Television Brandcasting examines U. S. television’s utility as a medium for branded storytelling. It investigates the current and historical role that television content, promotion, and hybrids of the two have played in disseminating brand messaging and influencing consumer decision-making. Juxtaposing the current period of transition with that of the 1950s-1960s, this book outlines how new technologies unsettled entrenched business models; an emergent viewing platform threatened to undermine an established one; and each era’s content providers worried over the behavior of once-dependable audiences. The anxieties led to storytelling, promotion, and advertising experiments, including today’s connected viewing initiatives and social media metrics. Offering contemporary and classic examples from the Disney channel, the CW, Showtime, and ABC Family, individual chapters focus on brandcasting at the level of the television series, network schedule, DVD, the promotional short, and the cause marketing campaign.
In this follow-up to her successful previous book, Television and New Media, Gillan book provides vital insights into television’s role in the troubling expansion of a brand-centric U.S. culture.