Timothy Havens
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814737200
- eISBN:
- 9780814759448
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814737200.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter illustrates how black programming produced elsewhere navigates the circuits of contemporary commercial television and global, digital distribution platforms. It looks at three examples ...
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This chapter illustrates how black programming produced elsewhere navigates the circuits of contemporary commercial television and global, digital distribution platforms. It looks at three examples of non-American black television and video programming: the animated Samoan/ Māori television series bro'Town (2004–2009); the booming Nigerian videofilm industry known as Nollywood; and the transnational pirating of the first Belizean television drama Noh Matta Wat (2005–2008). Together, these examples display several important trends in black television during an era of digitization, globalization, and marketization. First, there is an obvious increase in the variety of video and television programming featuring non-U.S. blacks circulating internationally. Secondly, these programs retain significant cultural specificity. Lastly, black television programming travels through disorganized, parallel markets, which make production funding highly precarious.Less
This chapter illustrates how black programming produced elsewhere navigates the circuits of contemporary commercial television and global, digital distribution platforms. It looks at three examples of non-American black television and video programming: the animated Samoan/ Māori television series bro'Town (2004–2009); the booming Nigerian videofilm industry known as Nollywood; and the transnational pirating of the first Belizean television drama Noh Matta Wat (2005–2008). Together, these examples display several important trends in black television during an era of digitization, globalization, and marketization. First, there is an obvious increase in the variety of video and television programming featuring non-U.S. blacks circulating internationally. Secondly, these programs retain significant cultural specificity. Lastly, black television programming travels through disorganized, parallel markets, which make production funding highly precarious.
