Week 5 Sports and TV Style

The Network Era 1950-1970

•The Big 3 dominated programming; viewers had very little

contro

The Multi-channel Era 1980-2000

Cable technology provides an influx of channels that challenge

The Big 3’s power; viewers gaining more control

The Post-Network Era 2000s today

•The Big 3 no longer rule the game; viewers are in total control

between the crazy number of channels available and

streaming/on demand services

Televisuality = a style and knowing exhibitionism that

wanted to attract audiences

and breakthrough increasing competition clutter by distinguishing programming and

network brand identity

Starting in the 1980s, American mass-market television

underwent

a HUGE change

Moved from a form of word-based to

a visually-based aesthetic based on an extreme self-consciousness of style

Televisuality was not solely caused

by developments in technology

Televisuality emerges from changes in

the industry’s mode of production, in programming practice, in the audience and its expectations, and in an economic crisis in network TV

Some tech that allowed this change in sports:

switchers, nonlinear editing tools, and the Stedicam & Skycam

TV became popular by

embracing cinematic and

videographic aesthetics

Videographic

marked by

acute hyperactivity and an

obsession with effects

Cinematic –

high production value, feature-style cinematography

Formal elements:

narrative, cinematography, sound, mis-en-scene, editing

Sports TV is entering its

“AI” era which allows to interact with social media, purchase

merchandise, and make in-game wagers

This further commodifies

the laborers, the players

Prosumers =

fans/viewers who produce and consume content

Fan labor is often exploited

Increasingly there is a videogamegraphic

"embodiment" that has deeply influenced

television sports aesthetics, "the Madden effect

Sportsvision Developed in 1998

Liked by announcers, fans, and newcomers

SportVision was aquired by SportsMEDIA

Technology (SMT) in 2016 and

is also responsible for the swimming world record line

and the virtual insertion of lane flags

Digital advertising insertion technology allows

for virtual signage in MLB and NHL coverage

TopGolf =

the gamification of golf outside sports TV

and outside the overwhelmingly white and

unwelcoming tradition

PGA coverage now includes

4D replay and drone footage

Toptracer - Digital video overlay graphics that track the flight of

a golf ball

with a visible line complete with arcing

trajectory, speed, apex, curve and carry tracing

The Fox Trax

Introduced in 1996, the “glow puck” was a failure with players and fans

Huge technological success:

speed tracking, data gathering, image

technology

Revealed the limits of

“putting the show business” in sports

showcase producers –

function as a promotional marquee for programming seasons, they are producer/creators who are also TV insiders

Auteur-Imports –

Imports from Hollywood who garner more press and worse ratings, in theory worth the financial risk

Mainstream conversions –

producers whose style changed

with the times (e.g., Aaron

Spelling from Love Boat to

Dynasty)

TV was no longer anonymous in

the 1980s; producers and

directors were known and being

named alongside actors

–televisual authorship

Some TV genres favored

televisual performance and some did not

Genres that did not favor stylistic excess:

daytime talk shows, soap operas, video-oriented

sitcoms, non-primetime public affairs shows, some public access cable shows

Genres that did favor excess:

miniseries, primetime soap operas, hour-long dramas, children’s TV, feature films on pay-cable, commercials, network TV sports, cable news, music television, magazine shows, most reality programming, home shopping networks

Gaze =

the look of the viewer upon the onscreen action, the look of the

camera(s) photographing that action, and the look of the participants in the

onscreen action toward one another

Margaret Morse (1983) theorizes that because men aren’t allowed to look at

other men erotically in everyday life,

the scientific discourse around the male

body in sport is the only way men can objectify other men

Slow motion and instant replays rescues it from

pure display of the male body and instead justifies it with scientific investigation

This understanding doesn’t mess with the patriarchy—

the football players don’t lose power as their bodies are always in active, goal-oriented

movement and allied with social power beyond the field of play

When we use the technologies of sport to objectify athletes, we ally them with

the mechanical and therefore “controllable” and interchangeable—as bodies that can be “managed”, “owned”, and traded