual case studies as the changes facing the television industries con-
tinue to unfold. With that perspective, you will hopefully gain greater knowledge,
power, and agency to impact this process of transformation—​to change the channels
around which television has been organized, and through which the future of television
is imagined and adapted.
All objects in space are in constant motion. It may be less important to agree that
Pluto is a planet or a dwarf planet than to perceive how its motion through the solar
system is gravitationally entwined with all those other objects in orbit. Whether we
are examining Pluto TV or any of the other bodies in the distributional cosmos of tele-
vision, our understanding of industry change will be strongest if we grapple with the
future trajectories of television portals while also keeping our eye on the legacies of
channels that will shape and be reshaped by those futures.

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ture, June 21. Accessed December 15, 2021. www.vulture.com/​article/​pluto-​tv-​best-​free-​
streaming-​service.html.
Chow, Andres. 2021. “How Seinfeld Became One of TV’s Great Moneymakers.” Time, October
1. Accessed December 15, 2021. https://​time.com/​6103​335/​seinf​eld-​netf​l ix-​busin​ess/​.
Christian, Aymar Jean. 2018. Open TV: Innovation Beyond Hollywood and the Rise of Web Televi-
sion. New York: New York University Press.
Curtin, Michael, Jennifer Holt and Kevin Sanson. 2014. Distribution Revolution: Conversations
about the Digital Future of Film and Television. Oakland: University of California Press.
Farber, David R. and Beth L. Bailey. 2001. The Columbia Guide to America in the 1960s.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Goodwin, Tom. 2016. “The Future of TV Isn’t Apps.” TechCrunch, December 18. Accessed
December 19, 2016. https://​tec​hcru​nch.com/​2016/​12/​18/​the-​fut​ure-​of-​tv-​isnt-​apps/​.
Gripsrud, Jostein. 1998. “Television, Broadcasting, Flow: Key Metaphors in Television The-
ory.” In The Television Studies Book, edited by Christine Geraghty and David Lusted, 17–​32.
London: Arnold Publishers.
Grossberg, Lawrence. 2010. Cultural Studies in the Future Tense. Durham: Duke University
Press.
Havens, Tim, Amanda Lotz and Serra Tinic. 2009. “Critical Media Industry Studies: A Research
Approach.” Communication, Culture & Critique 2: 234–​253.
Johnson, Cameron. 2021. “With Play Something, Netflix Does All the Work for You.” Netflix,
April 28. Accessed December 16, 2021. https://​about.netf​l ix.com/​en/​news/​play-​someth​ing-​
netf​l ix-​does-​the-​work-​for-​you.
Johnson, Catherine. 2012. Branding Television. London: Routledge.
Johnson, Catherine. 2019. Online TV. London: Routledge.
Kompare, Derek. 2005. Rerun Nation: How Repeats Invented American Television. New York:
Routledge.
Lobato, Ramon. 2019. Netflix Nations: The Geography of Digital Distribution. New York: New York
University Press.

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Lotz, Amanda. 2014. The Television Will Be Revolutionized, 2nd edition. New York: New York
University Press.
Lotz, Amanda. 2017. Portals: A Treatise on Internet-​Distributed Television. Ann Arbor: Univer-
sity of Michigan Press. http://​dx.doi.org/​10.3998/​mpub.9699​689.
Lotz, Amanda, Ramon Lobato, and Julian Thomas. 2018. “Internet-​ Distributed Television
Research: A Provocation.” Media Industries 5 (2). https://​doi.org/​10.3998/​mij.15031​809.
0005.203.
McDonald, Paul, Tim Havens, and Courtney Brannon Donoghue. 2021. Digital Media Distribu-
tion: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines. New York: New York University Press.
Motavalli, John. 2004. “Channeling Changes at TV Guide TV.” TelevisionWeek, August 9. Accessed
June 7, 2017.
Perren, Alisa. 2013. “Rethinking Distribution for the Future of Media Industry Studies.” Cinema
Journal 52 (3): 165–​171.
Porter, Rick. 2020. “ ‘Cops’ Cancelled at Paramount Network.” The Hollywood Reporter, June 9.
Accessed December 16, 2021. www.hollywoodreporter.com/​tv/​tv-​news/​cops-​canceled-​at-​
paramount-​network-​1297778/​.
“Resoluton B5: Definition of a Planet in the Solar System.” 2006. International Astronomical
Union. Accessed December 13, 2021. www.iau.org/​static/​resolutions/​Resolution_​GA26-
5-​6.pdf.
Spangler, Todd. 2021. “Paramoount Plus Launches 18 Linear Themed Channels”. Variety, Decem-
ber 9. Accessed December 16, 2021.
“Trends in Consumer Behavior Hints at a Bright Future for Free-​Streaming Television.” 2019.
ViacomCBS, May 1. Accessed December 16, 2021. www.viacomcbs.com/​news/​audience-​
insights/​pluto-​tv-​and-​the-​avod-​opportunity.
Tsing, Anna. 2004. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press.
Williams, Raymond. 1974/​2003. Television: Technology and Cultural Form. London: Routledge.

22
Broadcast Legacies
 2
ABC
Crisis, Risk, and the Logics of Change
Kristen J. Warner

On May 22, 2017, ABC delivered on a promise nearly fourteen years in the making
when it launched a new season of its highly rated series The Bachelorette (2003–​) with
an African American woman in the lead. Attorney Rachel Lindsay of Dallas, Texas, had
previously appeared as a contestant on Season 21 of The Bachelor (2002–​), and after
not being selected as one of the final two contestants by suitor Nick Viall, yet remain-
ing a fan favorite, viewers hoped that after thirteen seasons, ABC would finally cast an
African American woman in the role. Indeed, when it was announced in March 2017
that Lindsay would be the next Bachelorette, many viewers celebrated this move toward
greater diversity. However, the timing for such a casting move would follow industry
strategy rather than broader social shifts or fan interests. After a US District Court judge
ruled against two African American plaintiffs in 2012, deciding that casting decisions
made by The Bachelor enjoyed First Amendment protections, it was clear that changes
in the diversity of casting decisions would be determined by the internal choices of
producers and influences of the network (“Judge” 2012). That impetus seemed to have
arrived by August 2016, however, when newly appointed ABC Entertainment president
Channing Dungey—​the first African American to lead a major broadcast network—​
presented ABC’s fall lineup at the summer Television Critics Association meeting.
In response to the persistent lack of diversity among leads in the Bachelor franchise,
Dungey asserted: “I would very much like to see some changes there” (de Moraes 2016).
Because of the cyclical process whereby runners-​up on one program might become
leads on the next, Dungey signaled that lead diversity would not be achieved overnight
but through “the need to increase the pool of diverse candidates in the beginning.” Her
remarks suggest a clear directive to the Bachelor/​Bachelorette production team at War-
ner Bros. television to widen the pool to improve the odds of diversity in this cyclical
selection process.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003099499-4 25
K r i s t e n J . Wa r n e r

Rachel Lindsay represented the fruit of that directive, not only a good potential match
for Viall, but also a strategic fit within the pool of relatable, professional African Ameri-
can women assembled across many of ABC’s programs. Lindsay’s well put together, yet
approachable look and “super smart yet super fun girl” persona matched the needs of the
network and deemed her worthy of investing time and marketing effort. As I argued else-
where prior to her official selection, “in order for her to be the remotest possible suitor,
I think she would need to be 10s across the board. Her socioeconomic class, her educa-
tion, her looks—​she needs to be above board in all those things” (Ricciardi 2017). While
Lindsay’s background and affect were familiar to fans of The Bachelor, they also resonated
against other ABC scripted series that featured similarly intelligent, professional African
American women such as Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope in Scandal (2012–​2018) and
Viola Davis’ Annalise Keating in How To Get Away With Murder (2014–2020​).
The precise placement of Lindsay as the first diversity hire in Bachelor/​Bachelor-
ette history crystallizes the efforts of ABC over the previous decade to specialize in
multicultural casts and women of color leads—​many of these spearheaded by African
American showrunner Shonda Rhimes with support from Dungey in her previous role
as executive vice president for drama development. Yet, ironically, Dungey’s ascension
to ABC leadership under Ben Sherwood, three years into his own role as president of
the larger Disney/​ABC Television Group, signaled as much the possibility for strategic
transition as continuity with the priorities of a previous regime. While past network
presidents had for a time helped ABC center diverse casting as part of its overall pro-
gramming strategy, shifts in network leadership introduce opportunities for strategies
to be disrupted. As power changes hands, new regimes want their tastes and develop-
ment instincts to be credited for successes, while the missions of previous eras might
become perceived as obsolete.
Indeed, the conditions that led to the casting of Lindsay in 2017 had already given
way to a new managerial status quo by 2019. As its parent company Disney worked to
integrate new television assets into its corporate structure after its 2019 acquisition
of 20th Century Fox, the television group required not just a new name—​Walt Dis-
ney Television—​but also a new managerial regime. Amid the redundancies and layoffs,
Karey Burke, formerly of the Disney cable channel Freefrom, came in to replace Dungey
at ABC (who moved on to Netflix), while Sherwood departed and former Fox executive
Dana Walden came in to lead the entertainment division. Since that time, the Bachelor
franchise has continued to cast African Americans in its lead roles. Tayshia Adams in
Bacherlorette Season 16 (2020) and Michelle Young in Season 18 (2021) appeared as the
second and third African American female leads, respectively, while Matt James made
history as the first African American male lead in Season 25 of The Bachelor (2021).
It would be tempting to read these casting decisions as part of a continuous network
commitment to diversity. Any such argument would have to contend, of course, with
the franchise’s persistent struggles with racism. In 2021, host Chris Harrison left the
program after making excuses for contestant Rachael Kirkconnell, who was revealed to
have attended a plantation-​themed fraternity formal in 2018 and to have “liked” images
of the Confederate flag on social media. Both Adams and James spoke out publicly on
the franchise’s need to do better, arguing that casting a few Black leads would not be

26
 ABC

enough to address the racial inequalities that frequently surfaced in production (Wag-
meister and Shafer 2021). Lindsay, too, responded by declining to renew her contract
with Warner Bros.
These events raise important questions about ABC’s longstanding commitment
to diversity and we should hold the network accountable for sustaining the promises
embodied by Lindsay’s casting. However, it is not altogether surprising to see discon-
tinuity in that regard, as programming decisions continue to be made under shifting
managerial regimes and strategic mindsets. As these regimes shift, so too might net-
work interest in pushing the Bachelor franchise in one way rather than another.
With that in mind, this chapter offers a snapshot of the managerial regime in place at
the time of Lindsay’s casting in order to show how its particularities led to specific kinds
of programming decisions and shaped the diversity that fans ultimately did (and did
not) see on screen. This chapter explores how internal transitions of senior executive
leadership at ABC, most often informed by the logics of risk and crisis amid the pursuit
of specific demographic priorities, factored into its programming decisions and, ulti-
mately, the ever-​changing mission and vision of the network.

CRISIS AND TRANSITION: UNDERSTANDING

NETWORK LOGICS
Before exploring how network leadership transitions determine which audiences are
targeted for programming, it is first useful to outline some of the logics that inform
these decisions. These logics are paradoxical in that, on one hand, much decision-​
making follows an organized system of in-​house market research that offers executives
a range of choices and assessments of their potential to stimulate growth. On the other
hand, this system depends on humans with biases, worldviews, and perspectives, which
means its logics are far from ideologically neutral but instead very much informed by
subjective experience and tastes. From that understanding, media industries researcher
Joseph Turow provides a macro analysis of how networks act as cultural productions
systems “characterized by a constant and pervasive tension between innovation and
control” (1984, 151). In television programming, innovation leans more toward the cre-
ative where media professionals think “outside the box” to develop new ideas or recon-
ceptualize old ones. Meanwhile, control points toward the economics of keeping costs
down while maximizing profit. Of course, innovation and control always sit in tension
because failure is a near certainty in television; most series will not be hits. Thus, the
goal with these two structuring forces is to reduce as much risk of failure as possible.
Risk mitigation relies on predictable formulas and routines previously proven profitable
and economically efficient. Turow outlines the behaviors that creators in these cultural
production systems adopt to neutralize as much risk as possible:

Greater the risk involved, greater the chance that creators will both (1) structure their
activities toward highly predictable, highly patterned mass media content and (2) orient
their routines toward certain administrative techniques not so obviously reflected in
content itself. These administrative techniques of coping are routines designed to help

27
K r i s t e n J . Wa r n e r

creators seek out information or personnel that will maximize the chance of a particular
product’s success.
(1984, 156–​7)

The checks and balances assumed in this risk management model are predicated on
routine and predictability. As Turow notes, continuity of personnel and leadership pro-
vides one a way to reduce anxiety: working with the same above-​and below-​the-​line
laborers, promoting executives from in-​house, selecting talent from familiar pools, and
relying upon big ticket stars.
Nevertheless, despite their aversion to failure, television networks turn on significant
moments of innovation, change, and disruption, too. Turow describes two motivators
that counter risk aversion: transition and crisis. In leadership transitions, newly promoted
executives differentiate themselves from their predecessors by clearing current produc-
tion slates and adjust programming plans to make way for new strategic visions that
accommodate new brands and demographics. However, even in the midst of leadership
transitions, crises can emerge when networks face poor quarterly returns or declining
Nielsen ratings compared to their competitors. Transition and crisis often function like
safety valves, introducing change in case of an emergency. Leadership shakeups can be
costly in terms of time, resources, labor, and severance compensation, leading to a prefer-
ence for in-​house promotion and extreme caution in general. In neither case where tran-
sition or crisis occurs is there any guarantee that risks taken will pay off; but, if the goal is
to demonstrate change and innovation to put stakeholders at ease in a moment of crisis,
transitions of leadership can be rationalized as serving the best interest of a network.

FOURTH-​PLACE CRISES: 2004 AND 2016

ABC offers a concrete case study of these dynamics between crisis, transition, and
risk. In fact, looking at the network’s efforts at innovation and control in both 2004
and 2016, we can see parallel tales of ratings crisis giving way to risky creative maneu-
vers, programming strategies, and, ultimately, huge shakeups in executive personnel.
In both these years, under ambitious entertainment presidents, ABC found itself in
fourth place, last in a competition for viewers, as measured by ratings with three other
major US broadcast networks—​NBC, CBS, and Fox—​who, by 2016, all fought for mar-
ket share in an oversaturated television industry increasingly fragmented by cable and
online streaming platforms. Thus, last-​place finishes fed internal resolutions to make
large-​scale changes to leadership and programming.
Having failed to post a profit in seven years in addition to its fourth-​place finish,
ABC needed a win in 2004. Chairman of the Entertainment Group Lloyd Braun sought
out successful Alias creator and showrunner J. J. Abrams to rewrite a series pilot out-
line that was pitched to Braun by previous writers but never quite hit the mark. Olga
Craig (2005) details Braun’s vision: “He envisaged the show as a cross between Cast
Away, the 2000 film starring Tom Hanks, and Survivor (CBS, 2000–​), the reality tele-
vision show set on a desert island.” According to Craig, Braun was so impressed with
Abrams’ outline for Lost (2004–​2010) that he began to imagine how it could get ABC

28
 ABC

out of its current rut and into stronger competition with the other broadcast networks.
Braun said of Abrams’ outline: “It’s the best piece of television I’ve ever read. I was out
of my mind. I knew it would make noise that would be so big, so different, you couldn’t
avoid it” (Craig 2005). Braun greenlit the project and set the pilot episode budget at a
reported $12 million—​quite a fortune for a television series at that time, and quite a risk
based on an outline with no official script yet approved. Perhaps what allayed Braun’s
anxiety about investing so much into an untested project of this scale was Abrams’ sta-
tus as a proven showrunner.
Nevertheless, Braun immediately faced scrutiny for this risk. Then-​chairman and
CEO of Disney Michael Eisner and his deputy Bob Iger both considered Lost to be an
out-​of-​control passion project. Craig sets the scene:

behind the scenes, while the pilot was being filmed in Hawaii, Braun’s bosses were
furious at the cost and had decided to pull the plug on him. Iger, insisting that it would
never work as a series, saved the worst of his sarcasm for the fact that the writers still
did not even know what the mysterious presence on the island was. Eisner was equally
scathing, describing it as another “crazy” Abrams project.
(2005)

Ultimately, what Eisner and Iger perceived as reckless spending on an untested property
resulted in a leadership shakeup at ABC. Braun was out, replaced by Stephen McPher-
son. The shakeup also gave them cover to redistribute power, renaming McPherson’s
position as “chief programming executive” (no longer a “chairman”) and making him
report to Anne Sweeney, who became president of the Disney/​ABC Television Group.
Nevertheless, with regard to programming, Lost survived the pilot season despite its
champion’s departure, most likely because so much money was sunk into the series that
Eisner and Iger could not justify killing it before its fall premiere. Of course, Braun’s
risky gamble paid off: supported by an effective advertising campaign under the new
regime, Lost became a runaway success for ABC, earning the network its biggest ratings
since 2000, garnering a host of critical acclaim and awards, and becoming ABC’s fastest
selling show internationally (Craig 2005). The story of Lost reveals a deeper understand-
ing of the network logics through which risk is both cultivated—​within reason—​and
also managed through moments of transition when those tolerances are exceeded.
While Lost showcases how a network like ABC navigates the pressure to deliver inno-
vative success within relatively safe margins set by the Disney upper echelon, Braun had
other series in development when he was fired that provided the network years of addi-
tional success. The same motivators that moved him to champion Lost influenced him
and his second-​in-​command, ABC president Susan Lyne, to order pilots for Desperate
Housewives (2004–​2012), Dancing with the Stars (2005–​), and Grey’s Anatomy (2005–​).
Peter Lauria described what McPherson inherited from Braun:

In 2004, the year McPherson took the reins, Lost made its debut, in lockstep
with Desperate Housewives, Dancing With the Stars, and Grey’s Anatomy. ABC
Entertainment broadcast revenue, which includes the ABC network, television stations

29
K r i s t e n J . Wa r n e r

owned by its parent company, and other items, jumped from $5.4 billion to $6.6 billion
two years later.
(Lauria 2010)

Newsweek reinforced the network success story:

The sexy suburbanites of ABC’s Desperate Housewives are the darlings of the fall TV
season, with more than 20 million viewers tuning in to each of the first two shows. And
more than 18 million people are watching Lost to find out which castaway will be the
next meal for the mysterious monster. Those two hits have given something ABC
hasn’t seen in a long time: solid berths in the Nielsen top 10. In addition to Housewives
(No. 4) and Lost (No. 9), two other new shows, Boston Legal and Wife Swap, have been
strong performers, providing ABC momentum to pull out of its fourth-​place slump. The
network is now in second place among the coveted 18-​to 49-​year-​old audience, running
ahead of NBC, whose once unbeatable Thursday lineup is no longer must-​see TV.
(“Desperate” 2004)

Lost’s diverse, ensemble cast, as well as the prominence of women in leading roles on
top programs like Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy, suggests that Braun
and Lyne were cultivating both white women and women of color as audiences for
the network. Indeed, in 2004, trade journal Mediaweek reported that Lyne’s strategy
to return the network to its “roots” as a strong broadcast network meant “putting on
more female-​oriented family dramas like past ABC hit thirtysomething” (Consoli 2004,
7). While these moves paid off—​ultimately, for Braun’s successors—​the network would
soon return to more manageable, predictable norms without a crisis to motivate con-
tinued risk.
Although ABC may have been rated second in the coveted 18-​to 49-​year-​old demo-
graphic in 2004, by 2016 it had returned to fourth-​place status among the major broad-
cast networks. Of the series that had launched its successful 2004 run, only two were
still on air: Grey’s and Dancing. McPherson was put out to pasture in 2010 officially
for failing to reproduce the success he inherited from Braun and Lyne and unoffi-
cially because of sexual harassment allegations. Following successful turns in charge
of BBC America and, most recently, ABC Family, Braun’s replacement Paul Lee opted
to expand the production relationship between the network and Grey’s showrunner
Shonda Rhimes. By 2014, ABC began marketing a host of shows under her Shondaland
production company banner that contributed to a Thursday night programming block
called “TGIT”—​Thank God It’s Thursday. Lee sough to build a diverse and inclusive
brand with field-​tested and established talent such as Rhimes, ultimately branching out
into comedies with Kenya Barris’ black-​ish (2014–​) and Nahnatchka Khan’s Fresh Off
the Boat (2015–​). Lee promised that programs incorporating inclusion and diversity
would showcase an authenticity that resonated with audiences across all racial groups—​
a strategy that surely informed decisions to pursue greater diversity in casting the Bach-
elor franchise, too. Although critics respected ABC’s efforts, by 2016 the gambits Lee
pursued had not translated into sufficient success to prevent another transition. ABC

30
 ABC

faced a new fourth-​place crisis, and Ben Sherwood, president of the Disney/​ABC Tele-
vision Group, believed that major changes and personnel strategies could be justified
after two years of pursuing this particular programming agenda. Lee stepped down in
February 2016.1
Initiating another leadership transition, Sherwood promoted Channing Dungey to
entertainment president. Rising to senior leadership under Lee’s regime, Dungey had
overseen all the Shondaland series in her previous role as executive vice president of
drama development. Now the first African American to run a major broadcast network,
Dungey offered Sherwood a promise of smooth transition (thanks to her thirteen-​year
tenure with ABC), as well as sign of corporate commitment to greater diversity. How-
ever, just as Eisner and Iger redistributed power after Braun and Lyne, Sherwood uti-
lized the leadership change to redefine the position as well, limiting Dungey’s position
to entertainment president for the network, as opposed to also leading ABC Studios,
too, as her predecessors had. In this new model, the president of ABC Studios reported
directly to Sherwood. Cynthia Littleton (2016) posited this as a logical change:

The decision to break up the reporting structure of the network and studio was meant
to provide more independence to the studio, which has become a bigger profit center
than the network through the growth of the worldwide content licensing business.

Yet Sherwood’s act of consolidating power over network and studio alike certainly less-
ened the degree of influence and agency to effect change that past entertainment chiefs
enjoyed. Sherwood rationalized this move as part of the “winds of change” fueling the
leadership transition.

Paul [Lee] oversaw the network and the studio, and when this change happened, it was
a chance to let the winds of change blow through the organization and bring Channing
to the table with all of her ideas and her energy and her collaborative spirit, and also to
bring Patrick [Moran, president of ABC Studios] to the table with all his dynamism and
his teamwork and all his ideas.
(Birnbaum 2016)

Collaborative spirit may have abounded, but more people reporting to Sherwood also
ensured fewer fiefdoms outside his control. Sherwood’s gain could only be made in a
time of crisis, when his winds of change allowed him to (re)set the agenda for the future
of the network. Sherwood continued to play a game of risk mitigated by confidence in
his own labor, his management of other executives, and his ability to get them on board
with a new vision—​one that recuperated ABC’s appeals to white audiences.

ENDS ARE BEGINNINGS: FROM DIVERSITY TO THE

HEARTLAND
The winds of change generated by ABC’s 2016 fourth-​place crisis did not just enable
Sherwood to place his chosen personnel, but also determined what reorientations were

31
K r i s t e n J . Wa r n e r

in store for the network’s programming. Prior to resigning, Lee had helped orchestrate a
brand designed around diversity and inclusion that better represented America. Much
ABC programming attempted to target a variety of audience demographics including,
but not limited to, people of color. As Stephen Battaglio writes,

He [Lee] consistently picked shows that he felt exemplified ABC’s brand—​layered, often
provocative and with a hint of mirth—​and advocated for guilty pleasure serials that
appeal to women, such as Scandal with plots that unfold over several weeks.
(Battaglio 2016)

Lee had banked on a slate of serialized, soapy, sexy shows that targeted men and women
of color, as well as white women. However, this strategy later conflicted with Sherwood’s
vision of what types of shows and audiences could, once again, lift ABC from its fourth-​
place rut. Battaglio notes that Sherwood took stock of what CBS, the number one broad-
cast television network, was producing and had suggested Lee consider carrying similar
kinds of series. “Sherwood … encouraged Lee to take a page from CBS’ book by devel-
oping more procedural shows, such as NCIS, that allow viewers to watch occasional epi-
sodes without feeling like they are missing out” (Battaglio 2016). David Sims asserts that
while episodic shows on CBS like NCIS (2003–​) and Criminal Minds (2005–​2020) are
hugely successful and do allow new viewers to enter at any point, they also “tend to skew
much older, while ABC does better in the youthful demographics favored by advertis-
ers” (2016). While it may be counterintuitive to abandon a desirable demographic, Sher-
wood’s strategy may have stemmed from desiring a consistent, loyal base of viewership,
as well as a larger overall audience in an age of shrinking Nielsen ratings.
By the time Dungey became entertainment president, then, this move toward Sher-
wood’s idea of crime procedurals was already taking shape. When asked what she would
like to see from her future ABC programming, she posited:

I would love to see more closed-​ended procedurals on the network, particularly because
we have to schedule 35 weeks of a year, and it’s nice because, with a procedural, you
can generally do 22 episodes, and they also repeat pretty well.
(Villareal 2016)

Using similar language as Sherwood, Dungey’s desire to embrace more procedural

series to poach CBS’s viewers made clear how tensions between innovation and control
can privilege already successful, predictable routines over creative innovation, even in
crisis.
Beyond this desire for CBS’s procedural audience, Dungey and Sherwood publicly
stated after the 2016 US presidential election an interest in targeting more program-
ming to working-​class voters they perceived to have supported Donald Trump. At a
media summit in December 2016, Dungey remarked:

With our dramas, we have a lot of shows that feature very well-​to-​do well-​educated
people who are driving very nice cars and living in extremely nice places. There is

32
 ABC

definitely still room for that, and we absolutely want to continue to tell those stories
because wish fulfillment is a critical part of what we do as entertainers. But in recent
history we haven’t paid enough attention to some of the true realities of what life is like
for everyday Americans in our dramas.
(Adalian 2016)

A network’s programming mission can always change, but, in this instance, the mission
was being redefined to cater to unnamed but heavily inferred rural white audiences in
the Heartland who did not indulge in the wish fulfillment ABC had been offering in
series set in and aimed at the so-​called liberal coasts. While Dungey nominates mark-
ers of class difference, the diversity of ABC’s programming had offered turned as much
on race, given that its Lee-​era series featured leads of color and diverse casts living in
utopic worlds of equality. Thus, it seemed the network’s new imagined future would
increasingly involve programming for working-​class white viewers looking for a refuge
from that vision—​even as ABC maintained a balance of series appealing to viewers
already invested in the network’s previous offerings. That existing audience, moreover,
was likely not as diverse as the characters offered on screen. In 2017, Nielsen reported
that four of ABC’s biggest series, including Scandal, black-​ish, Secrets and Lies (2015–​
2016), and How to Get Away With Murder, featuring African American lead actors
were watched by more than 60% non-​Black audiences (“For” 2017). While the report
does not specify the specific percentage of white audience members, they likely con-
stitute a significant amount. In short, the ABC mission could retain some measure of
racial diversity as decoration and wish fulfillment for its refigured audiences, but series
explicitly targeting white women and people of color had no guarantee of withstanding
the new priorities of the Sherwood/​Dungey regime.
Returning to The Bachelorette, we can now see how, in her capacity as entertainment
president, Dungey finally brought racial equity to a series that had so long resisted it,
executing a strategy to deliver change. However, what if that story of “success” actually
signaled the end of the Paul Lee mission to differentiate ABC from the competition,
and the beginning of a new moment of crisis in which casting practices and demo-
graphic priorities were to be reoriented around new goalposts? For Ben Sherwood,
ABC’s recurring fourth-​place crisis created an opportunity to reimagine the network’s
audience, to capture a different kind of viewer while hoping to maintain the trust of the
audience ABC already had. In sum, understanding how leadership changes impact pro-
gramming and imagined audience can reveal the often-​paradoxical positions industrial
stakeholders occupy in the course of developing program content while negotiating
transition and crisis. Sherwood and Dungey have now departed, too, and subsequent
regimes will surely continue this process of redefining programming priorities. Fur-
thermore, considering the power of logics such as risk, innovation, and control forces
our conversations about the television industries away from cliché axioms about pro-
grammers “giving the people what they want” and toward keener perceptions of the
way audience interests are constructed alongside dramatic shifts in power and status
among different networks and internally among decision-​making personnel. Making
cultivated gambles to effect innovation and change, networks like ABC operate in a

33
K r i s t e n J . Wa r n e r

perpetual cycle of success and crisis in which risks are taken to disrupt one status quo
before ultimately installing another.

NOTE

1 According to Caroline Framke (2016), the terms for Lee’s exit from ABC are unclear: “The
ABC press release says he ‘decided to step down,’ while The Hollywood Reporter claims he was
‘forced out,’ and The New York Times says he ‘resigned after losing a struggle over the network’s
direction.’ ”

REFERENCES
Adalian, Josef. 2016. “ABC Wants to Focus More of Its Programming on the Working Class in the
Age of Trump.” Vulture, December 1. Accessed December 31, 2021. www.vulture.com/​2016/​
12/​abc-​changing-​programming-​philosophy-​due-​to-​trump.html.
Battaglio, Stephen. 2016. “New ABC President Channing Dungey Gained Respect Amid Rise
to Top.” Los Angeles Times, February 17. Accessed December 31, 2021. www.latimes.com/
entertainment/​envelope/​cotown/​la-​et-​ct-​channing-​dungey-​abc-​entertainment-​20160217-​
story.html.
Birnbaum, Debra. 2016. “ABC Heads Ben Sherwood and Channing Dungey on Paul Lee’s Exit,
Making History and Live Programming.” Variety, February 19. Accessed December 31, 2019.
http://​vari​ety.com/​2016/​tv/​news/​abc-​ben-​sherw​ood-​chann​ing-​dun​gey-​paul-​lee-​chan​ges-​
cha​llen​ges-​120​1710​443/​.
Consoli, John. 2004. “ABC Turnaround Not That Simple.” Mediaweek, March 8.
Craig, Olga. 2005. “The Man Who Discovered ‘Lost’—​and Found Himself Out of a Job.” Tele-
graph, August 14. Accessed December 31, 2021. www.telegraph.co.uk/​news/​worldnews/​
northamerica/​usa/​1496199/​The-​man-​who-​discovered-​Lost-​and-​found-​himself-​out-​of-​a-​
job.html.
de Moraes, Lisa. 2016. “ ‘The Bachelor’ Needs More Diverse ‘Pool of Candidates’, Says Program-
ming Chief Channing Dungey—​TCA.” Deadline Hollywood, August 4. Accessed December
31, 2021. http://​deadl​ine.com/​2016/​08/​the-​bache​lor-​divers​ity-​pool-​can​dida​tes-​chann​ing-​
dun​gey-​unr​eal-​tca-​120​1798​469/​.
“Desperate? Not ABC.” 2004. Newsweek, October 24. Accessed December 31, 2021. www.news-
week.com/​desperate-​not-​abc-​129849.
“For Us by Us? The Mainstream Appeal of Black Content.” 2017. Nielsen.com, February 8.
Accessed December 31, 2021. www.nielsen.com/​us/​en/​insights/​news/​2017/​for-​us-​by-​us-​the-​
mainstream-​appeal-​of-​black-​content.html.
Framke, Caroline. 2016. “ABC’s Channing Dungey is Now the First Black President of a Major
TV Network.” Vox, February 17. Accessed December 31, 2021. www.vox.com/​2016/​2/​17/​
11038430/​abc-​president-​channing-​dungey-​paul-​lee-​shonda.
“Judge Dismisses ‘Bachelor’ Discrimination Lawsuit.” 2012. CNN, October 16. Accessed Decem-
ber 31, 2021. www.cnn.com/​2012/​10/​16/​showbiz/​bachelor-​lawsuit/​.
Lauria, Peter. 2010. “ABC’s Stephen McPherson Resigns as Entertainment Chief.” The Daily
Beast, July 27. Accessed December 31, 2021. www.thedailybeast.com/​abcs-​stephen-
mcpherson-resigns-​as-​entertainment-​chief.

34
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
többször meg nem áldhatná“. Ki ne mondana Ament imájára? E
rettenthetlen szerető sziv imája bizony áldást hozott hazájára!
Szóltunk egy derék katonáról s egy derék irórúl, mint a közelmult
korszak angol lovagjának példányairól, – ne szólanánk tehát egy
harmadikról is, kinek sziv-emelő történetét – meg vagyok győződve
– idősebb hallgatóim közül sokan olvasák és édesen emlékeznek rá:
ne szólanánk egy derék egyházi férfiuról is, megemlékezvén Heber
Reginaldról, az angol férfiak egyik legjelesbikéről? A kedves költő, a
kitüntető előnyöknek, szép tulajdonoknak: születésnek, elmeélnek,
hirnévnek, jellem-nagyságnak, jólétnek boldog birtokosa – ez
szülötte-földének, Hoderelnek, szeretett lelki-pásztora, ki „jó tanácsot
adott hiveinek szorongattatásikban, segedelmet bajaikban, vigaszt
megpróbáltatásaikban – gyakran saját életének veszélyeztetésével
térdelvén betegágyaik mellett, biztatva, bátoritva, hol szükségét látta;
békéltetve a háborúskodókat, bőkezüen segitve a szükölködőket.“
Midőn az indiai püspökséggel megkinálták: először visszautasitá;
de később megfontolván (s ügyét oda terjesztvén fel, hol az ily
kegyes emberek kételyeiket elő szokták adni): vissza vette tagadó
válaszát s felkészült küldetésére és szeretett gyülekezete
elhagyására. „Édes gyermekeim, szeressétek egymást s
bocsássatok meg egymásnak“ – ezek voltak a végső szent szavak,
melyeket siró nyájához intézett. És avval elvált tőlök, talán azt is
tudva, hogy soha többé nem látja őket. Épen mint az előbb emlitett
derekaknál: nála is szeretet és kötelesség volt az élet czélja. Boldog
ő és boldogok azok, kik oly dicsőségesen maradtak hivei e kettőnek!
Nejéhez e kedves sorokat irja útjáról:

Ha itt lehetnél én szerelmem,

S a kicsinyek is énvelem:
Mily édes-nyugodtan haladna
Hajónk a zajgó tengeren.

Szivem úgy vágyik teutánad,

Midőn tikkadt lélekzetem
Enyhűletét, a regg szelében,
Keresi a fedélzeten.
 S szivem úgy vágyik teutánad,
A pusztákat ha járdalom,
S még inkább kunyhóm mécse mellett,
Még inkább, én jó angyalom!

A lassan mászó nap unalmát

Elűzni könyvemet veszem:
De, hogy figyeljen, hogy biztasson,
Ah nincs egy ajk, se’ fül, se’ szem!

De ha az esti s hajnal-csillag
Az Ur előtt térdelve lát:
Érzem, hogy – bár oly távol estél –
Mond’sz értem te is egy imát…

Előre hát! bizton előre!

Bár merre visz el ösvenyem:
Hindosztán égő puszta sikján
Vagy sziklás, zord Almor-hegyen.

Vagy Delhi fényes kapujánál,

S vad Malwah-n át, előre csak!
Mert ah az üdv, ott nyugat földén
Édes reménynyel hivogat.

Mondják, Bombay, sok tornyod fénylik,

S alattad tenger vize zúg:
De boldogabb két sziv még nem volt,
Mint, ha mi ott találkozunk!

Mintha csak Collingwood és Sárika, Southey és Edith lennének.

Szeretete élete egyik részét teszi. S mi is lenne az élet e nélkül?
Szeretet nélkül nem tudok embert képzelni!
Mily meginditó Heber egyik megjegyzése „Utazás Indiákon“
czimü könyvében – midőn kérdezte egyik városban a
bennszülötteket, hogy az indiai kormányzók közül melyiket szereti
inkább a nép, s úgy találta, hogy bár Wellesley lordot és Hastings
Warrent becsülik, mint a két legnagyobb férfiat, ki a világ e részét
valaha kormányozta, – de a nép mégis nagyobb szeretettel
emlékezik Cleaveland birórúl, ki 1784-ben huszonkilencz éves
korában halt meg. A nép szobrot emelt sirján s vallásos ünneppel üli
meg emlékét. A szelid Heber emlékét is ily szives szeretettel őrzi
meg hazája.
Cleaveland hát 1784-ben halt meg s a pogányok szeretetteljes
emlékezetben tartják hát még most is? Ej, hiszen az 1784-ik év
nevezetes a mi barátunk, „Európa első lovagjának“ életében is. Hisz
ez esztendőben töltötte be huszonegyedik évét s ekkor adott
Carlton-house megnyitására egy nagy tánczvigalmat a
nemességnek s az uraknak, s elhiszem akkor volt rajta az a halvány
piros kabát, melyet fönebb iránk le. Kiváncsi voltam, hogy valami
részletest olvassak e bálról, s felkutattam a régi lapokat, ha valamit
kaphatnék bennök. A mulatság február 10-én volt. Az „Európai
gyüjtemények“ 1784-diki márcziusi füzetében mindjárt rátaláltam.
„Miután Carlton-house átalakitása bevégzett tény: közöljük
olvasóinkkal az államtermek leirását, úgy a mint azok e hó 10-én
láthatók valának, midőn Ő királyi Felsége nagyszerü bált adott a
legfőbb és közép nemességnek… Az elfogadó-terem mindjárt
beléptünkkor a nagyság és ragyogás kifejezhetlen eszméjével tölti el
beblünket.
„A trón-szék tisztára meg van aranyozva s bibor-piros damaszttal
bevonva; a szék-lábak minden sarkát oroszlány-fej ékiti, az erő és
hatalom jelképzésére, a lábakra magukra pedig kigyók tekerőznek, a
bölcseség jelölésére. A trónnal szemben Minerva siska áll, az
ablakok fölött pedig a dicsőséget nagyszerü dicsfénytől körülvett
Szent György fejezi ki.
„A tulajdonképi remek-mű azonban maga a terem, mely minden
ékitményében nagy találékonyságot árul el. Czitrom-sárga kamuka
atlaszszal van kárpitozva. A függönyök, kerevetek, és székek ugyan
oly szövetből készültek. A terem fel-lapját jelképes festmények ékitik:
a Grácziák, a Múzsák, Jupiter, Merkur, Apollo, Páris, – s két bágyadt
aranyozásu csilár függ le róla. Valójában lehetetlen, hogy az ember
szavakkal megfelelőleg méltányolni tudja ez ékitményeknek akár
rendkivüli tökélyü kivitelét, akár bámulatos tervezetét. Mind ez
ékitmények egy-egy pálma-fát ábrázolnak, melyek mindenikéből öt-
öt ág nyúlik ki, gyertyák számára, a fa törzseit pedig egy-egy mezei
nimfa szép alakja ékiti fel virág-füzérekkel. A terem közepén szintén
egy nagy karos gyertya-tartó áll. Hogy e nagyszerü termet d a n s
s o n p l u s b e a u j o u r láthassa az ember: a kandalló fölötti
tükörben kell megnézni. A termek hosszu sora, a diszteremtől egész
a tánczteremig, ha az ajtók nyitva vannak, a legnagyobbszerü
látmányt nyújtja, mit csak valaha emberi szem látott.“
A „Gentleman’s Magazin“ ugyan az évi s havi (1784. márczius)
számában egy más ünnepély van leirva, hol megint egy más, angol
származásu nagy ur játszta a főszerepet. Az idézett lap mondja:
„A főkormányzó ő kegyelmessége a parancs értelmében,
nyilvános kihallgattatásra bocsáttatott a congressus elébe; miután
helyet foglalt volna, egy kis szünet mulva tudatta vele az elnök, hogy
az összegyülekezett Egyesült Államok készek jelentés-tétele
kihallgatására, – mire föállott s igy szólott:
„Elnök ur! miután azon nagy események, melyektől
visszalépésem függött, végre bekövetkeztek: im’ megjelenek a
congressus előtt, hogy ismét kezeibe tegyem le ama hivatalt, melyet
rám bizott, s megkérjem, hogy mentsen fel engem ez úttal hazám
szolgálatától.
„Függetlenségünk és hatalmi állásunk elismertetése által
boldogitva: lelépek a polczról, melyre csak remegve léptem; de a
remegést csakhamar legyőzte ügyünk igazságába vetett
bizodalmam, a felsőbb hatalomnak a nemzet által való
támogattatása és az ég kegyelme. És most bezárom hivataloskodó
életemet: drága hazánk érdekeit a mindenható isten pártfogásába és
előljáróit az Ő szent kegyelmébe ajánlva. Bevégezvén a rám
kiszabott munkát: én visszalépek a cselekvés nagy szinpadáról, s
szeretetteljes búcsut mondván e fényes testületnek, melynek
parancsait oly hoszas ideig hajtám végre, im’ leteszem hivatalomat
és visszalépek a nyilvános élet teréről.“
Az elnök erre igy felelt:
„Uram! miután ön a szabadságnak az Uj Világban fölemelt
zászlaját megvédelmezé, miután ön az elnyomóknak és az
elnyomottaknak egyaránt üdvös tanitást nyújtott: polgártársainak
áldásától kisérve lép vissza, de erényeinek dicsősége azért nem
végződik katonai parancsnokságával, hanem élni fog az a késő
utókor emlékezetében is!“
És vajon, melyik volt a ragyogóbb látvány: György herczeg
londoni ház-szentelőünnepélye, avagy Washington lelépése? Melyik
az utókor bámulatára méltó nemes jellem: az a csipkékkel és
paszománynyal teleaggatott léhűtő tánczmester, vagy pedig az a
hős, ki a mocsoktalan becsület, szeplőtelen tisztaság, törhetlen
bátorság és kivivott diadal dicső élete után kardját hüvelyébe
bocsátja? Melyik a kettő közűl az igaz ember? S vajon egyátalán
nem az-e az igaz ember, ki dicső czél felé tör, egész élte folytán
tiszta marad, becsületét szeplőtelen megőrzi, polgártársai
becsülését és családja szeretetét élvezi, szerencséjét
alázatossággal, szerencsétlenségét bátor kitartással hordozza s jó
és balsorsában egyként az igazság részén áll? Mutassátok meg
nekem azt a boldog embert, kinek életében meg vannak ezek a
vonások: s őt becsüljük, mint igaz embert, akármiféle rangu legyen
is, – mutassatok egy herczeget a ki ilyen: s az aztán biztos lehet
szeretetünk, hűségünk felől. Britannia szive még most is szeretettől
dobog III. György iránt, – nem, hogy bölcs és igazságos volt, hanem
mivel élete tiszta, szándoka becsületes volt, hanem mivel az istent
legjobb belátása szerint imádta. S azt tartom, királyi botjának
örökösnőjében22) bölcsebb uralkodást s ép oly tiszteletreméltó,
tiszta életet ismerünk el, – és meg vagyok győződve: erkölcseinek
jövendő festője szives készséggel fogja becsülni e tiszta életet s
elismeréssel fogja emliteni e mocsoktalan erényt.
VÉGE.
 Lábjegyzetek.
1) A katholikusok. Ford.
2) Ezt 1860 körül mondotta Thackeray. Ford.
3) Igazán: argumentum ad hominem. Ford.
4) Ma egy félreeső, csöndes tér, akkor az előkelő világ
középpontja. Ford.
5) Bullok = bika. Ford.
6) „Udvari mulattató“, vagy „A tökéletes kártyás.“ Ford.
7) Temple = az ügyvédek negyede Londonban; „Temple-Beau“ =
e városrészi divatlap. Ford.
8) Az eredetiben quadrille-t; nálunk a „papucs“ ilyen ujj-
kopogatós, a vesztes fejére fejkötőt tétető kártyajáték. Ford.
9) Albert herczeg, Viktoria királynő férje. Ford.
10) A nagy menet alkalmával, – vagy is: püspök lett. Ford.
11) Egyesitett szolgálat gyüldéje. Ford.
12) Most a klubok utczája. Ford.
13) Lord John Russel. Ford.
14) Az angol épen úgy ejti ki a csizmát (= boot, olvasd b ú t ) mint
Bute nevét. Ford.
15) Szépirodalmi folyóirat. Ford.
16) Szórul szóra: „and turned a piece of meat with a string“ = egy
darab hust akasztott. Ford.
17) Lear király: 5-ik felv. utolsó jelenet. Vörösmarty forditása
szerint. Ford.
18) Madame Tussand viasz-alakjai közt Londonban meglátod a
világ minden hires zsiványának, emberének, királyának élethű
mását. Ford.
19) Azaz: miért ragadt a kövezethez? Ford.
20) Blundering general = hibákat ejtő tábornok. Ford.
21) Mintha csak az orvosságos üvegen olvasná az ember:
óránként ötezer evő-kanállal!
22) Viktoria királynő.

Nyomatott Bécsben, Holzhausen Adolfnál.

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