American Cultural Primacy in a New Media Order

AMERICAN CULTURAL PRIMACY IN A NEWMEDIA ORDERA European Perspective

Jean K. Chalaby

Abstract / The paradigmatic shift from cultural imperialism to globalization in international com-munication has transformed the research agenda of the discipline. While new issues have come tothe fore, others, such as the American pre-eminence in the world media market, tend to be ignored.This article revisits the old question of American dominance from the perspective of the newparadigm and suggests replacing the concept of cultural imperialism with that of cultural primacy.This shift allows us to analyse a salient fact of contemporary international communication withouttaking on board the assumptions and ideological biases of the cultural imperialism thesis. The articlecontrasts the limited reach of European media players with the global scope of US conglomeratesand shows the extent of American dominance of the European audiovisual market. It argues thatUS-based media groups are set to become yet more prominent in the era of multichannel televisionbecause they have successfully adopted localization of content as an international strategy. Thearticle concludes that to preserve consumer choice and programming diversity, European publicbroadcasters should forsake their nation-centric perspective, adapt their organizational structuresto the international nature of the multichannel universe, and renew their combined efforts to launchthematic channels in genres in which they could make a significant contribution.

Keywords / American cultural primacy / European film and TV production / hybridization / mediaglobalization / multichannel television / public service broadcasting / transnational television

Introduction: American Cultural Primacy and theParadigmatic Shift in International Communication

The discipline of international communication is one that has gone through vastchanges over the past decade. In the process of moving from the paradigm ofcultural imperialism to that of globalization, some issues have come to the fore whileothers have lost their relevance. My objective is to revisit the old question ofAmerican dominance in the world media market using concepts associated with theglobalization thesis.

The paradigm of cultural imperialism dominated international communicationresearch for the best part of the 1970s and 1980s. It loosely fitted into the dependencymodel, which held that developing countries (the periphery) are made dependenton industrialized nations (the core) in trade and technology (Fejes, 1981; Salinas and

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Paldán, 1974). Scholars focused on the political and economic structure of the inter-national flow of communication and argued that news and entertainment productstravelled from ‘North’ to ‘South’ without much of a counter-flow. While Anglo-American agencies dominate global news trade and US television series are to beseen everywhere, the cultural products from the ‘third world’ rarely reach the ‘West’.It was also assumed that western media carry an ideological message and thus theimpact of this cultural hegemony was an issue. These media acted as the mission-aries of capitalism, converting third world audiences to the virtues of the marketeconomy and transforming them into consumers of global brands (e.g. Dorfmanand Mattelart, 1975). The spread of consumerism and the profits of multinationalcorporations threatened the viability of local cultures (e.g. Schiller, 1969). It is fromthis premise that the calls for a ‘New World Information and Communication Order’arose in the Non-Aligned Movement and later in the UN system. Through reportsand conference resolutions, delegations from the developing world voiced theirconcerns about western hegemony in cultural trade, which, they maintained,breached their sovereignty and threatened their national identity (Hamelink, 1997;Roach, 1997).

Albeit dominant for two decades, the discourse of cultural imperialism has neverbeen left unchallenged. Jeremy Tunstall was among the first to raise doubts aboutmany of its claims, accusing its advocates of taking liberties with data, taking themarketing claims of US companies at face value and making fanciful assertions aboutthe worldwide spread of ‘false consciousness’ via satellite (Tunstall, 1977: 39, 38–63;see also Lee, 1980). Further question marks arose unexpectedly from an internationalstudy coordinated by Varis and Nordenstreng. The research, which received a largeecho in the discipline, confirmed the dominance of a few exporting countries – theUS in particular – but identified a trend towards greater regional exchanges (Varis,1984). Robert Stevenson, head of the US team, immediately picked up on theevidence of regionalism in television production and consumption to argue that‘many of the charges against the Western media and news services lack evidence tosupport them’ (Stevenson, 1984: 137; Tracey, 1985). It fell on Sinclair, Jacka andCunningham to suggest an alternative model to the patterns of international tele-vision trade. They argued that the cultural imperialism thesis was unable to providean explanation for the complexity of world television and the consolidation of regionalmedia markets in particular. They proposed a regional perspective and fashioned theconcept of ‘geolinguistic region’ to give an account of the emergence of regionalmedia players, the rise of regional production centres in ‘peripheral’ countries suchas Mexico in Latin America and Egypt in the Middle East and the growing popularityof regional content with local audiences (Sinclair et al., 1996: 1–32).

Claims about the alleged impact of western media on indigenous cultures weredismissed on several grounds. Critics showed that they did not stand up to scrutinybecause of lack of research and thin evidence (e.g. Fejes, 1981; Tunstall, 1977). Itwas also argued that the myth of strong effects was based on an archaic audiencereception model, which assumed that ideology drips into people’s veins in themanner of a hypodermic needle (Tracey, 1985: 41). Research conducted in theNetherlands (Ang, 1985) and Israel (Katz and Liebes, 1986) demonstrated that

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viewers’ responses to media imports were diverse – being dependent on the contextof reception – complex and reflective. Ien Ang maintained that worldwide audi-ences enjoyed Dallas for its melodramatic quality and were able to see through theobvious ideological connotations of the series (Ang, 1985: 4). Joseph Straubhaarexplored the role of audiences in developing countries, suggesting that they activelysearch for ‘proximity’ in cultural consumption. Viewers – particularly those from lowsocial classes – prefer local or regional content over international programmingwhen a choice is available (Straubhaar, 1991).

As a new research agenda developed – loosely informed by the paradigm ofglobalization – the cultural imperialism approach was criticized for seeing the worldmedia in black and white and lacking the flexibility to deal with the complexities ofour times. According to John Tomlinson, not only does it take for granted the domi-nance of the West but it also fails to recognize the shifting ‘patterns of distributionof power’ induced by the decentring process of globalization (Tomlinson, 1997:185). While the new perspective focuses on cultural diversity and the contempor-ary fragmentation and juxtaposition of cultures, the old thesis assumes nationalcultures that are coherent and unified wholes (Tomlinson, 1991: 73). The emphasison the defence of cultural sovereignty and fears about cultural homogenization areill-founded because cultural products mutate and adapt when they move betweencultures (Tomlinson, 1997: 181–2). The old views are too simplistic to give accountof the new ‘global cultural economy’, which is a ‘complex, overlapping [and] dis-junctive order’ (Appadurai, 1990). Néstor García Canclini concurs that the ‘one-directional schema of imperialist domination’ is unable to provide an explanationfor contemporary cultural processes provoked by migration (García Canclini, 1995:230). These include ‘new flows of cultural circulation’, the formation of hybridcultures that draw from different locales and phenomena such as deterritorializa-tion that involves the ‘loss of the “natural” relation of culture to geographical andsocial territories’ (García Canclini, 1995: 229, 206–63).

There is little common ground between the old and new paradigm. Theimperialism thesis is seen as an antiquated ideological imposture by the advocatesof the new school and conversely the globalization approach is sometimes referredto as a bundle of neoliberal dogmas that masquerade as postmodernist waffle. ForArmand Mattelart, the concept of globalization hails from the ‘Christian myth ofthe “great human family”’ (e.g. McLuhan) and the ‘megalomania’ of marketeerswho exude ‘overweening self-confidence’ (Mattelart, 2002: 593, 605). It does notfare better with Robert McChesney, who writes that ‘the very notion of globaliz-ation is misleading and ideologically loaded’ (McChesney: 2002: 149). According toJames Curran, the ‘revisionist orthodoxy’ that places the emphasis on the ‘inter-connectedness of a globalized world’ and the creation of ‘new spaces for bondingand solidarity’ fails to ‘engage critically with economic power’ (Curran, 2002:172–4). The two paradigms are separated by divergent political worldviews, somuch so that Indrajit Banerjee is entitled to contrast the ‘cultural imperialismperspective that emphasizes domination and hegemony’ and the ‘cultural globaliz-ation approach, which underlines cultural change, interconnection and diversity’(Banerjee, 2002: 519).

CHALABY: AMERICAN CULTURAL PRIMACY IN A NEW MEDIA ORDER 35

I am not suggesting a return to the old thesis. Its greatest shortcoming was itsentrenchment in the national imaginary, a too narrow perspective from which tounderstand the transnational and deterritorialized nature of the emerging mediaorder (Aksoy and Robins, 2000; Chalaby, 2005a; Price, 2002). No one can seriouslydeny that the globalization paradigm has allowed the discipline to progress and itsheds new light on many facets of international communication. However, the newresearch agenda overlooks an enduring aspect of international cultural flows: thepre-eminence of companies based in the US on the world media markets. I wish torevisit this neglected issue and show how the paradigm of globalization and relatednotions can contribute to its understanding. I aim to demonstrate how the forma-tion of geocultural regions, cultural phemonena such as hybridity and the globalreach of US conglomerates combine in the world media.

America’s supremacy tends to be ignored perhaps because of an apprehensionof returning to old ways of thinking. Can the question be addressed withoutreawakening the spectre of American imperialism? It has become problematic sinceAmerican dominance is associated with cultural imperialism, turning the issue intoan ideologically sensitive problem. We need to move beyond the logic of ‘either/or’between the two paradigms and treat American cultural pre-eminence as a fact thatcan be analysed not in opposition but in conjunction to other features of the globalmedia order. I use the concept of US cultural primacy to deal with a salient aspectof international communication flows from a fresh perspective and without the pre-conceptions and ideological biases of the old thesis.

In this article, I analyse American cultural primacy in Europe using conceptsassociated with the globalization thesis. The regional perspective proposed bySinclair and Straubhaar is adopted to contrast the size and performance of Europeanmedia players to those of their American rivals. Then, the extent of American domi-nance is assessed in two key audiovisual sectors: European television and film pro-duction and distribution. Finally, I argue that American conglomerates are set todominate the era of multichannel television because of their involvement in theinternational television business. They have successfully adopted local adaptation ofcontent and programming as an international strategy, creating hybrid televisionbrands and media products that appeal ever more to European viewers.

American and European Media Corporations: A Comparative Perspective

In the context of the formation of regional media markets, much has been writtenabout the emergence of regional players capable of competing against theAmerican media conglomerates. The last two decades have indeed been markedby the emergence of regional media companies that have carved enviable positionsin their respective markets. They have established extensive transnational connec-tions, either through international sales, cross-border television channels or jointventures with local partners. The most prominent examples are Televisa, fromMexico, and the Globo Group, from Brazil, which hold strong positions in the LatinAmerican audiovisual space (Sinclair, 1999). Elsewhere, similar companies have


developed, such as Orbit, a leading satellite platform in the Middle East, Multi-Choice, the South Africa-based satellite provider for Anglophone Africa, and ZeeNetwork in Southeast Asia. In the European audiovisual market, the RTL Group isthe largest multi-territory player.

How do these European companies compare with American conglomerates?How significant is their rise in the world media industry? Table 1 compiles thenumber of entries by country of origin in three rankings of the top 40 audiovisualmedia companies. It shows that the US is the only nation with a double-digit numberof entries and that this number is more than double that of its nearest competitor,Japan, followed by the UK, Germany, France and Italy. There is evidence to indicatethat the position of US companies is even stronger than suggested by these figures.In October 2003, shortly after the publication of these rankings, NBC bought 80percent of Universal from Vivendi, bringing another American conglomerate intothe top 10 and ousting a French company from the top 40. News Corporation issaid to be Australian although the company is run from New York, where RupertMurdoch (an American citizen for nearly 20 years) and his senior executives arebased (Gibson, 2004). News Corp, which generates three-quarters of its revenuesin the US, also moved its primary stock market listing from Australia to the NewYork stock exchange in 2004 (Gibson, 2004). Bertelsmann and the RTL Group arelisted as two separate European entities – RTL being registered as an independentcompany in the Brussels and Luxembourg stock exchanges – but Bertelsmann hasa 90 percent stake in RTL. The satellite broadcaster BSkyB is a British entry but thecompany’s main shareholder is News Corp, which was successful in installing MrMurdoch Jr at its helm in November 2003.

European companies register an average of 15 entries on the three lists. TheEuropean Audiovisual Observatory (EAO) and Screen Digest record a higher number


TABLE 1Number of Entries by Country of Origin in Three Rankings of the Top 40Audiovisual Media Companies

Screen Digest EAO Variety

July 2003 2003 Sept. 2003

US 15 12 19

Japan 7 7 6

UK 5 7 5

Germany 4 5 2

France 3 3 2

Italy 2 2 1

Australia 1 2 1

Luxembourg 1 1 1

Mexico 1 1 1

Canada 1 / 1

Sweden / / 1

Sources: Screen Digest (July 2003: 197); EAO (2003a: 32); Variety (15–21 September 2003).

of European companies than the Hollywood trade newspaper Variety because theyinclude the public service broadcasters (the BBC, France Télévisions, RAI, ARD andZDF). All three lists mention Granada and Carlton Communications, which havesince merged into a single company, ITV. Most European companies owe theirpresence on these tables to strong performances in their respective home market:TF1, Mediaset and ITV, are essentially national in scope. In the public sector, the BBCand France Télévisions are the most active international broadcasters in Europe. Inthe commercial world, the international leader is the RTL Group, with 26 televisionstations and 24 radio stations across nine countries (World Screen News, October2004: 213–16). In addition, its fully-owned subsidiary FremantleMedia is one of thelargest television producers outside Hollywood. Smaller multi-territory playersinclude the Modern Times Group, which owns the Viasat pay-bouquet and operatesin Scandinavia, the Baltic region and Russia, SBS Broadcasting, which covers Scan-dinavia and selected markets in Western and Central Europe, Lagardère NetworksInternational, which runs pan-European thematic channels, and Canal Plus. Thelimited scope of European companies becomes apparent when their total revenueis compared to that of US media conglomerates for 2002/3: US$76.5 billion againstUS$225.5 billion (Variety, 15–21 September 2003).

The dominance of American conglomerates is even more striking at the topend of the world media industry. Apart from Bertelsmann, European companiesbelong to what Herman and McChesney (1997) call the second tier of the globalmedia industry. They either remain in the region’s confines or, in a few cases,specialize in niche markets worldwide. Seven media corporations alone have a reachthat covers the globe and span all key media sectors from film production totelevision distribution (Table 2). Five of them have headquarters in the US, amongwhich four are based in New York. The one European conglomerate has registered,incidentally, the slowest growth over the past 10 years.

All the available evidence points to an expansion of the gap between US mediagiants and regional outlets based in Europe and elsewhere.1 In the 1990s, American


TABLE 2The First Tier of the Global Media Industry, 1992–2002/03

World ranking by Headquarters Media Media Progression

media turnover turnover turnover 1992–2002/03

in brackets 1992 in 2002/03 in (%)

US$ billion US$ billion

Time Warner (1) New York 13.1 41.8 219.1

Walt Disney (2) Burbank, CA 7.5 25.3 237.3

Viacom (3) New York / 24.6 /

NBC Universal (4) New York / 23 (est.) /

Sony (5) Tokyo / 19.9 /

Bertelsmann (6) Gutersloh, Germany 11 19.4 76.4

News Corporation (7) Melbourne/New York 7.8 17.5 124.4

Source: Company sources; Gershon (1997: 9); Variety (15–21 September 2003: A1–A9).

conglomerates outgrew their competitors through a series of acquisitions such asTurner Broadcasting System for Time Warner, ABC for Walt Disney and CBS forViacom. Their global span gives them access to many more markets than regionalcompanies, multiplying the opportunities for additional revenue. They have recentlyventured into India – and less successfully, China – tapping into markets thatrepresent nearly two-fifths of the world’s population. They have virtually sole accessto the world’s premier media market, the US. Thus, while the achievements ofEuropean regional concerns are impressive, they must be put in perspective. Withthe exception of Bertelsmann and the RTL Group, they do not have the internationalscope of US media giants and their inroads into the top end of the world mediaindustry remain modest.

American Fiction in Europe

This section reviews the key trading figures for Europe in two audiovisual sectorsover the past two decades: television programming and the production and distri-bution of feature films. Our starting point is a seminal international study led byVaris and Nordenstreng in the early 1980s. Results confirmed the US as the mainsource of television imports in Europe but revealed the importance of interregionaltrade. European countries imported a third of total television programming, ofwhich 40 percent came from Western Europe and 44 percent from the US (Table3). Varis estimated that US programmes accounted for ‘more than ten percent ofthe total transmission time in Western Europe’ (Varis, 1984: 148).

Over the next decade, research was conducted by Els de Bens and colleaguesthat uncovered a significant increase in US imports from 1988 to 1997. By 1997,more than half the movies shown on European television and nearly two-thirds oftelevision series came from the US (Table 4). The authors attribute the growth ofUS material to the commercialization of European television over the period, thelaunch of new channels and the extended broadcasting time leading broadcastersto ‘fall back on American imports’ (de Bens and de Smaele, 2001: 52).

Since 1996, the EAO has conducted annual surveys that show similar results.In 2002, 65.1 percent of imported fiction in Western Europe came from the US,15.8 percent from the region and 12.4 percent from the rest of the world (Table 5).


TABLE 3Distribution of Television Entertainment and Overall Programming, 1983

Western Arab Latin

Europe countries America

% of imported entertainment 53 72 71

% of imported programming (all cat.) 33 42 40

Of which interregional import (%) 40 30 12

Of which US import (%) 44 32 75

Source: Varis (1984).

The fastest growth is registered by co-productions between European and non-European countries, a category that essentially comprises European and NorthAmerican companies. In percentage terms, fiction of European origin has progressedfaster than American fiction, which translates into nearly a 6 percent drop in US


TABLE 4Origin of Entertainment (Films and Series) on European Television in 1988, 1991 and1997 (in percentages)

National Europe USA Other

Films Series Films Series Films Series Films Series

1988 –29 –37 19 –14 +46 +36 – 6 –13

1991 –20 –17 23 –16 +53 +56 – 4 –11

1997 –17.5 –20 20 – 8.5 +57.5 +64 – 5 – 7.5

Evolution –65.7 –85 +5.3 –64.7 +25 +77.8 –20 –73.3

1988–97

Source: De Bens and de Smaele (2001: 61, 65). The 1997 figures cover 36 channels from six

countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy.

TABLE 5Origin of Imported Fiction Broadcast by Television Channels (Unencrypted and Pay-TV) in Western Europe, 1996–2002

Europe (incl. Eur.–non-Eur. USA Other

co-productions) Coproductions

Total hours broadcast

1996 37,984 6,769 187,316 31,653

1997 44,911 5,764 201,845 30,633

1998 43,148 7,481 209,120 31,677

1999 48,815 12,780 222,584 35,425

2000 49,951 14,261 222,206 36,677

2001 51,316 19,038 219,756 42,137

2002 52,654 22,487 216,185 40,701

Evolution +38.6 +232.2 +15.4 +28.6

1996–2002

(in percentages)

In percentages of total volume of imported fiction

1996 14.5 2.6 71.0 11.9

1997 15.9 2.0 71.3 10.8

1998 14.7 2.6 71.8 10.9

1999 15.3 4.0 69.6 11.1

2000 15.5 4.4 68.8 11.4

2001 15.5 5.7 66.2 12.7

2002 15.8 6.8 65.1 12.4

Source: EAO (2002b: 92–3); EAO (2003d: 94–5).

material. European growth is impressive because it starts from a very low point, andin terms of broadcast hours, the amount of US content increased twice as fast asEuropean fiction between 1996 and 2002 (28,869 hours against 14,670 hours).

A European fiction production industry is undoubtedly developing. The numberof companies in the field has reached 381 in the region’s five key territories(Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain) in 2001 (EAO, 2002b: 73; see alsoMarchetti, 1997). Multi-territory production companies are emerging, such asEndemol (in addition to FremantleMedia), which are turning into major internationalplayers with the ability to export television formats, if not programming, to the US.2

Despite these successes, the market shares of American companies remain excep-tionally high in Europe. It would be unfair to dismiss US content as fodder for thedaytime schedules of obscure cable and satellite channels. It is also made up ofprime-time shows such as Frasier, Friends, ER, Sex and the City, Ally McBeal andThe Sopranos, which were ubiquitous on European screens over the past decade,and more recently CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Desperate Housewives.

Film Production and Distribution

American primacy in the European television fiction market is reflected in otheraudiovisual sectors. In cinema screenings, every year since 1996, bar 2001,American films have collected more than two-thirds of box office receipts (Table 6).The market share of local films has declined in 15 out of 18 territories in Europe in2002, falling from 15.9 percent in 2001 to 13 percent in 2002, to the profit of theHollywood majors (Screen Digest, June 2003: 192). Recent figures – not yet collatedfor Europe – do not suggest a reversal of fortune for European film. In Britain in2003, 88 of the 100 most popular films were American, and four were British(Rosenthal, 2004).

Since 2000, more films have been produced in the European Union than in theUS (Table 7). This is partly due to the fact that US majors increasingly produce moviesabroad as a cost-cutting measure. They turn out fewer but more expensive movies,


TABLE 6Market Share According to the Origin of Feature Films in the EU (15 countries)

EU US Others

1996 25.8 71.6 2.6

1997 32.4 65.9 1.7

1998 21.4 77.5 1.1

1999 28.9 69.2 1.9

2000 22.9 73.3 3.8

2001 31.4 65.2 3.5

2002 27.9 70.5 1.6

Source: EAO (2003c: 49).

which explains why film production investment figures rose more than three timesfaster in the US than in Europe since 1999 (Table 7).

The average film budget in the US, which stood at US$27 million for 2002, isnow more than four times higher than in any other country, with the exception ofBritain (US$10.1 million), which largely depends on US co-productions (Screen Digest,August 2003: 228). The average budget has increased faster in the US than in anyother nation over the recent year (by as much as 47 percent in 2002), promptingScreen Digest to comment: ‘The financial dominance of the US over the global filmproduction industry increased yet further last year’ (Screen Digest, August 2003: 228).Furthermore, US majors heavily dominate film distribution in Europe. The distributorsaffiliated to the Hollywood studios, such as Warner Bros, United International Picturesor Buena Vista, control well in excess of half the distribution market (Miller et al.,2001). As a result, many European movies are never screened and the few that attainsuccess are handled by Hollywood-owned distributors (Rosenthal, 2003: 8).

The EU–US Cultural Trade Deficit

The production of European television fiction and feature films might be growingbut US media imports continue to pour into Europe, while the American marketremains out of reach for most European companies. The defunct Vivendi Universaland Emap, of Britain, provide two recent examples of disastrous forays into the USmarket. Thus trading figures between the EU and the US in the audiovisual sector(including theatrical, television and video sales and rental) show that while US exportsto the EU increased by 69.4 percent between 1995 and 2000, to reach US$9 billion,EU exports to the US rose by 59.7 percent, to stand at US$827 million. The result isa US$8.2 billion deficit for Europe, a 70.5 percent increase since 1995 (Table 8).

It is remarkable that Europe constitutes a far more sizeable and attractive


TABLE 7Feature Films Produced and Film Production Investment, 1999–2002

EU US India World total

Feature films produced

1999 702 758 764 3,608

2000 722 683 855 3,683

2001 773 611 1,013 3,654

2002 824 543 1,200 3,836

Evolution 1999–2002 (%) +17.4 –28.4 +57.1 +6.3

Film production investment (in million US dollars)

1999 2,792 8,699 58 13,391

2000 3,182 10,388 86 15,770

2001 3,056 11,216 142 16,658

2002 3,350 14,661 192 20,270

Evolution 1999–2002 (%) +20.0 +68.5 +231.0 +51.4

Source: Screen Digest (July 2003: 201–8).

market for American conglomerates today than at the time when the debate ragedabout American cultural imperialism. In the divided Europe of the Cold War period,western corporations had little access to the Communist bloc. Countries fromCentral and Eastern Europe had their own interregional trade and the Soviet Unionitself imported only 14 percent of its entertainment (Varis, 1984: 148). The fall ofthe Iron Curtain has opened up new territories for western media companies, aprocess that is accelerated by the eastward expansion of the EU. In addition, theTelevision Without Frontiers Directive, implemented in 1991, facilitates the cross-border operations of media multinationals by lessening the legal barriers of entryto national markets (Collins, 1994; Krebber, 2002).

American Media Companies and Cultural Hybridity in aMultichannel Television Environment

The emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe do not constitute the onlynew opportunity for American media corporations. The rapid development of multi-channel television has allowed them to expand their activities in the fast growingpay-TV market. Some estimates put the number of European television households(including Central and Eastern Europe) that have access to multichannel televisioneither through cable or satellite around the 116 million mark for 2002 (EAO, 2003b:39). Among the channels these viewers receive a growing number are in Americanhands (Table 9).

Table 9 shows that apart from a few independently owned channels (e.g.Bloomberg TV), most of them are controlled by conglomerates. Ownership by amedia group is almost a necessity in an environment as competitive as Europe.Advantages include increased leverage when negotiating with platform operators,added credibility with advertisers and the financial resources required for expansion.These points were not lost on Chris Wronski, Zone Vision’s chairman (the controllerof Reality TV), who recently sold the company to Liberty Global’s European cableconcern, UGC (Scott, 2005: 25–6).


TABLE 8Estimates of the Trade in Audiovisual Programmes between the EU and NorthAmerica, 1995–2000 (millions US$)

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 Progression

1995–2000

(in percentages)

Sales of US 5331 6262 6645 7313 8042 9031 + 69.4

companies

in the EU

EU revenues in 518 614 668 706 853 827 + 59.7

North America

EU deficit 4813 5648 5977 6607 7190 8204 + 70.5

Source: EAO (2003a: 36).

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Main US Interests in European TV Channels

Channel Type of distribution Genre Key owners

The Biography Channel Selected European markets Factual entertainment AETN InternationalBloomberg TV Pan-European Financial news Bloomberg LPBoomerang Key European markets Children Time WarnerCartoon Network Pan-European Children Time WarnerCinemax Selected European markets Movies Time WarnerCNBC Europe Pan-European Financial news Dow Jones & NBC UniversalCNN Pan-European News Time WarnerDiscovery Pan-European Factual entertainment Cox Communications (25%), Advance/Newhouse (25%), Liberty

Global (50%)Disney Channel; Playhouse West European markets Children Walt Disney

Disney; Toon DisneyE! Entertainment Television Selected European markets Entertainment Comcast Communications (40%), Walt Disney (40%), Media One

(10%), Tele-Communications (10%)Extreme Sports Pan-European Sports/lifestyle Extreme Group (30%), Liberty Global (70%) (through subsidiaries)Jetix (previously Fox Kids) Pan-European Children Walt Disney (76%), public share (24%)The History Channel Selected European markets Factual entertainment AETN InternationalHBO Selected European markets Entertainment Time WarnerMTV; VH1 Pan-European Music television ViacomNational Geographic Pan-European Factual entertainment BSkyB (50%), NBC (25%), National Geographic Ventures (25%)Nickelodeon Selected European markets Children ViacomParamount Comedy Channel Selected European markets Entertainment ViacomPlayboy TV; The Adult Key European markets Adult entertainment Playboy Television International1

Channel; SpiceQVC Selected European markets Shopping Liberty GlobalReality TV Pan-European Factual entertainment Liberty Global (through subsidiaries)Sci-Fi; 13th Street; Studio Universal Selected European markets Movies NBC UniversalTurner Classic Movies Selected European markets Movies Time Warner

Sources: Company sources; Cable and Satellite Europe; Media and Marketing Europe Guide: Pan-European Television. ‘Key European markets’ designates distribution inat least four of the following territories: France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. ‘Selected European markets’ designates distribution in up to six territories of any size.Playboy TV International1 is a joint venture between Playboy Enterprises and the Cisneros Television Group.

In the cross-border TV channel market, American media conglomerates facesome competition from European broadcasters, predominantly in the news sector.Public broadcasters include the BBC (BBC World and BBC Prime) and FranceTélévisions, which has controlling interest in Arte, TV5 and Euronews. Europeancommercial broadcasters involved in cross-border television include TF1, whichowns Eurosport, BSkyB, which broadcasts Sky News and has an interest in NationalGeographic, and the independently owned French Fashion TV. In January 2005,Kansas-based Crown Media Holdings sold Hallmark International to a London-based company headed by David Elstein and David Hulbert (Broadcast, 11 March2005: 18).

The success of American companies in the European television market is asremarkable as it is recent. As noted by Straubhaar and Duarte, the hopes ofAmerican media executives in the 1980s were similar to the fears of culturalimperialists: they believed that satellite television would allow them to reach localaudiences with television channels and material originally broadcast in their homemarket (Straubhaar and Duarte, 2005: 220). Armed with such confidence, theAmerican precursors in Europe, CNN and MTV, first covered the continent with aunique satellite feed. When the ratings remained desperately low and competitorsstarted launching local imitations, they were forced to recognize that local tastesdiffer – and matter. Towards the second half of the 1990s, they changed strategyand began adapting their feeds to local audiences, investing millions in localization(Chalaby, 2002).

Today, American companies run the most extensively localized channels inEurope. Table 10 lists six channels that broadcast across the continent in an averageof 11 languages, using a mix of dubbing or subtitling. These cross-border televisionchannels are progressively mutating into networks of fully localized country-specificversions. MTV, for instance, is now a regional network of 11 channels that broad-cast as much local programming and music from the national repertoire that isrequired to gain increased audience shares.

Local adaptation being a prerequisite to decent ratings, these channels havetransformed into hybrid cultural products. They draw material from different terri-tories, mixing local and international content, ‘foreign’ and ‘indigenous’ program-ming. The MTV trademark is to create music television channels that mix local musicwith American programming (Jackass, etc.) and video clips from global music stars.Jetix and Cartoon Network both combine local European content with shows fromtheir extensive title libraries. Discovery and National Geographic obtain economiesof scale by duplicating content across their networks but also get involved in localco-productions.

Hybridity is one phenomenon often called on to demonstrate – and celebrate– the diversity and fluidity of contemporary culture. The concept gained credencewhen García Canclini used it to analyse the transnationalization and deterritorial-ization of Latin American culture (García Canclini, 1995; see also Morley, 2000:225–45). Today, cultural hybridity is no longer confined to migrant populations andartists in border towns. Hybrid cultural artefacts can be the products of corporatestrategies that aim to facilitate the adoption of international media brands by local


audiences. All US media conglomerates have set their eyes on international expan-sion and seek to increase their out-of-home revenue. Hybridization is a key to thesuccess of this strategy, whether in music television or children’s markets. Theimperialism thesis implies that American media executives try to impose their ownculture on Europeans, but they are more pragmatic and are content with broad-casting Italian music to the Italians and showing French cartoons to French kids.American companies are gaining hold of the European pay-TV market preciselybecause of their mastery of adaptation and hybridization techniques.

Planning the Future: Further US Investment in Europe

American investment in European television is not limited to established trans-national brands. US conglomerates have dedicated teams that scout Europe foropportunities. They regularly buy and launch channels that operate in one or twoterritories, which may or not be rolled out throughout the continent afterwards.


TABLE 10Most Localized International Television Networks in Europe

Languages Country- and region-specific

channels

Bloomberg TV English, French, German, Italian, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UKa

Spanish

Cartoon Network Danish, English, French, Hungarian, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway,

Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Poland, Spain, Sweden, UK

Romanian, Spanish, Swedish

Discovery Czech/Slovak, English, French, Benelux, Central and Eastern

German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Europe, Denmark, France,

Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Germany, Iberia, Italy, Poland,

Turkish Scandinavia, Turkey, UK

Jetix Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Central and Eastern Europe,

French, German, Greek, Hungarian, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary

Italian, Norwegian, Polish, and Czech Republic, Italy, the

Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Netherlands, Poland, Scandinavia,

Swedish, Turkish Spain, UK

MTV Dutch, English, Flemish, French, France, Germany, Italy, the

German, Italian, Polish, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal,

Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish Russia, Scandinavia, Spain, UK

National Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Benelux/Turkey, Czech

Geographic French, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Republic/Hungary, France, Italy,

Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Poland, Portugal, Romania,

Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Scandinavia, Spain, UK

Swedish, Turkish

a ‘UK’ generally includes Ireland and ‘Germany’ Austria and German-speaking Switzerland.

Sources: Company sources; Media and Marketing Europe Guide: Pan-European Television

(2004).

Viacom has developed MTV sister channels in several countries and has bought acomputer-related channel in France, Game One, with the view of developing it inother markets. It also operates the Viva channels in Germany and neighbouringterritories and the TMF brand in the Netherlands and the UK. Time Warner’s sub-sidiary, Turner Broadcasting System Europe, has invested in national news channels,with joint ventures in Spain (CNN Plus), Germany (N-TV) and Turkey (CNN Turk). Italso runs the children’s channel Toonami in Britain and Italy. CNBC operates fullylocalized channels in Italy (CFN-CNBC) and Turkey (CNBC-E). News Corp’s subsidiary,Washington-based Fox International, has started its staggered launch of channelsin Europe, including FX and FUEL. News Corp also serves key ethnic markets inEurope with the Hong-Kong-based network Phoenix TV and the Asian Star TV.

Television channels originating from the US have already had a major impacton the European television market. MTV and CNN have set the standards in theirrespective genres and have given rise to a flurry of local competitors. But the fullsignificance of these investments comes to light only when the future of the pay-TV market is taken into account. Industry analysts estimate that 80 percent ofEuropean television households will have access to cable and satellite televisionwithin the next 10 years (Screen Digest, November 2003: 323). Approximately 200million homes will be able to choose among several hundreds of channels. Thisuniverse can be compared to a supermarket where channel genres take the placeof aisles and channels, shelves of packaged products. Viewers navigate electronicprogramming guides and browse through categories that comprise business andfinancial news, children’s television, documentary, lifestyle, movies, music, news,shopping and sports. The leading brands in many of these categories are MTV(music), Discovery and National Geographic (documentary), CNN (internationalnews), CNBC and Bloomberg (business and financial news) and Playboy (adultentertainment). US multinationals are particularly dominant in the lucrative marketof children’s television, with brands such as Cartoon Network, Disney, Jetix andNickelodeon.

Conclusion

The evidence presented in this article points to the remarkable position that theAmerican film and television industry has achieved in the European audiovisualmarket. The concept of US primacy, set in the globalization paradigm, has allowedus to analyse a salient fact of contemporary international communication withouttaking on board the assumptions and ideological biases of the cultural imperialismthesis.

The long-term prospects of American companies in the world audiovisualmarket remain very good. There is a vision of the technological future that claimsthat the personal computer will be placed at the heart of the home entertainmentuniverse, becoming the ‘primary conduit for everything from films and music togames and holiday snaps’ (Financial Times, 8/9 February 2004: 20). If this visionholds true, customers will soon download Hollywood blockbusters onto their Dellsand IBMs, quite probably using software made by a company based in Redmond


called Microsoft. Should they want to learn more about Hollywood-manufacturedmovie stars, they can log onto the web using either of the world’s leading portals,AOL or Yahoo!, and search for them with the world’s most popular search engine:Google.

The success of the American film and television industry is the fruit of a near-century old concerted effort by the Hollywood moguls. During the first half of the20th century, they received assistance from the US State Department, which oftennegotiated on behalf of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of Americain the overseas markets (Trumpbour, 2002). For much of the past century, Europeangovernments have tried to resist US hegemony in world cinema. Protectionistmeasures have included import quotas, managed trade and the distribution ofsubsidies to local film producers (Trumpbour, 2002). Over the past decade, theEuropean Commission and European governments independently have multipliedthese measures in an attempt to improve production and distribution of Europeancultural products (e.g. Marchetti, 1997; Tongue, 1999).

So far, these initiatives have failed to stem the flow of US material, and in afew cases have proven countereffective. It was assumed that the Television WithoutFrontiers Directive would help the development of a European film and televisionproduction industry, but instead it provided Hollywood with a larger market and ahost of new clients desperate to fill hours with cheap television material (Miller et al.,2001: 36–8; Tunstall and Machin, 1999: 205).

Such measures were also unnecessary. They were adopted on the ideologicalpremise of European culture being under threat of ‘Americanization’. These fears,voiced by some European politicians (led by the French), for purposes of politicalexpediency, have proven unfounded. American companies owe their continuingpresence in the region to their understanding and adaptation to European cultures,establishing bases across the continent and hiring European staff. Throughout thecenturies, European cultures have been enriched by a continuous flow of ideas fromoverseas. The measures advocated by protectionists would only constrain Europe ina cultural straitjacket.

As welcome as the success of American companies is in Europe, the interestsof European consumers and viewers are best protected by having as many success-ful players as possible on the market. It is beyond the scope of this article to discussthe increasingly arcane policy initiatives taken by European governments in theaudiovisual sector. However, it becomes clear that policy-makers should take a closerlook at the multichannel television universe. The approaches to this market ofAmerican and European broadcasters stand in sharp contrast. The former haveadopted a regional strategy and adapted their organizational structure to the inter-national nature of the multichannel television market (Chalaby, 2005b). In therelatively few cases when the Europeans venture beyond national boundaries, theydo so in a national-centric way and shy away from organizational reconfiguration.European broadcasters need to rethink their strategy and fully take into account theopportunities offered by the globalization of the television industry.

A new strategy is particularly required from public service broadcasters, whichare best placed to sustain choice, pluralism and programming diversity in the


marketplace. They must be encouraged to embrace the European dimension ofmultichannel television and modify their organizational structures accordingly.European broadcasters have been collaborating for more than half a century in theframework of the European Broadcasting Union. They have launched channels suchas Europa (a debacle), Eurosport (now in the hands of French commercial broad-caster TF1) and Euronews (Collins, 1998). Although these initiatives have not alwaysbeen met with success, they point in the right direction. European public broad-casters must think less in terms of national market and more in terms of genre; theyneed to engage more in transnational production and distribution projects. Inparticular, cross-border thematic television channels offer a solid ground for con-structive collaborations. Arte, the cultural channel launched in May 1992 by aFrench and a German public broadcaster, can provide a model for future jointventures that can be set up by two or more corporations. Arte is a transnationalstation itself run by a bi-national corporation, precisely a Groupement Européend’Intérêt Economique in which La Sept-Arte and Arte-Deutschland are equalpartners. The same principle could be applied to a host of thematic channels runby three or more public broadcasters.3

The international stations set up by European broadcasters remain in news(BBC World, Deutsche Welle, Euronews) and high-brow programming (Arte, TV5).Inevitably, some of these channels do not find an audience that justifies their costand enter into a downward spiral of budget cuts, lower quality programming andeven fewer viewers. Public broadcasters should collaborate on thematic channels inthe genres in which they could make a significant contribution. These include factualentertainment and children’s television, presently the preserve of global media con-glomerates.

US-based broadcasters are set to dominate the emerging multichannel tele-vision universe. But who is to blame? Media executives who do their job, identifyand exploit gaps in the markets? Or European public broadcasters and politicianslocked in 19th-century-style imperial rivalries?

Notes1. Outside Europe, the Televisa Group progresses four places (from 32 to 28) in the 2002 and 2003

EAO rankings, but Globo moves back from 22 to 41. These two companies are the only repre-sentatives from the developing world in the top 40 world media companies (EAO, 2002a: 32;2003a: 32).

2. Such as the FremantleMedia’s American Idol series in the US, which helped Fox break audiencerecords.

3. The organizational structures of Euronews and TV5 are also international in scope but bothchannels are heavily dominated by France Télévisions, which, in effect, runs them.

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Jean K. Chalaby is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, City Uni-versity, London. He is the author of The Invention of Journalism (Basingstoke:Macmillan/New York: St Martin’s Press, 1998) and The de Gaulle Presidency andthe Media (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), and the editor of Trans-national Television Worldwide (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005). He has publishedextensively in leading journals across the world on a wide range of media-related topics.

Address Department of Sociology, City University, London EC1V 0HB, UK.[email: [email protected]]


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American Cultural Primacy in a New Media Order