Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

When high-speed internet became common, illegal trading of television shows became very popular. Sites like YouTube and TVLinks had popular clips and episodes of most contemporary and even classic television programs. The ability to see TV shows on the web acted as a sort of free TiVo, allowing a user to decide which programs to watch, when to watch them, and often commercials were removed.  It was convenient, but completely unsanctioned, and, the studios would initially argue, unprofitable.

 Eventually studios experimented with a pay-per-episode plan on Apple’s iTunes service. For $2 you could buy an episode of a popular TV show, and for a discount, you could purchase the whole season. 

But websites like YouTube and services like BitTorrent only gained popularity for television downloading. They had a greater selection and were free. Pundits claimed that TV studios would need free downloads to compete with piracy. The studios fought TV downloading with a strong anti-piracy campaign and lawsuits. They frequently sent take-down notices to sites like YouTube. 

But to this day illegal downloading of television shows is still popular. The TV studios have finally decided to experiment with free television episode downloads with a new website called Hulu. Users can watch many entire series and movies for free with only 15 second ads. The selection and quality are very good, the ads unobtrusive. 

 It will be interesting for this class to discuss how this changes the landscape of television and media participation. What does this service say for the fate of traditional television and cable? Will the large media companies be able to more easily tap into fan and viral marketing if shows are online? Perhaps most importantly, what does this “surrender” by the studios say about the power of a non-sanctioned community that exists around a show? Can “fan” actions of posting clips to YouTube really change an industry? 

 http://www.hulu.com 

   Check this article out.    If you know me at all, you probably know that I am a diehard fan of Friday Night Lights on NBC (Fridays at 9 o’clock).      This New York Times article about the show brings up some very compelling points about the current trend of branding and marketing of television shows and how fandom has come to be a necessity of a product’s success.   Basically she argues that the show is a stand alone product and without the sort of active fanbase most runaway hit shows possess, it is doomed and inevitably headed for cancellation.  Interesting read.      Don’t know how disappointed I am that their won’t be any Slash fan fiction of a romance between Smash Williams and Tim Riggins.  That would throw off my whole world.     In response to this article, stand up comedian Aziz Ansari from the MTV2 sketch comedy show ”Human Giant” wrote a blog post called “Friday Night Lights: The Smash Williams Chronicles” with a hilarious premise of the show’s star running back being recruited by the CIA.  Who cares if it is intended to be ironic?  Any active fan activity for this diamond in the rough of a show is fine by me.