MIAMI VICE: Transforming Network Television in the 1980s

本研究项目采用具有里程碑意义的警察程序《迈阿密风云》（Miami Vice, 1984-1990）来审视20世纪80年代美国网络电视的重塑。在这个分水岭的十年里，网络电视进行了自我调整，以适应卫星电视和有线电视的普及、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国内视听娱乐的卓越地位变得脆弱。虽然之前的评论性作品已经将《迈阿密风云》确定为那个时代的标志性作品，但它通常是用后现代理论或观众参与的问题来分析其独特的外观和声音。相比之下，本研究旨在考察该节目在适应网络电视不断变化的政治经济策略方面的地位。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年黄金时段收视率最低之后，在接下来的十年中建立了自己的首要网络，这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”以获取有利可图的观众群体，并寻求走在娱乐技术新发展的前沿。《迈阿密风云》是这种战略的关键载体，该项目通过对其定义特征的持续评估，阐明了网络政策的许多关键转变，以及它们对电视娱乐的后续影响。因此，该研究项目的主要目的之一是证明《迈阿密风云》在1980年代迅速革新的视听娱乐部门中的作用。例如，这一时期最重要但却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年以来的美国主要网络。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将是重新定义对该节目的理解，以评估其作为立体声电视机的关键“早期采采者”应用的意义，其中许多是由NBC的母公司RCA制造的。这一发展也预示了全球娱乐市场的变化，该项目的另一个目的是阐明该节目作为一种受益于自由市场经济和放松管制政策的全球商品的功能；尤其是里根政府向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《迈阿密风云》作为全球电视产品地位的必然结果所具有的决定性特征。因此，这项研究所采用的方法的一个优点是，能够对20世纪80年代塑造电视娱乐的力量有更复杂的认识；它考虑了节目如何服务于跨媒体和通信行业不同部门的大企业集团的战略，以及日益扩大的全球影响力。这些变化的遗产在当前的媒体时刻仍然可以感受到，研究解决了这一近代史中相当被忽视的章节。虽然大多数对《迈阿密风云》的批评都认为它的当代性与“设计师”时装、流行音乐和富裕生活方式的展示有关，但该项目采用了从政治经济理论、电视研究和文化研究中汲取的跨学科方法，将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，这场展览是一个开创性十年的标志性产品；它以一种至今仍能感受到的方式，重塑了关于电视“业务”的既定确定性。

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.