VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture devotes its 9th issue (Spring 2016) to TV Formats and Format Research: Theory, methodology, history and new developments. This special issue seeks to build on existing format scholarship and deepen our understanding of the history and continuing growth of the TV format business from a European perspective.

Photo credits: Erwin Verbruggen CC BY-SA

During the last 15 years format research has grown into a notable, distinct field of academic investigation alongside the dramatic expansion of the trade in TV formats. Format research attempts to:
• Historicise the TV format business;
• Theorise formats and their audiences;
• Uncover business practices and rationales;
• Understand the resulting transformations in the patterns and flows of international programme trade;
• Illuminate localisation practice;
• Reveal and contextualise the particularities of specific local adaptations;
• Understand the implications of format imports for local production.

VIEW seeks contributions that can advance our theoretical and methodological approaches to television formats, address the latest trends in TV formatting, and/or fill other gaps in format scholarship. Contributions in the form of either short articles (2000-4500 words) or video and audio essays are welcome.

Proposals are invited on (but not limited to):

• Production and/or distribution patterns and trends of TV formats developed in or imported into Europe;

• Historical cases of successful and/or failed attempts of selling formats out of or into Europe;

• Significant European TV format players (national or multinational production and/or distribution companies);

• National or European policies that address TV formats in relation to quotas;

• Transnational cultures relating to TV formats (e.g. shared cultures of television production and/or distribution, television aesthetics, or viewing cultures);

• The impact of formatting television on programme flows, local production, genre development, scheduling and/or modes of television consumption and reception;

• Video and audio essays presenting primary sources (e.g. oral interviews, audio-visual material) or other ways of exploring TV formats in Europe.

Deadline for abstracts: September 1, 2015

Deadline for full papers: December 15, 2015

Contributions are encouraged from authors with different expertise and interests in media studies, television broadcasting, political economy of communication, media economics and media industries, audience studies, from researchers to television professionals, to archivists and preservationists. We welcome contributions in the form of articles and video essays.

Paper Proposals (max. 500 words) are due on September 1, 2015.

Submissions should be sent to the managing editor of the journal, Dana Mustata at journal@euscreen.eu.

Articles (2-4,000 words) and video essays will be due on December 15, 2015.

For further information or questions about the issue, please contact the co-editors: John Ellis John.Ellis@rhul.ac.uk), Andrea Esser (a.esser@roehampton.ac.uk) and Juan Francisco Gutiérrez Lozano (jfg@uma.es).