Abstract

Increasingly, online fan sites are providing instant feedback to television writers and scriptwriters, who are starting to pay more attention to the chatter of “the boards. ” At the same time, the boards have become a marketing strategy for TV shows that takes advantage of interactivity to create fan communities and build viewer loyalty. Drawing on a case study of the popular web site TelevisionWithoutPity.com, this article explores the way in which online viewer activity doubles as a form of value-enhancing labor for television producers in two ways: by allowing fans to take on part of the work of making a show interesting for themselves and by providing instant (if not necessarily statistically representative) feed-back to producers. Based on interviews with producers and contributors to a bulletin board they frequent, the article explores both sides of interactivity: the promise of shared control and the ability to off-load some market research labor onto viewers.