Television Drama in the Age of Streaming

This book examines television drama in the age of streaming—a time when television has been reshaped for national and international consumption via both linear ‘flow’ and on-demand user modes. It builds on an in-depth study of the Norwegian public service broadcaster (NRK) and some of its game-changing drama productions (Lilyhammer, SKAM, blank). The book portrays the formative first decade of television streaming (2010-2019), how new streaming services and incumbent television providers intersect and act in a new drama landscape, and how streaming impacts existing television production cultures, publishing models and industry-audience relations. The analysis draws on insight gained through more than a hundred interviews with television experts and fans, hundreds of hours of observations, and unique access to industry conferences, meetings, working documents, and ratings. The book combines perspectives from production studies, media industry studies, and fan studies to inform its analysis. 

“Sundet provides both historical sources and deep knowledge of contemporary TV scholarship. … the research presented here is especially ripe for researchers of twenty-first century public service media, since some of the issues – especially those relating to the challenges between nationally-oriented public service media and international/global streaming services –apply to public service broadcasters other than Norwegian NRK.” (Kim Toft Hansen, Critical Studies in Television, May 07, 2022)

"Brilliantly combining production studies with fan studies, Television Drama in the Age of Streaming is state-of-the-art scholarship. Vilde Schanke Sundet has interviewed an array of industry insiders, expertly analysing executives' strategies, digital flagship productions, and new paradoxes of audience making. Streaming may have shifted contemporary TV drama into a "world championship" of globalised brands, but Sundet reminds us of the need to focus on national and cultural contexts. There's so much great content in this book, I binged it in one sitting. And now you can, too."

―Matt Hills, Professor, University of Huddersfield, UK

    "This excellent book engagingly explores why the television industries are changing in the age of streaming and how to think of the implications from a specific national and cultural perspective as well as from an international and transnational point of view. The impressive case study material provides a nuanced ground for analysing major changes in commissioning strategies and production cultures while also illustrating how new publishing strategies are changing traditional industry-audience relations. The book is an important contribution to media industry and television studies (or should one now say ‘streaming studies’?)"
―Eva Novrup Redvall, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

  "Television Drama in the Age of Streaming is a well-timed and germane book, dealing as it does with the latest phase of globalization, media convergence, and digitalisation, and how global streaming services are offering new opportunities for producing as well as distributing and consuming drama. What is particularly impactful about the book is how it focuses on NRK, the Norwegian public service broadcaster, seemingly at the margins of the global television industry; but in how this book realigns our thinking about how television content is being commissioned and made, but also 'published' across multiple platforms makes for an indispensable read. This book is welcome, necessary and an important addition to any bookshelf for those studying transnational TV business, production and distribution trends."

―Janet McCabe, Reader in Television and Film Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, UK

  "This book is an innovative attempt to look at streaming from the perspective of Norway, a small country with its own distinctive culture and a huge appetite for the transnational drama that forms the backbone of contemporary streaming. It is very well researched, and offers in-depth analyses of the transnational strategies and digital production cultures that public service broadcaster NRK has developed to appeal to demanding audiences. It constitutes a great resource for scholars and professionals trying to understand transformative changes in screen cultures."

―Jeanette Steemers, Professor of Culture, Media & Creative Industries, King's College London, UK

Vilde Schanke Sundet (PhD) is a researcher in media and communication at the University of Oslo, Norway. She has published extensively on topics of television production, media industries, media policy and audiences/Fans, and she is an expert on online drama.