Syndication

Paper Summary:

This paper explains the concept of syndication and looks at its impact on actors, television audiences, and the industry as a whole. It discusses how syndication can also revive interest in a defunct show that never found its audience by giving it a new time slot and lease on life. The writer states that it can sustain the revenue of a faltering actor who gave his or her "best years" to America in a particularly beloved and culturally seminal role, like Archie Bunker, but, ultimately, syndication is the art of repetition, rather than the creation of what is new.

From the Paper:

"The most recent hit television show to come to an end was the popular NBC sitcom "Friends". The show was one of the last mainstays of NBC's long-standing but faltering "Must See TV" Thursday lineup. This lineup used to include "Seinfield" but has now dwindled to a faltering "ER" and little else, a show that is also syndicated and likely to end soon, given its declining number of viewers. What was so interesting, however, in terms of the death of "Friends" as a cultural mainstay, was not the loss of this rather pedestrian sitcom, but the fact that even more than the content of the final episode, the question in the media was often how much would the actors receive for their performance in the show, and how much was the undisclosed amount they would receive when all of the episodes entered syndication. The show's presence, through syndication, had become so ubiquitous, that there were more questions about the revenue of the actors than of the show's termination itself. After all, no one could miss "Friends"--it would still be on, in recycled form, night after night."

More papers on Syndication:

• Analytical Essay # 114548 : "Digital Public Relations Channels"
• Term Paper # 112212 : "RSS Feeds and Technology"
• Analytical Essay # 109204 : "Syndicalism, Socialism and the Union Sacree"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: