Open AccessMust tweet TV: ABC's #TGIT and the cultural work of programming social television
Author(s) -
Eleanor Patterson
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
transformative works and cultures
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1941-2258
DOI - 10.3983/twc.2018.1147
Subject(s) - advertising , order (exchange) , sociology , television studies , multiculturalism , media studies , prime time , schedule , thursday , femininity , computer science , business , gender studies , pedagogy , linguistics , philosophy , finance , operating system
US television network ABC developed their "Thank God It's Thursday" (TGIT) programming block in 2014 as a prime-time schedule composed of three back-to-back dramas produced by well-known TV showrunner Shonda Rhimes. From its initial development, ABC intended TGIT to be a three-hour live viewing event, encouraged by a multipronged #TGIT Twitter campaign. I consider the industrial and cultural significance of marketing the TGIT block of programming together as a cohesive block of social TV in order to encourage and structure audience participation in live television viewing. #TGIT's form of social television developed as a result of the rise of multicultural market research. The reemergence of serialized melodrama on network television functions culturally to commodify Black femininity in order to appeal to a transracial upscale female audience.