Originally titled, It’s Messy, The Mindy Project is an original program created by and starring Mindy Kaling, commissioned by NBC due to her success as a writer, actor, and executive producer on their hit show The Office, which was reaching the end of its run. The network ultimately passed on the pilot due to the female-lead heavy programming schedule of that particular season, which included, Whitney, The New Normal, Save Me, and Parks & Recreation (Hibberd). Once released the program was immediately picked up by FOX, a rare move, as networks do not usually release their programs to other networks, at least until the end of the season to prevent the competition of other networks using their own original programming (Lotz, 117) However, this
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Due to the increasing costs of television production into the post-network era, coproductions became an important way for the studios compete (Lotz, 102), without the competitiveness and expense of this era, The Mindy Project would not have needed to elicit the interest of two studios to produce its episodes. Due to its location on FOX, with syndication on their website and then on Hulu and with upcoming cable syndication deals (Spangler), The Mindy Project encompasses a narrative structure unique to the post-network era because it is neither fully episodic nor fully serial. It has the potential to be fully serialized due to increased opportunities for convenient viewing (Lotz, 74), specifically in its main distribution form on Hulu which has all past episodes, in addition to those currently airing, promoting binge watching, or otherwise quick linear viewing that promotes enough familiarity with the text to employ more complex, multilayered and continuous plots, evident in the show’s cast of primary and secondary characters, multi-plot narrative, with Mindy’s being the most prominent but other smaller stories woven into the main story. Furthermore, the series has a strong serial …show more content…
In its premiere season, the program was at the top of the list of most popular shows among 18 to 49 year olds with at least four years of college, with slightly lesser rating in the young and rich category (Siede). Furthermore, as the first network show with an Indian American lead and creator, The Mindy Project was likely, attempting to attract the booming South Asian American population of the last decade (Nielson) which, according to Pew Research is among the most highly educated racial or ethnic groups in the U.S. and have higher median incomes and tend to be more liberal (DeSilver), fitting in nicely with the program’s intended and established audience, catered to by the show’s youthful sense of humor, representation of modern dating life, and modern family constructions. These successes were highly valuable in, and likely only catered to as a result of, the increasingly fragmented audience of the post network era causing the networks to rely on audiences with the most spending potential in order to attract advertisers, which are drawn to audiences most able and most likely to spend money on their products (Lotz,
Due to the increasing costs of television production into the post-network era, coproductions became an important way for the studios compete (Lotz, 102), without the competitiveness and expense of this era, The Mindy Project would not have needed to elicit the interest of two studios to produce its episodes. Due to its location on FOX, with syndication on their website and then on Hulu and with upcoming cable syndication deals (Spangler), The Mindy Project encompasses a narrative structure unique to the post-network era because it is neither fully episodic nor fully serial. It has the potential to be fully serialized due to increased opportunities for convenient viewing (Lotz, 74), specifically in its main distribution form on Hulu which has all past episodes, in addition to those currently airing, promoting binge watching, or otherwise quick linear viewing that promotes enough familiarity with the text to employ more complex, multilayered and continuous plots, evident in the show’s cast of primary and secondary characters, multi-plot narrative, with Mindy’s being the most prominent but other smaller stories woven into the main story. Furthermore, the series has a strong serial …show more content…
In its premiere season, the program was at the top of the list of most popular shows among 18 to 49 year olds with at least four years of college, with slightly lesser rating in the young and rich category (Siede). Furthermore, as the first network show with an Indian American lead and creator, The Mindy Project was likely, attempting to attract the booming South Asian American population of the last decade (Nielson) which, according to Pew Research is among the most highly educated racial or ethnic groups in the U.S. and have higher median incomes and tend to be more liberal (DeSilver), fitting in nicely with the program’s intended and established audience, catered to by the show’s youthful sense of humor, representation of modern dating life, and modern family constructions. These successes were highly valuable in, and likely only catered to as a result of, the increasingly fragmented audience of the post network era causing the networks to rely on audiences with the most spending potential in order to attract advertisers, which are drawn to audiences most able and most likely to spend money on their products (Lotz,