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Challenging assumptions that have underpinned critiques of globalization and combining cultural theory with media-industry analysis, this book gives an account of the evolution of television in the post-broadcasting era, and of how programming ideas are creatively redeveloped and franchised in East Asia. In this study of television-program adaptation across cultures, the authors argue that adaptation, transfer, and recycling of content are multiplying to the point of marginalizing other economic and cultural practices. This is happening in television, but also in many other media and related areas of cultural production. Looking at China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, the study details practices that are variously referred to as formatting, franchising, imitation, adaptation, hybridity, bricolage, and even emulation. The authors show that significant re-modelling of local TV-production practices occur when adaptation is genuinely responsive to local values. Examples of East Asian format adaptations include Survivor, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, The Weakest Link, Coronation Street, and Idol. The book offers alternatives models of media flow that demonstrate how Hollywood is losing its global grip. It deals with the history of the TV-format trade, a movement that has coincided with the rise of alternative centres of television production and distribution outside the US.

This collection of essays brings together the first study of TV drama in China. Examining the production, distribution, and consumption of TV drama, the team of contributors demonstrate why it remains the pre-eminent media form in China. The examples are diverse, highlighting the complexity of producing narrative content in a rapidly changing political and social environment. Genres examined include the revisionist Qing drama, historical and contemporary domestic dramas, anti-corruption dramas, “pink” dramas, Red Classics, stories from the Diaspora, and sit-coms. In addition to genres, the collection explores industry dynamics: how TV dramas are marketed and consumed on DVD, and China's aspirations to export its television drama rights. The book provides an international and cross-cultural perspective with chapters on Taiwanese TV drama in China, the impact of South Korean drama, and trans-border production between the Mainland and Hong Kong.