MIAMI VICE: Transforming Network Television in the 1980s

本研究以具有里程碑意义的《迈阿密罪恶》（1984-1990）为例，探讨80年代美国网络电视的重塑。在这个具有分水岭意义的十年里，网络电视重新调整了自己，以适应卫星和有线电视的传播、录像机的普及以及家庭电脑和视频游戏的兴起所带来的挑战，所有这些都使其作为家庭视听娱乐的卓越地位变得脆弱。虽然以前的评论工作已经确定迈阿密罪恶作为一个时代的定义显示，它通常框架分析其独特的外观和声音与后现代理论，或与观众参与的问题。与此相反，本研究旨在探讨该节目的地位，在战略的前沿，以适应不断变化的政治经济网络电视。特别是，它探讨了该节目对NBC网络的重要性，该网络在1975年至1983年的黄金时段收视率最后一次之后，在十年的剩余时间里成为首屈一指的网络，在很大程度上是通过创新节目内容来应对这种新的竞争格局，专注于“窄播”以获得利润丰厚的观众人口统计数据，并寻求在娱乐技术的新发展的前沿。迈阿密副是一个关键的车辆，这种战略，该项目阐明了许多关键的转变，在网络政策，其对电视娱乐的影响，通过持续评估其定义features.One的主要目的的研究项目，因此，是展示迈阿密副在迅速创新的视听娱乐行业在20世纪80年代的目的。例如，这一时期最重要但被严重忽视的发展之一是立体声电视广播的出现，首先是有线电视公司，然后是1984年以后的美国主要网络。迈阿密Vice的广播网络NBC在这一领域处于领先地位，该项目的关键任务之一是重新构建对该节目的理解，以评估其作为立体电视机关键“早期采用者”应用程序的重要性，其中许多是由NBC的母公司RCA制造的。该项目的另一个目的是阐明该节目作为一种全球商品的功能，这种商品受益于自由市场经济和放松管制的政策，特别是里根政府为美国电视产品开放外国市场的努力。因此，这项研究将解决的一个问题是，我们必须在多大程度上理解迈阿密罪恶的定义特征，作为其作为全球电视产品的地位的必然结果。因此，研究所采取的方法的优点之一是能够更复杂地了解20世纪80年代塑造电视娱乐的力量;考虑到节目编排如何服务于媒体和通信行业不同部门的企业集团的战略，并日益扩大全球影响力。这些变化的遗产仍然可以在目前的媒体时刻感受到，这项研究解决了这一近代历史中相当被忽视的一章。虽然大多数对迈阿密罪恶的批评都认为它与展示“设计师”时装、流行音乐和富裕生活方式有关，但该项目采用了跨学科的方法，从政治经济理论、电视研究和文化研究中汲取灵感，将该节目置于快速发展的媒体经济的核心，重塑节目内容，以适应新兴的消费模式。从这个意义上说，这部电视剧是一个具有开创性的十年的标志性产品;它以今天仍然可以感受到的方式重塑了关于电视“业务”的既定模式。

This research project employs the landmark police procedural Miami Vice (1984-1990) to interrogate the reshaping of US network television in the 1980s. This watershed decade saw network television reconfigure itself to adapt to the challenges presented by the spread of satellite and cable television, the popularity of the VCR, and the rise of home computing and videogaming, all of which made vulnerable its established preeminence as domestic audio-visual entertainment. While previous critical work has identified Miami Vice as a defining show of the era, it has typically framed analyses of its distinctive look and sound with theories of the postmodern, or with questions of audience engagement. In contrast, this study seeks to examine the show's status at the forefront of strategies to adapt to the changing political economy of network television. In particular, it explores the show's importance to the NBC network, which, after being last in prime time ratings from 1975 to 1983, established itself as the premier network for the rest of the decade, in large part by responding to this new competitive landscape by innovating in programming content, in focusing on 'narrowcasting' for lucrative audience demographics, and in seeking to be at the forefront of new developments in entertainment technologies. Miami Vice was a key vehicle for such strategies, and the project illuminates many of the pivotal shifts in network policy, and their consequent impact on televisual entertainment, through a sustained assessment of its defining features.One of the main aims of the research project is thus to demonstrate the purposing of Miami Vice within the rapidly innovating sector for audio-visual entertainment in the 1980s. For example, one of the most significant but critically neglected developments during this period was the emergence of stereo television broadcasting, first by cable companies, and then by the major US networks from 1984 onwards. NBC, Miami Vice's broadcast network, took the lead in this area, and one of the key tasks of the project will be to reframe understandings of the show in order to assess its significance as a pivotal 'early adopter' application for stereo television sets, many of which were being manufactured by RCA, NBC's parent company. This development also anticipated changes in global entertainment markets, and another aim of the project is to illuminate the show's function as a global commodity benefiting from free-market economic and deregulatory policies; in particular the Reagan administration's efforts to open up foreign markets to US television products. One question the research will therefore address is the degree to which we must understand Miami Vice's defining characteristics as a corollary of its status as global televisual product. One of the advantages of the approach taken by the research is therefore to enable a more complex sense of the forces shaping televisual entertainment in the 1980s; one that takes account of how programming might serve the strategies of conglomerates stretching across different sectors of the media and communications industry, and with an increasingly expansive global reach. The legacy of these changes is still being felt in the present media moment, and the research addresses a rather neglected chapter in this recent history. While most criticism of Miami Vice has identified its contemporaneousness in relation to the showcasing of 'designer' fashions, popular music and affluent lifestyles, this project takes an interdisciplinary approach drawn from political economic theory, television studies and cultural studies to situate the show at the heart of a rapidly evolving media economy reshaping programming content to fit emergent modes of consumption. It is in this sense that the show serves as an emblematic product for a seminal decade; one that remade established certainties regarding the 'business' of television in ways that are still being felt today.