The hybrid grid: globalization, cultural power and Hungarian television schedules

Abstract

While television scheduling practices overdetermine a host of institutional and cultural practices, including program import decisions and the popularity of specific programs, scheduling has received scant attention from critical media scholars. Drawing on the insight that contemporary scheduling practices - like most media practices today - are hybrid phenomena, this article demonstrates in some detail the variety of factors, both foreign and domestic, that come into play in specific scheduling decisions, paying particular attention to the conditions under which power relations among domestic, regional and global ideas about scheduling differ. I concentrate on three case studies of scheduling innovation in Hungary, each of which demonstrates different routes through which foreign scheduling practices enter the market. The resulting analysis has implications for understanding international television flows, as well as the ways in which power operates among global media institutions.