Graduate Student, Department of English
Thesis Title: HBO: Recombination and Evolution? 1972-2007
Dr James Lyons
About
I'm a third year research student in the School of English at the University of Exeter, with a focus on television, film and contemporary American culture. Having completed an undergraduate degree in English Literature with Film Studies at Exeter between 2003 and 2006, I then undertook a Masters in the School, with a specialist pathway in Film from 2006 to 2007, before beginning a PhD in September of the same year.
My project offers a detailed contextual history of US pay cable network HBO's original programming that aims to re-emphasize the value of its early history to current debates. While an extensive range of material covering the network's success with shows such as The Sopranos and The Wire from the late 1990s and its crucial role within the branding and franchising strategies of cable television, little has been made of its early programming from 1972 to 1996. By considering the development of limited original programming strategies as adaptations of surrounding contexts through the 1970s into the mid 1990s, I will then use this basis to open out debates into HBO as a quality brand from 1997 to 2002 targeting up-scale audiences and moving between network and program franchise branding.
Furthermore, I will suggest that the continuity of the pre-1997 strategies created problems for HBO as it adapted to the rising demands of a 'post-network' era from 2003 to 2007 as broadband internet and the eroding content boundaries of global media saw conflicts emerge between the network and original content models. By tracing HBO's development in this way, I hope to re-position some of the key arguments for the network's innovations in branding and program complexity within a longer, and more grounded industrial and formal continuity.
Since 2008 I have presented papers on Video On Demand and HBO in Reading, The Wire and everyday American life in Nottingham, HBO's relationship to independent cinema in Liverpool, and the importance of Flight of the Conchords to new media strategies in Bangor. I have also presented on the relationship between the HBO style and digital technology at Falmouth, and will be giving a paper on The Wire and documentary production at Leeds. I have previously published (online) on representations of the post-feminist body in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Alias, and have provided book reviews on contemporary television and media practices to Nottingham University's Scope Journal. Future projects include work on True Blood, viral marketing and generic sensibility, as well as the brand identity of NBC Universal drama Friday Night Lights in relation to fledgling satellite channel The 101 Network.
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