Tele-branding in TVIII: the network as brand and the programme as brand

In the era of TVIII, characterized by deregulation, multimedia conglomeration, expansion and increased competition, branding has emerged as a central industrial practice. Focusing on the case of HBO, a particularly successful brand in TVIII, this article argues that branding can be understood not simply as a feature of television networks, but also as a characteristic of television programmes. It begins by examining how the network as brand is constructed and conveyed to the consumer through the use of logos, slogans and programmes. The role of programmes in the construction of brand identity is then complicated by examining the sale of programmes abroad, where programmes can be seen to contribute to the brand identity of more than one network. The article then goes on to examine programme merchandising, an increasingly central strategy in TVIII. Through an analysis of different merchandising strategies the article argues that programmes have come to act as brands in their own right, and demonstrates that the academic study of branding not only reveals the development of new industrial practices, but also offers a way of understanding the television programme and its consumption by viewers in a period when the texts of television are increasingly extended across a range of media platforms

Hideously White: British Television, Glocalization and National Identity

This article will argue that despite gaining praise from around the world for its particular form of “public service broadcasting, ” the British Broadcasting Corporation has proved to be surprisingly poor at reflecting the local, linguistic, racial, cultural, and religious differ-ences throughout the United Kingdom. Tracing its historical development, it will argue that in the past century the British Broadcasting Corporation was responsible for simply producing a form of cultural hegemony that attempted to conceive “Britishness ” within an extremely narrow set of conventions, excluding all manner of people and communities in its attempt at “making the nation as one man. ” In contrast, this article will argue that new cable and satel-lite channels are now gradually breaking down the very notion of a “unilateral ” or “unilingual ” voice, eventually providing a “common culture ” for those viewers who do not fit easily into any neat definition of British citizenship