Flow amid Flux

Abstract

The extensive changes affecting television highlight the importance of understanding how these changes might affect programming content. The use of music in evening drama is analyzed here with a view toward interpreting the place of music within several programs in relation to the larger changes affecting the medium. From this analysis, it seems clear that the use of composed music and popular songs is intended to act as a stylistically distinct feature of the overall experience and understanding of evening dramas to attract and hold the attention of viewers across multiple sites of consumption in an increasingly competitive entertainment market. An expansive use of the concept of televisual flow is employed to connect the aesthetic contours of the use of music in evening drama to the ways in which producers try to create and maintain connections with viewers whose viewing patterns and practices are changing rapidly and unpredictably.