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Abstract
In the era of TVIII, characterised 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 paper 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 paper then goes on to examine programme merchandising, an increasingly central strategy in TVIII. Through an analysis of different merchandising strategies the paper 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.
Notes
1. While, as Paul Grainge argues, branding was apparent in the US film industries from the first decade of the twentieth century, it was only by the 1990s that ‘branding had become an especially powerful imperative for both new and established media companies’ (Citation2004, p. 344).
2. Westcott (Citation1999, p. 25) claims that ‘The worldwide licensing industry is worth an estimated $132 billion.’
3. By 2005, The Sopranos had won 17 Emmys and five Golden Globes, Sex and the City had won seven Emmys and eight Golden Globes, and Six Feet Under had won seven Emmys and three Golden Globes.
4. The appropriation of an aesthetic discourse by the television industry is, of course, not new, and has been extensively explored in academic literature on the development of ‘quality television’ (see, for example, Feuer et al. Citation1984; Gitlin Citation1994; Jancovich & Lyons Citation2003). While the commercialisation of aesthetics as a marketing strategy has been understood as devaluing critical tools for aesthetic evaluation (Thompson Citation1997), as I have argued elsewhere, such arguments depend on establishing a rather problematic binary in which aesthetics is understood to be inherently and necessarily separate from industry (Johnson Citation2005).
5. The 1990 Broadcasting Act also changed the status of Channel 4 from a subsidiary of the IBA to a public corporation, but it was not until February 1999 that Channel 4 was allowed to keep all of the revenue from the sale of its advertising.
6. E4 was subsequently available through Freeview, a free digital service that requires the one‐off purchase of a set‐top box or a digital television.
7. The same strategy was used by E4 for other imported US series, and is also used by other digital, satellite and cable channels in the UK such as Sky One.
8. The fifth season of The Sopranos began on E4 on 10 August 2004, and began on Channel 4 on 16 August 2004. Similarly, the fourth season of Six Feet Under started on E4 on 12 August, but was not shown on Channel 4 until 17 August 2004.
9. The horn is advertised on the fan site ‘Sopranoland’ as ‘The Godfather Car Horn. Just like Paulie has!’, see http://www.sopranoland.com/mall/misc.html (accessed 19 January 2005).
10. The BaddaBing is the strip club in The Sopranos in which the mobsters conduct much of their business.
11. Artie Bucco is a childhood friend of Tony Soprano, who owns the restaurant Vesuvio, frequented by the mobsters and their families.
12. Matt Hills' (Citation2005) work on episode guides demonstrates the significant role that merchandise can have in managing viewers' relationships with programmes. He argues that written and online guides function to manage the seriality of television programmes and contribute to the positioning of programmes as ‘quality’.
13. Six Feet Under has series information and a trivia game available online, as well as images, video clips, a ringtone of the series' theme tune, and episode guide available through HBO mobile. In addition to this, The Sopranos also includes ‘Big Pussy's Poker Heaven’, an online game where you play with one of the characters from the series, two card games through HBO mobile and ringtones featuring lines spoken by characters from the series.
14. The ABC series Lost provides a good example of this. The series has used a number of innovative diegetic marketing and merchandising strategies. For example, Channel 4 ran a fake advert for a company featured in the series during transmission of the second season, encouraging viewers to call a number that directs them to a fake website. The website makes direct reference to a novel, Bad Twin, that featured in the television series. Hyperion published Bad Twin, which was marketed as being authored by Gary Troup (an anagram of purgatory) a fictional character aboard the fictional Oceanic flight 815 which crashed at the beginning of the series.