Globalisation and television formats [Review of: T. Oren, S. Shahaf (2012) Global television formats: understanding television across borders; K. Meizel (2011) Idolized: music, media, and identity in American Idol]

At the time of writing this review John de Mol’s television production company Talpa has just started airing its latest reality show Utopia. As was the case with Big Brother in 1999 and The Voice of Holland in 2010, Dutch television merely functions as a test market and showroom for international buyers. Only Dutch viewers seem to know or care that these programs originated in the Netherlands, as these shows are considered global television formats elsewhere and products of a transnational entertainment industry. If perceived as ‘foreign’ at all these shows are most likely recognised as American. Recently, after a successful test run on Dutch television, The Voice was bought by the US network NBC and subsequently has been adapted in 50 different nations on f ive continents including The Voice Australia, The Voice Brasil, The Voice of China, and The Voice of Afghanistan (unlike the comparable Idol franchise, there are no The Voice adaptations in Africa). Tellingly, in its initial press announcement, as an attempt to attract contestants, the Dutch production company implied that The Voice of Holland was an American format. The question of national origin is raised by Silvio Waisboard in his 2004 essay ‘McTV’: ‘[c]ould we say that Survivor/Expedition: Robinson is unequivocally a Dutch show?’ (p. 368).1 His mistake reveals his answer and argument: this particular reality television format originated in Sweden rather than the Netherlands. Global television formats are designed to be easily adapted in other countries or regions and therefore have no nationally-specif ic characteristics. This makes the global television format an attractive topic to discuss globalisation along the lines of ‘grobalisation’ (a term coined by George Ritzer that never caught on) and ‘glocalisation’ (a term coined by Roland Robertson that did). Grobalisation emphasises the capitalist imperialistic character of globalisation, in which transnational conglomerates rationalise both the production and the consumption of culture in search of profit and economic growth, resulting in global homogeneity. Glocalisation, on the contrary, places most emphasis on how global culture is actively appropriated at EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF MEDIA STUDIES