Global Television Formats

INTRODUCTION

Television Formats—A Global Frameworkfor TV Studies

Tasha Oren and Sharon Shahaf

With the medium now three quarters of a century old, television studies remains tethered to its historical U.S./U.K. legacy. Despite television's global reach, the radical transformations of its associated technologies and industries, and the variety in programming and audiences, mainstream television studies holds fast to its origins—both of medium and discipline. Just as the technology and broadcasting structure of television are widely regarded as having originated in Britain and the U.S., so the discipline of television studies—emerging from the meeting place of communications, film studies, literary studies, and cultural studies—maintains a U.S./U.K.-based ...