Contemporary Quality TV

Ever since HBO's slogan It's Not TV, It's HBO launched in 1996, so-called quality television has reached a new level of marketing, recognition, and indeed quality. With other networks imitating the formula, the HBO effect triggered a wave of creative output. This turn to quality set off two shifts: (a) Contemporary television staged an international resurgence of the auteur, and (b) America transformed into an on-demand nation. The chapters in this volume analyze new television lifestyles including marginalized perspectives, fan participation, and an emerging nostalgia correlated with trash aesthetics.