Pete Johnson

Revisiting the financial interest & syndication rules: A discursive and industrial analysis of U.S. Television production, 1971–1990 For over half a century, industrial discourses have positioned the prospect of financial regulation in U.S. television—specifically the (re)introduction of the Financial Interest and Syndication (F...

Understanding the messy, long arc of media history is essential for navigating our current moment.

50 free e-prints are available for those interested: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/BRWRP...

#MediaStudies #TVHistory #PoliticalEconomy #MediaIndustries (3/3)

An area chart titled "Figure 4. Percentage of primetime programs by supplier type (1970–90)", showing percentage of prime-time schedule slots on the Y-axis and years from 1970 to 1990 on the X-axis. The chart is broken down into three categories: Independent (Blue), Studio (Red), and Studio Co-Production (Yellow). It shows how studio production decreased in the late 1970s, but resurged in the late 1980s.

I argue the rise of 70s indies was driven as much by macroeconomic factors, inertia, and studio retrenchment as by FCC policy. By the late 80s, the deficit financing model reinforced studio dominance despite the rules. We need to look past policy myths to the material history of financing (2/3)

A stacked bar chart titled "Figure 1. Primetime commissioned programs by supplier type (1970–80)", showing the percentage breakdown of programs from 1970 to 1980 among categories: Independent Producer, Studio, Independent Studio Co-Production, Network Co-Production, and Network. It demonstrates how in the first few years of the 1970s, independent production actually remained quite low to studio production in television.

Is the return of Fin-Syn a "silver bullet" for Hollywood?

My new article in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television offers a revisionist history of the "Golden Age" of independent TV, challenging the "industrial common sense" of our contemporary moment. (1/3)

Mark Lazarus On Versant Media’s Strategic Plan To “Build Beyond Cable” Versant Media CEO Mark Lazarus kicked off the company's investor day Thursday by outlining the company's "mandate to build beyond cable."

Love that the name of the guy leading Versant (the Comcast-Uni cable spinoff) is literally Lazarus

deadline.com/2025/12/mark...

Rare TV Ads From 120 Years of Variety: ‘I Love Lucy,’ ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Square Pegs,’ ‘The Golden Girls,’ ‘Freaks and Geeks’ and More From 'I Love Lucy' and 'Your Show of Shows' to 'Freaks and Geeks' and 'The Sopranos,' here are rarely seen TV ads from 120 years of Variety.

If you're a TV/pop culture nerd, this Cynthia Littleton piece in Variety is a must-click: She's compiled dozens of vintage ads from the trade, hyping everything from Kukla, Fran & Ollie and Columbo to The Sopranos and Freaks and Geeks. This is the good stuff. variety.com/gallery/tv-a...

YouTube video by Blackstone Blackstone’s 2025 Holiday Video: Forever Blackstone

"Fun is a medicinal bath" - Theodor Adorno

Sleepy Hollow, NY: Andrew Carnegie’s grave sits directly across from Samuel Gompers’ (American Federation of Labor founder) in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

Both relatively modest compared to Rockefeller’s mausoleum at the top of the hill!

In a new essay, @aca-laurel.bsky.social examines the role of the fanboy auteur in HBO's backstage comedy "The Franchise," which satirizes Hollywood's superhero industrial complex. Read: www.flowjournal.org/2025/07/fanb...

Journal of e-Media Studies, Volume 7 Issue 2: Accessible Civil Rights Heritage: Mexicans in Your Town: Histories of Mexican Migration to the United States in Local Television Documentaries by Rodolfo Fernández and Deborah L. JaramilloUniversity of Connecticut (Fernández) / Boston University (Jaramillo)AbstractMigrants and LocalsA Brief Overview of Mexican Migration to the United States&...

On local television, public broadcasting, and responses to Mexican immigration: @rodolfofernandez.bsky.social and I wrote about how locally produced documentaries tackled their communities' anxieties about the "sudden" appearance of Mexicans in their towns. pub.dartmouth.edu/journal-of-e...

Thanks Deb!

Congrats to DR. Pete Johnson (@itstv.bsky.social) on successfully defending his terrific dissertation, "The Risk Myth: Reassessing the Financial Cultures, Practices, and Structures of U.S. Television, 1945–2013."

Next stop: Visiting Assistant Professor in Communication at the University of Miami!

Want to learn about how Texas media industry professionals are active in a range of distribution and exhibition activities across film, television, streaming, and podcasting?

Check out the latest installment in our podcast series! cc @utexasrtf.bsky.social @texasmoody.bsky.social

Texas Entertainment and Media Industries Symposium: Production Today, we’re bringing you the second episode in our special series about the Texas media industries. This podcast was recorded at the Texas Entertainment and Media Industries Symposium, which took pla

Podcast link: soundcloud.com/rtfmic/texas...

Stay tuned for a forthcoming white paper authored by several of us at UT-Austin on the state of the Texas media industry ecosystem.

YouTube video by Media Burn Archive Steven Spielberg watches Oscar nominations in 1976

With everyone reflecting on the 50th anniversary of “Jaws,” it’s the perfect time to revisit this fascinating TVTV clip of Steven Spielberg reacting to the Oscar recognition his blockbuster got — and didn’t get — when nominations came out (via the Media Burn Archive).

Flow is experiencing some unexpected back end issues which have resulted in the site currently being down. We are doing our best to get this resolved as quickly as possible. Thanks to those who have already reached out!!

The financial ecologies of transnational television production: “Following the money” from private equity to Sky Germany’s Pagan Peak - Peter Arne Johnson, 2025 Private equity firms and institutional stakeholders increased their investments in television production amid the streaming boom of the late 2010s and early 202...

How is global TV production shaped by private equity?
Peter Arne Johnson follows the financial threads behind #PaganPeak to unpack the paradoxes of capital investment. #OnlineFirst journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

The only section of my dissertation I am willing to share publicly:

#Dunkin

say it again:

4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities

ROI for NIH and NSF for local economies is conservatively 4x, often close to 10x

demolishing higher education is economic sabotage

The financial ecologies of transnational television production: “Following the money” from private equity to Sky Germany’s Pagan Peak - Peter Arne Johnson, 2025 Private equity firms and institutional stakeholders increased their investments in television production amid the streaming boom of the late 2010s and early 202...

🚨New (open access!) article in @mcsjournal.bsky.social on transnational media financing and private equity investment in TV production 💰📺

Reminder: Friday, May 16, 2025 is the last day to volunteer for service. You can serve on an Award or Standing committee, or the 2026 Program committee. SCMS relies on its members to function at its best, so get involved!

www.cmstudies.org/page/Volunte...

Trump and many GOP lawmakers want to end all funding for NPR and PBS − unraveling a US public media system that took a century to build The precursors of today’s public media programs consisted of professors giving lectures about history and finance.

Wrote a historical piece that defends funding for NPR and PBS. Whatever their problems, we cannot let Fox News become our default "public sphere." There needs to be alternatives, including imperfect yet aspirational ones.

In "Welcome to Wrexham and Representations of Management in Football (Soccer) as a Product of the “Media Sports Cultural Complex”" Andrew Stubbs-Lacy explores representation & construction of management in football with a focus on Welcome to Wrexham. Read: tinyurl.com/4z7wkuk8

Instead of advertising’s integration of AI media technologies as driven by natural market tendencies, @matthewcrain.bsky.social argues its from systemic commodification & political-economic forces, as analyzed through the Political Economy of Media & Communications framework. tinyurl.com/3yajfcmb

My new column in @flowtv.bsky.social : "Silicon Valley's Human Shields."
Earlier drafts were more a love letter to Lina Khan, this is somewhat more serious?
www.flowjournal.org/2025/04/huma...

Next up: @geraldsim.bsky.social critiques Big Tech’s lobbying strategies against antitrust legislation, arguing that companies use technoliberal narratives, racialized imagery & nationalist rhetoric, such as the “China Argument,” to manipulate public opinion and more. tinyurl.com/ycka7652

Too Much TV: SXSW Loses Its Soul Can the once-lively festival survive if it's just part of an entertainment industry sales flywheel?

I wanted to highlight tonight's newsletter. Because I think it's a really good example of what I do five days a week

open.substack.com/pub/toomucht...

a group of minions wearing hard hats and goggles are standing together ALT: a group of minions wearing hard hats and goggles are standing together

🥳New Flow?! With Michael Z. Newman, @geraldsim.bsky.social ,
@matthewcrain.bsky.social , Roderik Smits, & Andrew Stubbs-Lacy! Topics include: camera looks in sitcoms, advertising’s integration of AI, Big Tech’s lobbying efforts, "fair pay” in media industries, & Welcome to Wrexham! flowjournal.org

Dr. Newman explores the use of camera looks in sitcoms like Abbott Elementary as a comedic device. Establishing direct connection with the audience, blending traditions of comedic performance that invite viewer participation & emotional response. Read it here: tinyurl.com/4vp8uakv

For Flow, I wrote this essay about the camera looks in Abbott Elementary and other comedies, and camera looks more generally going back to film comedian comedies and musicals. I connect these looks to the sitcom laugh track. www.flowjournal.org/2025/04/came...