In this context, and despite the strong influx of American drama, Flemish drama has thrived, not because of government quota or grants, but because viewers prefer it. While culturally nationalist Flemish policies did dictate the drama output in de monopoly years of public broadcasting (until 1989), for the past two decades drama has been produced in a competitive market where popularity is the prime rationale. Despite the charged political context, television (including TV drama) has for a long time operated as a forum where Flemish identity is confirmed in a self-evident, unpoliticized way. Flanders, in particular, has all the characteristics attributed to the 'modern' nation: one language, one culture, one people – however discursively constructed these homogeneous realities may be. This paper argues that, at least in the Belgian case, it makes more sense to analyse television drama on the level of the cultural and linguistic communities than on the level of the nation-state. Cultural specificity has played a key role throughout the history of Flemish comedy, and it remains to do so, in spite of the increasing global circulation of genres and formats. The evolution of Flemish comedy is the product of a dynamic interplay between manifold factors, including institutional organisation, broadcasting policies, budgets, producer taste and creativity, changes in television culture, social discourses on the popular, audience ratings, press criticism, national culture (and its position in broadcasting), and international genre conventions. To understand the establishment of comic genres, it is necessary to link textual characteristics to the shifting power play between production and reception. It is possible to distinguish broad phases (proto-comedy, classic sitcom and reality comedy), but there are equally many idiosyncrasies and breaches, which contradict the notion of a gradual, linear and culturally synchronised evolution. To illustrate this point, the evolution of Flemish comic fiction is sketched. This article argues that genre analysis remains important to the study of television, but that it needs to give more attention to the cultural and history specificities of genres.
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