the Oprah Winfrey Show can be read as a showcase for the failures of the American Dream to deliver and of the tensions of the liberal politics at its bedrock

A final problem in this context is the way issues of discrimination are characteristically ghettoised throughout the Oprah series

we, the people, want to know… ,” or “America wants to know

challenging racist and other forms of discriminatio

Oprah Winfrey Show

imagined “Americas

This ‘production-value law’ is but one expression of the cultural determinants working to limit the programming possibilities of new television distribution systems

n Canada the thirst for American programming created a cable system which by the 1980s, a decade earlier than in the United States, had already passed more than 80 percent of homes and had signed up 75 percent

cable operators they could not import programming which duplicated that of local stations

San Diego received three network VHF sta

allow public demand to sweep away

its failure so to is a further vivid example of the operation of the ‘law’ of the suppression of radical potential.

FOX’s “Black Block

was the casting of lesbian and gay characters in prime‐time shows

a fourth network in direct competition with powerhouses ABC, CBS and NBC, the channel was the laughing stock of the industry”

NBC, CBS, and ABC

by the twenty‐first century

shifts in technology

“Powerful forces are eroding the networks’ audiences

service

broadcast

returned

rancor