977277

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MCS0010.1177/0163443720977277Media, Culture & SocietyCombes and Glevarec

Main Article

Media, Culture & Society

Differentiation of series and

2021, Vol. 43(5) 860­–885
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
tastes for TV series: The sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0163443720977277
https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720977277
French case journals.sagepub.com/home/mcs

Clément Combes and Hervé Glevarec

Irisso C.N.R.S. – PSL Research University, France

Abstract
In the field of cultural practice, TV series emerged in the 1990s as a radically renewed
cultural object and has met a growing audience. Much has been written about the
renewal of the genre, but little, thus far, about the sociology of its viewership. Based on
a representative survey of the practices and preferences of French adults, conducted in
2017, this article assesses the hypothesis of a differentiation of taste and practices for
TV series. It draws on a factorial analysis and a hierarchical classification of TV series
to examine the factors structuring this practice. It appears that the practice of series
articulates three kinds of differentiation: by series (long tail), by uses (television vs new
media), and by tastes (socio-existential questioning expressed by the age and socio-
political anchoring of viewers).

Keywords
TV series, taste, practice, television, digital, differentiation

Introduction: the differentiation hypothesis

Over the last 20 years, TV series have become a major cultural object, both in practice
and in programming. Though they have a long history, they became the object of a
renewal driven by US studio output in the 1990s (Brunsdon, 1990; Cardwell, 2007;
Feuer, 2007). Moreover, the development of a set of digital media and services offers
audiences a broader choice of series, no longer necessarily limited to the world of televi-
sion (Combes, 2011; 2013). For French audiences, this is a “new culture” because it

Corresponding authors:
Clément Combes, CNRS, Paris, France, 24 rue Saint-Georges, Paris, 75009, France.
Email: clement.combes@gmail.com
Hervé Glevarec, CNRS, Paris, France, 24 rue Saint-Georges, Paris, 75009, France.
Email: herve.glevarec@cnrs.fr
Combes and Glevarec 861

often takes the form of a conversion to a new practice, one that was disparaged a few
years earlier, especially among the well-educated circles that have turned to it in recent
years. It is possible to consider a phenomenon of “seriephilia” (Béliard, 2014), similar to
the one of “cinephilia” (de Baecque, 2005), which differs from the 60-70s ‘golden age’
of series on French TV in a context of a ‘broad audience’ (Papin et al., 2018).
In terms of content, these series have specific features: a multitude of characters and
narrative threads, and real-life elements or “reality effects” (Glevarec, 2012) intended
to signal their close connection to people and current social realities. Contemporary
series have built their interest on a larger cast of characters, on longer and more numer-
ous narrative threads, thanks to serialization (Sepulchre, 2011), and by depicting his-
torical and sociological contexts that resonate with the audience (Glevarec, 2010).1 In
addition to these formal features, we find common content relating to the existential
struggles of the characters – already highlighted by Sabine Chalvon-Demersay (1999a)
with ER – and still more recently to the revelation of the hidden sides of individuals and
situations. For example, the splitting of character via voice overs or by talking to the
audience (“breaking the 4th wall”) is a form characteristic of the reflexive dimension of
contemporary series. For some, series act as sounding boards for the socio-cultural
problems of their times, or as symptoms of the state of social relations in our society
(Chalvon-Demersay, 1999b; Macé, 2009). In short, contemporary series have a particu-
lar place in the cultural field: they represent a “mirror of life” (Winckler, 2002).
A substantial share of the research focuses on the stylistic or narratological charac-
teristics of series (Barthes, 2010; Bianchi, 1984; Chalvon-Demersay, 2004; Eco, 2005;
Esquenazi, 2010; Pasquier, 1996; Sepulchre, 2011; Thorburn, 1976; Villez, 2009). This
development owes much to media and communication studies, literary studies, and phi-
losophy, which has made it an object of ethical education (de Saint-Maurice, 2009;
Laugier, 2019). The material and technical dimensions of the consumption of TV series
have acquired, in recent years, a structuring value due to the multiplication of “media-
tions” (Hennion, 2001) in the cultural field (Combes, 2015; 2017). DVDs, video-on-
demand (VoD) and catch-up TV, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, streaming, computers,
smartphones and digital tablets, etc. are opening new ways of consuming and experi-
encing TV series. For the most part, they reflect the rhetorical shift at work in the cul-
tural industries, where the term “program” is being replaced by “content” (Caldwell,
2004). Viewing series on the television as they air is now merely one of many ways of
consuming them. The contemporary context can be described as the articulation of two
logics: one of de-institutionalization of the previous framework (the television program
and the television) and one of desynchronization (simultaneous broadcasting and recep-
tion), reflected, on the one hand, in the diversification of TV series in terms of genre,
length, and broadcasting schedule, and on the other, in the diversification of configura-
tions of practice in terms of media, moment, sociability, and choice (Napoli, 2011). In
the 2000s, Barbara Klinger (2006), and Jean-Michel Guy (2001) underlined the impact
of the domestic environment (watching television, VHS, and DVDs) on cinema-going
practices.
The sociology of TV series’ audiences has focused on fans of series (Chalvon-
Demersay, 1999a, 2003; Tulloch and Jenkins, 1995) (Author A, 2011) and we know
862 Media, Culture & Society 43(5)

that, in the 1990s, US-made TV series were keenly followed by young French
adults. In the French cultural practices survey of 2008, young adults were almost
twice as likely as the over-50s to say that they had watched three series from the
1990s or later (Donnat, 2009). As evidenced by the regular questioning of the
French Cultural Ministry, TV series only appear as a specific genre from the 2008
survey onwards. Olivier Donnat (2009: 91) notes that 76% of French people men-
tioned a series, adding that: “while women and people under 45 were more likely to
cite three series [. . .], the deviations in the usual sociodemographic variables
remain of limited magnitude due to the very great diversity of series now available,
in terms both of content and of mode of distribution” (ibid., : 91). He adds that
“there is so much to choose from that everyone can find a program that meets their
expectations” (ibid., : 91). In the extension of this affirmation of an individualized
taste, we wish to test the hypothesis of a differentiation of practices and taste in the
consumption of TV series, echoing a cultural diversification of cultural tastes and
practices more broadly. Such a hypothesis seems, at first glance, to contrast with a
sociological interpretation of cultural practices based on individuals’ “social posi-
tions” (Bourdieu, 1984).
The hypothesis of differentiation seems to extend the analysis of contemporary cul-
tural practices seen as more eclectic, less institutionally and materially constrained, and
more experientially diverse. The sociology of culture and media has in recent years
pointed to an erosion in the practice of classical cultural genres, noted by Bernard Lahire
(2004), although he supports the idea of persistent classical “cultural legitimacy,” par-
ticularly by the higher socio-economic groups, and to a rise of recent genres in the vari-
ous spheres of practice. The structure of cultural participation still appears correlated to
individuals’ level of education, while variables such as age or generation, gender, occu-
pation, and family situation, and geography have acquired a significance that they did
not have in the past or were not highlighted (Bennett et al., 2009) (Glevarec et al., 2020;
(Glevarec and Cibois, 2018; Glevarec, 2019).
The differentiation hypothesis in the consumption of TV series can be applied to two
dimensions of cultural practice: at the level of cultural objects (do individuals watch dif-
ferent series?) and at the level of taste (do individuals have differentiated preferences?).
It can have two sociological meanings: a (simply) descriptive one – to report some dif-
ferences; and an interpretative meaning – to point out specific principles for understand-
ing differences.
This article examines the hypothetical differentiations of taste and practices in the
consumption of TV series, by drawing on a survey entilted Sociology of TV series: tastes,
mechanisms and modalities of practice (the “SERIES Survey”), which was conducted as
part of the ELIPSS study (Longitudinal studies by internet in social sciences) sponsored
by the CDSP (the Sciences-Po/CNRS Center for Socio-Political Data).2 It was adminis-
tered in June -July 2017 on 2,439 people, a representative sample of the adult population
of Metropolitan France,3 the SERIES Survey was carried out using web-enabled tablets
issued to ELIPSS panelists.4 It is also paired with an annual survey that collects and
updates the panelists’ demographic and socio-economic data. The proposed question-
naire lasted about 30 minutes (not counting the socio-demographic questions) and was
Combes and Glevarec 863

Table 1.  Frequency of viewing series and serials.

Percentage of respondents saying they watch series or serials

Every day or nearly 26.9
About 3 or 4 times a week 19.3
About 1 or 2 times a week 22.2
About 1–3 times a month 10.7
Less often. if ever 13.2
Not concerned 4.0
No answer 3.8

SERIES Survey 2017. N = 2439, Total number of individuals; All headcounts are greater than 10. Question:
“What sort of TV programs do you watch, whether ‘live’ or in catch-up, on a television or other device?”

designed to gather data using closed and open-ended questions about French TV series
practices and preferences.
In order to examine this hypothesis of differentiation we proceed in three stages:
firstly, by examining the characteristic of the series’ privileged public, then the distribu-
tion of the series seen, and finally, the structuration by taste and practice.

A feminine, young, and low-educated practice

In 2017, the consumption of series was a widespread practice in France. In the SERIES
survey, nine out of 10 French adults (91.0%) stated that they had followed a series at
some point during their lifetime, totaling 2231 “series watchers.”5 Weekly watching of
series is characteristic of a large share of them: two thirds (68.4% in total) watch at least
one episode of a series every week (Table 1). At the other end of the scale, one French
person in five is not, or only slightly, concerned by this cultural genre, claiming to watch
them “less often [than once a month] or never.”
Since Richard Hoggart (1957), sociologists have underlined the place television occu-
pies in working-class life (Masclet, 2018) and its high level of consumption among older
and lower-educated groups (Le Grignou et Neveu, 2017: 59–62). In terms of series,
Donnat (2009) has noted the overrepresentation of women and those under 45 among the
most regular viewers. The survey confirms that series-watching, which is not only tele-
vision-based but also digital (range of media players (DVD, Blu-ray) through online
services (legal or otherwise – VoD, replay TV, downloads, streaming, etc.)), is character-
ized by significant engagement of women, younger and least educated people (Table 2).
Women are more likely than men to say they watch, or have watched, one or more series,
and to watch them more regularly. One French woman in three watches series “every day
or almost every day” (31.9%), compared to fewer than one in four French men (23.2%).
Consumption of series tends to diminish with age. Those in the 31–50-year-old age range
are the most likely to say they watch series, but in terms of frequency, the youngest
respondents score more highly. Nearly two out of five French people aged 19–30 watch
series on a daily or almost daily basis; the same is true for only one in five French people
aged over 70.
 864
Table 2.  Consumption of series and serials by socio-demographic variable.

Percentage of viewers in each group who: Have followed Watch series/serials

a serial at one
time or another Every day About 3 or 4 About 1 or 2 About 1–3 Less often.
or nearly times a week times a week times a month if ever
Total 91.0 27.7 20.0 22.9 11.4 14.1
Gender
 Male 88.2 23.2 19.2 20.5 13.6 18.8
 Female 93.2 31.9 20.9 25.2 9.3 9.6
Age
 19–30 88.8 38.4 23.8 16.6 12.6 6.0
 31–40 95.6 31.6 23.1 26.6 8.8 8.3
 41–50 96.1 26.7 20.4 25.3 12.6 12.3
 51–60 93.8 27.0 18.0 26.5 10.2 15.2
 61–70 88.0 23.7 21.5 17.9 11.0 18.9
 71+ 76.0 17.8 11.2 22.5 14.7 26.4
Individual socio-professional category
  Agri., crafts., shopkeeper, business owner 92.6 20.6 22.2 25.4 12.7 14.3
  Manager, liberal professional 96.6 14.1 19.7 30.3 16.7 18.7
  Intermediate occupation 96.4 22.5 23.0 30.0 12.3 10.2
 Employee 96.6 29.8 24.8 25.4 9.1 9.7
  Manual worker 87.8 31.8 18.4 19.0 10.6 11.7
 Student 76.6 34.3 14.1 23.2 17.2 11.1
 Unemployed 95.3 50.6 19.4 17.8 3.3 6.1
 Retired 83.6 21.5 17.5 19.7 12.2 22.4
  Other inactive 93.9 42.3 19.8 17.1 8.1 7.2
(Continued)
Media, Culture & Society 43(5)
Table 2. (Continued)
Combes and Glevarec

Percentage of viewers in each group who: Have followed Watch series/serials

a serial at one
time or another Every day About 3 or 4 About 1 or 2 About 1–3 Less often.
or nearly times a week times a week times a month if ever
Educational level
  No diploma, or secondary school diploma 88.7 35.0 20.0 21.3 6.9 12.0
  CAP or BEP 90.2 33.8 19.3 20.4 9.0 12.6
  Baccalauréat 90.4 24.6 19.9 24.8 12.4 14.4
  Two-year university diploma 92.4 22.3 20.6 25.3 16.5 12.5
  Licence, post-graduate level or higher 93.9 15.3 20.8 24.4 15.9 21.8
Monthly income
  <1200 euros 91.5 42.4 22.3 15.3 8.6 7.9
  1200–1899 euros 91.0 27.9 18.5 24.6 10.8 14.8
  1900–3200 euros 92.6 19.5 18.9 25.5 14.5 16.3
  >3200 euros 86.8 15.8 13.9 28.6 13.9 25.1

Source: SERIES Survey 2017. N = 2362 (socio-demographic values entered by panelists); Headcounts of less than 10 are shown in italics. Questions: “Have you ever,
even if not regularly, followed a TV series or serial, whether on television or on another medium (VHS, DVD, Internet, etc.)?” and “What sort of TV programs do
you watch, whether ʻliveʼ or in catch-up, on a television or other device?”
865
866 Media, Culture & Society 43(5)

While whether one watches a series or not is positively correlated with their level of
education, it seems to have little overall connection to socio-professional category: there
is only a slight prevalence of clerical workers (“employees”), managers and higher intel-
lectual occupations, and intermediate occupations. The unemployed and “other inactive”
people are also strongly represented, in line with Olivier Schwartz’s (1990) observations
from the 1980s about the omnipresence of television among job-seekers. The lower rate
of series viewing among workers is notable, given their keen and attested interest in tel-
evision in general, suggesting that the higher occupational categories may attach greater
value to the act of self-identification as a series-watcher.
People outside of employment (unemployed, other inactive) present the strongest
daily frequency of serial consumption, far ahead of the managers, and higher intellec-
tual occupations, whose consumption pattern is more weekly.6 That daily consumption
of serials decreases as level of education increases: while one in three people with
middle-school level or fewer qualifications claims to watch series and serials every
day or almost every day, the same is true of only one in six French people with a uni-
versity degree.
Following the general question on whether panelists had ever watched a series, the
survey contained an open question asking those who had, at some time during their life,
watched a series (N = 2231) to cite the series they had seen “in full or almost (i.e. several
seasons) over the last 3 years.” The “3-year” timeframe does not operate a strict selection
of people’s recollections; it was chosen in order to gather data on series watched in the
recent past.
One third of these “viewers” did not cite any series seen in the past 3 years (Table 3).
The likelihood of citing no series is greater among older individuals and the occupa-
tional groups of craftspeople, business owners/shopkeepers, workers, and the
unemployed.
The categories reporting the most series were the young and graduates. The largest
scores for the number of series listed were recorded by two women, who cited 67 and 68
series respectively. The first, a 37-year-old company executive, with a master’s (or higher)
degree and single, listed Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Grey’s Anatomy, Homeland
and How I Met Your Mother as her five favorite series. The second, a 59-year-old personal
services employee, with a high-school diploma, also single, listed Dr. House, Wallander,
Capitaine Marleau, Grey’s Anatomy, and Braquo as her favorite series.
The practice of series-watching seems to align with the world of cultural practices of
the more educated categories (Coulangeon, 2005), but with a feminine and youthful
modulation.

The particularization of watched TV series

The declaration of the TV series watched was collected by means of a question using
auto-completion and suggestion based on the first letters of the name of the series entered
by the panelist – auto-completion allowed by an exhaustive list of several thousand series
provided by the BetaSeries site.7
Combes and Glevarec 867

Table 3.  Number of series watched in full over the last 3 years, by socio-demographic variable.

Percentage of series viewers saying they No Only 1 2–4 5 or

have seen, in full, over the last 3 years: series series series more series
Total 33.9 18.6 25.5 22.1
Gender
 Female 30.6 17.3 27.9 24.3
 Male 37.5 20.0 22.9 19.6
Age
 19–30 36.7 5.3 30.0 28.0
 31–40 31.4 11.4 29.5 27.6
 41–50 36.5 17.7 29.3 16.6
 51–60 23.2 32.6 21.5 22.7
 61–70 30.3 28.3 23.7 17.7
 71+ 49.6 18.0 15.0 17.3
Individual socio-professional category
  Agri., crafts., shopkeeper, business owner 56.7 16.7 20.0 6.7
  Manager, liberal professional 21.3 9.8 31.1 37.7
  Intermediate occupation 31.9 10.0 27.5 30.6
 Employee 21.4 18.5 34.7 25.4
  Manual worker 43.5 32.9 17.6 5.9
 Student 34.4 3.3 36.1 26.2
 Unemployed 43.2 10.8 18.9 27.0
 Retired 37.5 24.9 19.8 17.7
  Other inactive 15.9 24.6 37.7 21.7
Educational level
  Licence, postgraduate level and higher 35.4 10.4 19.8 34.4
  Two-year university diploma 30.7 12.4 26.8 30.1
  Baccalauréat (mainstream or vocational) 32.0 14.6 25.1 28.3
  CAP or BEP 36.5 23.1 25.5 14.9
  No diploma, or secondary school diploma 34.1 22.2 26.6 17.1

SERIES Survey 2017. N = 2158 (socio-demographic values entered by series viewers). Headcounts of less
than 10 are shown in italics. Question: “Over the last 3 years, which series or serials have you seen in full,
or almost (i.e. several seasons)?”

Of the 2,231 series watchers (in their lifetime), two-thirds (66.9%), or 1941 people,
cite at least one series seen in the past 3 years. These viewers reported a total of 889
series.

Recent series of different origins and formats

The most frequently mentioned series in 2017 is the “medical” series Grey’s Anatomy
(Table 4). It is listed by 11.2% of series viewers and by 16.7% of those who cited at least
one series seen in the past 3 years. It is followed by Game of Thrones. Next, less widely
cited, come the daily French soap Plus belle la vie, then the series NCIS and Criminal
Minds. The 10 most cited series include eight made in the USA and two made in France
(Plus belle la vie and Alice Nevers). Despite this geographical homogeneity, Table 4
868 Media, Culture & Society 43(5)

Table 4.  Most cited series over the last 3 years in 2017.

Numbers and percentage of Viewers Share of Share of respondents

respondents having seen the (N) viewers who cited at least
following over the last 3 years: (N = 2231) one series (N = 1491)
Grey’s Anatomy 246 11.2 16.7
Game of Thrones 239 11.0 16.2
Plus belle la vie 142 6.2 9.6
NCIS 129 5.5 8.7
Criminal minds 111 5.1 7.5
The walking dead 98 4.9 6.6
Alice Nevers, le juge est une femme 94 3.8 6.4
House 93 3.7 6.3
The mentalist 89 3.6 6.0
Breaking bad 85 4.2 5.8
Desperate housewives 81 3.9 5.5
Candice Renoir 80 3.1 5.4
Homeland 76 2.8 5.1
CSI: Miami 73 3.4 4.9
Friends 68 3.2 4.6
Prison break 67 3.0 4.5
CSI: Manhattan 66 2.7 4.5
Vikings 61 2.8 4.1
House of cards 60 2.4 4.1
Section de recherches 58 2.9 3.9
Dexter 58 2.6 3.9
Castle 56 2.0 3.8
NCIS: los angeles 54 2.3 3.7
Bones 52 2.4 3.5
Orange is the new black 51 3.5 3.5
Le bureau des légendes 51 1.9 3.5
Profilage 51 1.9 3.5
Les petits meurtres d’Agatha Christie 50 2.2 3.4

SERIES Survey 2017. Scope: series cited by more than 2% of viewers. Question: “Over the last 3 years,
which series or serials have you seen in full, or almost (i.e. several seasons)?”
E.g.: 11.2% of series viewers, or 16.7% of respondents (a total of 246 individuals) cited Grey’s Anatomy as a
series they had seen over the last 3 years.

shows the large variety of genres and content, as shown by the three most cited series: a
medical drama, a medieval fantasy and a short-episode daily serial. Then the list com-
prises many cop dramas, political and historical shows, drama series, and one sitcom.
As Table 4 indicates, when compared with the 2008 French Cultural Practices Survey,
the citation score of series reflects a dependency on the televised or online content being
up to date, whether by being broadcast on TV or by being available on the Internet, as is
the case for Game of Thrones.
Most of the series cited belong to the last decade (2010–2017); by contrast, little men-
tion is made of series prior to the 1990s. The most viewed series have had a lifespan of
Combes and Glevarec 869

300

Grey's Anatomy
250
Game of Thrones

200

150
Plus belle la vie

100

50

American Horror Story Law and Order: Trial by Jury

Police District

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600

Ranking by number of citations

Graph 1.  The long tail of series watched.

SERIES Survey 6. All of the series cited.
E.g.: Grey’s Anatomy is cited 246 times and is the most frequently cited series (rank = 1).

several seasons (13 for Grey’s Anatomy, 7 for Game of Thrones), which allows them to be
durably present on screen and in people’s minds. The serial format (with episodes forming
a narrative thread) predominates over the standalone format (with episodes independent
of one another), and US productions predominate over French productions.
The first 23 diffusers, producing 10 of the cited series, broadcast 12 American series,
six French ones, and five British ones. The first five include four American networks and
one French private channel (TF1). The SVOD platform Netflix is ranked above the
American cabled network HBO, which drove the TV series renewal in the 1990s (Buckley
et al., 2008). With hits famous slogan “It’s not TV. It’s HBO,” HBO finds itself behind a
new audiovisual actor that belongs to the internet ecosystem. It certainly shows that
besides Netflix, whose slogan could be “it’s not TV, it’s the internet,” the emergence of
SVOD platforms gives rise to new series consumption practices, damaging to traditional
network TV.

Particularization of series
As noted earlier, 889 series were cited as having been seen over the last 3 years by 1491
series viewers. Of the 889 series cited, 382 (or 43%) are one-offs, cited only once by a
single viewer.8 The result is a long tail (Anderson, 2006) in the structure of the series
watched, representing almost half of them (Graph 1). This long tail indicates a particular-
ized aspect of practice of series watching.
A quarter of the series (26.9%) are cited between two and four times, either by two,
three or four people (Graph 2). Series cited 5–19 times represent 20.7% of the series
870 Media, Culture & Society 43(5)

Graph 2.  Structure of series citations, by frequency.

SERIES Survey 2017. All of the series cited. Question: “Over the last 3 years, which series or serials have
you seen in full, or almost (i.e. several seasons)?”
E.g.: 43% of series cited were cited only once.

cited. Finally, those cited 20 or more times account for 9.4% of the total. We are looking
at one of the characterizations of the practice: series cited only once are the predominant
group. A differentiation of the series viewed seems to find a first manifestation in the
quotations structure of TV series watched.
The structure of citations for the most frequently listed series can be interpreted in two
ways (Table 5). First, we note that 30.2% of the respondents cite at least one of the top
two series, 56.8% at least one of the top 10 (cf. Table 4), and 84.9% at least one of the
top 50. Second, we note that only 2.3% of the respondents cite both of the top two series
(i.e. Grey’s Anatomy and Game of Thrones), with 22.9% citing at least two of the top 10,
and 53.5% at least two of the top 50. Finally, a very small number (1.5%) cite at least 10
of the top 50 series.
The structure of taste in series appears both atomized and polarized, with, at one end,
an (albeit small) set of shared series and at the other a diffracted plurality of sets, some
of which overlap. The series watched seem to support the hypothesis of a first kind of
differentiation, a particularization on the basis of the content. This distribution of TV
series shows that many of these series meet an audience, but a limited audience, whereas
several “star series” concentrate most of French viewers’ attention, without necessarily
being widely shared. Without longitudinal data that could compare the evolution of the
curb (in Graph 1), we assume that the long tail of series consumed has never been as
significant as it is now, echoing the editorial illegal offer of the previous years.

A differentiated cultural practice

If the practice of series watching appears diffracted at the content level, what about the
series that are shared among the viewership? What are the principles that structure the
content shared by the panellists? Factorial analysis, adapted to the description of the dif-
ferences and proximities between modalities of a large number of variables, allows for
Combes and Glevarec 871

Table 5.  Structure of the cumulative citations of the most cited series.

Percentage of viewers citing at least: One Two Three Four Five Ten
series series series series series series
that corresponds to the most cited series 16.5  
(Grey’s Anatomy)
from among the two most cited series (Grey’s 30.2 2.3  
A. & GoT)
from among the top three most cited series 37.4 4.6 0.1  
from among the top four most cited series 43.0 7.0 0.7 0.1  
from among the top five most cited series 45.7 10.3 1.9 0.2 0.1  
from among the top six most cited series 47.4 14.1 2.7 0.4 0.1  
from among the top seven most cited series 51.2 15.6 3.3 0.7 0.1  
from among the top eight most cited series 53.5 18.4 3.8 1.1 0.3  
from among the top nine most cited series 55.0 20.9 5.0 1.6 0.6  
from among the top 10 most cited series 56.8 22.9 6.6 1.7 0.7 0
from among the top 50 most cited series 84.9 53.5 34.1 19.1 11.0 1.5

SERIES Survey 2017. All viewers and series cited (N = 1491). Percentages are unweighted.
E.g.: 30.2% of series viewers cite at least one of the two most cited series and 2.3% cite both of them.

the identification of the series that are close (and shared) and those that are opposed.
Additional socio-demographic variables on the one hand, and tastes and practices on the
other, assist with the interpretation of the meaning of these affinities.
As a first step in the analysis, we subjected the 889 series cited as having been seen
over the last 3 months to a factorial multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) in order to
reveal proximate sets of series. The very large number of non-responses (the many series
not mentioned by the vast majority of individuals) structure the first axis of the factorial
analysis, making it hard to interpret – it represents a coding effect resulting from the non-
responses, reverse of the particularization of the series cited. Axis 1 runs from these very
high headcounts, made up of non-responses, down to the small headcounts.9
It is notable, however, that Axis 1 of the initial MCA distinguishes, in terms of socio-
demographic variables, between the less educationally qualified working-class and pen-
sioner categories and the more educationally qualified middle and upper-class and
student categories. This is an axis of familiarity with series, contrasting those who cite
many with those who mention none. It provides an initial description, focusing less on
the forms of taste than on the actual practice, structured by a traditional social opposi-
tion in the cultural field between those who have cultural practices and those who do
not. If we are interested in examining taste in series, we must look at viewers who listed
at least one series they had seen over the last 3 years and made a selection from the total
of 889 series. In other words, if there is differentiation, it operates within the universe
of series watchers.
We elected to keep the series for which the number of mentions (and therefore also the
number of individuals mentioning them) was at least 20: a total of 84 series which have
872 Media, Culture & Society 43(5)

Figure 1.  The space of series watched. Factorial plane of Axes 1 and 2.
Source. SERIES Survey 2017. Scope: first 84 series cited as seen in full over the last 3 months, where N ⩾ 20
citations.
Triangle size is proportional to the contribution of the series. The ellipses (C1, C2, and C3) shown on the
factorial plane are concentration ellipses (kappa = 2, containing 86% of the population) corresponding to the
hierarchical classification derived from factorial analysis.

the particularity of being widely shared. These 84 most cited series represent 1354 indi-
viduals, who cited at least one of them, or 60.6 % of declared viewers.10
Correspondence factor analysis was performed on the 84 series cited, using them as
active frequencies.11 For the illustrative frequencies we used, on the one hand, gender,
age, individual socio-economic category, educational level, income (per consumption
unit), marital or partnership status and size of municipality, and, on the other hand, pre-
ferred genre of series, medium/frequency, and source/frequency. We use the plane of the
first two factors, for which the first two Eigenvalues (EV) are EV1 = 0.33 and EV2 = 0.23.
To study the first factorial plane (Figure 1), we selected all 84 active modalities, using
the size of the triangle to symbolize their contribution to one or other of the first two
factors.
Combes and Glevarec 873

Differentiation by type of series: French stand-alone series

versus US series
Plane 1–2 combines two logics (Figure 1): to the right of horizontal Axis 1, citations of
French series, most of them being in the crime genre in standalone format (Alice Nevers,
Section de recherches, Julie Lescaut) and to the left, citations of American series (Game
of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Homeland). This is the main differentiation. Along this
axis we find a contemporary differentiation between French TV series and American
series watched outside mainstream TV. Vertical Axis 2 clarifies this opposition by dif-
ferentiating between series broadcast on public channels (France 2 and France 3) or on
the French pay television channel Canal+ – such as Candice Renoir, Caïn, Le Bureau
des légendes – and series shown on private channels (TF1 and M6), such as Hawaii
Five-O, NCIS, or CSI: Miami, all of them US crime series.

Differentiation by age and diploma

Figure 2 represents the additional sociodemographic and preference variables, and
indicates the links between the modalities of age, education level (the primary school
diploma CEP, linked to earlier generations, was not used), income, and socio-profes-
sional category. This graph shows the orthogonal relationship between the two dimen-
sions of age and education, the first being linked to Axis 1 and the second to Axis 2,
but both positioned along the diagonals. At the intersection of the two dimensions is
that of income and, to a lesser extent, that of socio-professional category. On Axis 2
there is a differentiation between managers and employees, and between large cities,
including Paris, and small conurbations. It is also on this axis that we find a differentia-
tion by gender.

Differentiation by uses: Television and other media

The plane of the additional “viewing conditions” variables (Figure 3) enriches the con-
trast on Axis 1, with the watching of series on daily “live” TV and on a television set at
one end and weekly downloads on a smartphone or desktop computer at the other. Axis
2 contrasts the choice of medium: smartphones and tablets versus television.
Following round clockwise from the upper right quadrant to the upper left quadrant,
we travel through a sequence of taste preferences (on the assumption that one or more
seasons seen in full or almost in full is a proof of preference), starting with French pub-
lic-service series, favored by the more educated and older categories, through standalone
French and American series from private channels, watched by less educationally quali-
fied categories (lower right quadrant), to recent US series, more specialized, in serialized
form, and more linked to the world of the Internet (streaming and downloading sites,
VoD providers like Netflix, etc.), cited by the current younger generations (bottom left
quadrant), and finally, going back up, to series that are still mainly foreign and related to
the Internet and to the pay-TV channel Canal+, watched by educationally qualified
categories.
874 Media, Culture & Society 43(5)

Figure 2.  The space of illustrative sociodemographic and taste variables. Factorial plane of
Axes 1 and 2.
Source. SERIES Survey 2017. This space contains socio-demographic modalities (the modalities of age,
diploma, profession and income are connected up), and preferred series genre underlined (political, drama,
historical, thriller-horror, fantasy-sci-fi, action-adventure, comedy, medical, romantic, animation, legal, and
crime).

Differentiation by genres and themes

Tastes in TV series in the 2000s can, it seems, be understood as being differentiated
according to a principle of generic and thematic affinity with fictional content which, in
one diagonal (Figure 2), associates the upper left quadrant with content of a socio-polit-
ical nature (preferred genres: political, drama, historical) and the lower right quadrant
with series featuring professional settings, human relations and investigations (preferred
genres: romantic, medical, and legal), and, in the other diagonal, associates the upper
right quadrant with socio-historical content (preferred genres, near the center: crime,
historical) and the lower left quadrant with the supernatural (preferred genres: anima-
tion, fantasy, horror and action, adventure). These could be qualified as four types of
reality effect – socio-political, emotional, social, and fantasy – which are preferred to
realism because they are anticipatory rather than documentary, fiction-driven, and sought
after by audiences with differentiated expectations.
Combes and Glevarec 875

Figure 3.  The space of additional illustrative variables: number of series cited, media, and
services. Factorial plane of Axes 1 and 2.
Source. SERIES Survey 2017. This space contains the number of series watched (underlined), five screens
(TV, desktop, and laptop computers, tablet and smartphone) and five services (direct TV, replay TV, VOD,
streaming, and download) with the frequency of their use (once and more times a week; once to three
times a month). The labels of the central modalities have been removed; the modalities of use of live and
televised media are connected up, and the extreme values of the number of series cited are underlined.

Practices that combine taste and materiality

While the bulk of series are still produced by and for television, the modes of practice
associated with series reveal a distinction between digital, private television and public
television series. Digital series get their name from their association with the Internet
universe, both in their production (with series now produced by VOD players, Netflix or
Amazon) and their consumption (VOD, downloading and streaming sites) – a world
which includes the French premium TV channels Canal+ and the public cultural TV
network Arte. These series tend to deal in socio-political intrigues, favored by the better
educationally qualified, and fantasy worlds favored by the young. The series shown on
private channels such as TF1, M6 or TMC (most often produced by American networks)
oscillate between, on the one hand, crime mysteries, based on miscellaneous news items,
where the socio-political implications are most of secondary importance, and, on the
other hand, depictions of human relationships and the range of feelings they evoke.
Private television series are preferably consumed on television, live or in catch-up mode,
by an audience mainly of employees and workers with fewer educational
qualifications.
Expectations linked to the level of degree and socio-professional status explain the
search, by middle-aged graduates, for TV series dealing with socio-political issues
876 Media, Culture & Society 43(5)

through characters development in national or international contexts, and conversely, the

appetite of lower educated individuals for novel series depicting individuals essentially
confronted primarily with life’s trials and tribulations (Ang, 1985; Chalvon-Demersay,
2003). Masclet (2018) describes the search for alternatives to real life in series enjoyed
by members of the “worker” and “employee” categories.
Finally, an older and generally retired viewership tends to be more interested in a third
set of series, produced and broadcast by public service channels (mainly French or
British). These fictions offer stories of a more socio-historical and heritage-related con-
tent, such as the France 3 series, Un Village français, which depicts a French village daily
life during WWII. Similar to previous private television series audience, this viewership
favors television set and live television, and sometimes even the channels’ on-demand
services.
Hence, the differentiating dimensions of age and level of education (or even socio-
cultural level) have, in our opinion, a meaning that comes under what Martuccelli (2017:
349–374) calls “socio-existential questioning.” The sociologist thus characterizes the
contemporary social condition as one in which individuals, or even the social groups that
define them, are confronted with various uncertainties, in intensity and nature, both stat-
utory (prestige) and positional. We support the hypothesis that the four relationships to
the series drawn by the factorial exploration are related to the world, whether projected
(the youngest), retrospective (the oldest), political (the most qualified) or domestic (the
least qualified).

A typology of shared series viewership

Following the factorial analysis, we carried out an ascending hierarchical classification
(AHC) of the 84 series cited by at least 20 people, which enables to differentiate signifi-
cant sets of close series and to characterize them by the features of their associated prac-
tice and their spectators. This typology characterizes series watching, based on the most
shared content, which totals two-thirds of viewers. We retained a division of the AHC
into three classes.12

The “digital seriephiles”13

The profile of Class 1 (Table 6), which represents 33.3% of the population of individuals
citing a series, is characterized by a predominant taste for US series in serial format, but
also some French ones. A set distinctly defined by Homeland, Vikings, Le Bureau des
légendes, Orange is the New Black, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones
and House of Cards. This is a class characterized sociologically by youth (under 40) and
a high level of education. Its members are also more likely to be single or cohabiting
men. It encompasses the series in the upper and lower left quadrants of the factor space
(Figure 1), which, as we noted earlier, correspond to the more educationally qualified
and younger categories respectively. The grouping of these two populations into one
class seems to manifest a shared and privileged relationship with new media and ser-
vices. What its members have in common is that they do not watch series “live” (as they
air) or on a television set. They use VoD or (illegal) streaming and downloading sites,
Combes and Glevarec 877

Table 6.  Profile of Class 1 (33.3%).

Variable name Test value  

Active modalities Illustrative modalities  

Homeland 99.99
Vikings 99.99  
Le Bureau des légendes (The Bureau) 99.99  
Orange is the new black 99.99  
Breaking bad 99.99  
The walking dead 99.99  
Game of thrones 99.99  
  Favorite genre: fantasy, Sci-Fi 99.99  
House of cards 99.99  
  Never on “live” TV 99.99  
  Aged 19–30 11.8  
Fear the walking dead 11.7  

Decreasing significance of the modality that describes the class

True detective 10.2  
  Never on TV 10.1  
Narcos 9.7  
  Download 3–4 times/week 9.5  
The 100 9.5  
The flash (2014) 9.1  
The big bang theory 9.1  
  Download 1–2 times/week 8.9  
Vampire diaries 8.4  
Arrow 8.2  
  VoD every day 8.2  
  Favorite genre: political 8.1  
Dexter 8.1  
Scandal 8.1  
Braquo 7.9  
  On laptop 1–2 times/week 7.9  
How I met your mother 7.7  
  Viewed with friend 7.6  
  Streaming every day 7.5  
  Aged 31–40 7.5  
  Streaming 1–2 times/week 7.5  
  Favorite genre: thriller, horror 7.4  
Friends 7.3  
  On laptop every day 7.3  
  Streaming 3–4 times/week 7.2  
  On Laptop 3–4 times/week 7.2  
  “Live” TV 1–3 times/month 7.1  
  Download 1–3 times/month 7.0  
  Identifies as a big fan 6.9  
(Continued)
878 Media, Culture & Society 43(5)

Table 6.  (Continued)

Variable name Test value  

Active modalities Illustrative modalities  

24 6.8  
  Master’s degree or more 6.6  
Grimm 6.5  
Borrowed from friends 1–3 times/month 6.5  
Gossip girl: L’Élite De New York 6.4  
 Male 6.3  
  Download every day 6.3  
 Single 6.3  
  On desktop every day 5.9  
Once upon a time 5.9  
Revenge 5.7  
  Living with partner 5.5  
  VoD 1–2 times/week 5.5  
  Borrowed from friends every day 5.3  
  On laptop 1–3 times/month 5.3  
  Place of viewing: office 5.2  
  Streaming 1–3 times/month 5.2  
Engrenages (spiral) 5.1  
  Viewed with brother/sister 5.1  
  On desktop 1–2 times/week 5.0  

Test values greater than 5. Active modalities are on the left, illustrative-supplementary modalities are on
the right.

and watch on a computer, preferably a laptop. They define themselves as big fans.
Finally, their favorite genres are, for the upper subgroup, political series, and for the
lower subgroup, fantasy and thriller series.

The “private television seriephiles”

Class 2 (Table 7) represents, roughly speaking, the second tertile of the population
(39.8%). The socio-professional category of “employees” is the most significant socio-
demographic variable in the class, ahead of “women” (which is not shown in the table
because its test value (4.4) is below the limit of 5 that we set for delineating our class
profile tables). This class has a preference for private TV series: in standalone format,
in the medical, legal, crime, and romantic genres, the most prominent of these being
NCIS, CSI: Miami, Criminal Minds, Grey’s Anatomy, Hawaii Five-0, NCIS: Los
Angeles and the French soap Plus belle la vie. Unlike Class 1, television is central to
this class, both as a screen-medium and as a point of access. Its members tend to watch
series “every day” on their television set at the scheduled time. They also make use,
albeit less significantly, of the catch-up services associated with specific TV channels
(test value = 2.94).
Combes and Glevarec 879

Table 7.  Profile of Class 2 (39.8%).

Variable name Test value  

Active modalities illustrative modalities  

NCIS: Los Angeles 99.99
CSI: Miami 99.99  
Criminal minds 99.99  

Decreasing significance of the modality that describes the class

Grey’s anatomy 99.99  
  Favorite genre: medical 99.99  
Hawaii 5–0 11.8  
NCIS: Los Angeles 11.5  
Plus Belle La Vie 11.1  
  “Live” TV Every Day 10.9  
CSI: Manhattan 10.8  
CSI 9.6  
  On TV every day 8.9  
Bones 8.8  
Elementary 8.0  
Docteur house 7.4  
  Profession: employee 6.9  
Prison break 6.9  
Les Feux de l’amour 6.9  
The mentalist 6.7  
Cold case 6.5  
L’Arme Fatale (lethal weapon) 6.1  
Desperate housewives 5.8  
Law and order: special victims unit 5.8  
  Viewed with children 5.7  
Scorpion 5.4  
  Never on a laptop 5.3  

Test values greater than 5.

Laptops, however, are absent from their practices, as are streaming and illegal down-
loading (the variables “never stream” and “never download” have the same test value of
4.89). Finally, the presence of children as viewing companions is a notable characteristic,
suggesting that the typical age of the individuals in this class can be estimated at between
30 and 50.

The “public television seriephiles”

The class immediately adjacent to it, Class 3 (Table 8), represents the final tertile – the
upper right of the factor space (Figure 1) (26.9%). This class centers around French
crime, legal and historical series broadcast on television by public service channels, most
notably Caïn, Les petits meurtres d’Agatha Christie, Candice Renoir, Alice Nevers,
Capitaine Marleau, Cherif, and Le sang de la vigne. This is the class of the older (50 years
880 Media, Culture & Society 43(5)

Table 8.  Profile of class 3 (26.9%).

Variable name Test  

value
Active modalities illustrative modalities  
Caïn 99.99
Les petits meurtres d’Agatha Christie 99.99  
Candice Renoir 99.99  
Alice Nevers, le juge est une femme 99.99  

Decreasing significance of the modality that describes the class

Capitaine Marleau 99.99  
Cherif 99.99  
Le Sang de la vigne 11.6  
Fais pas ci, fais pas ça 11.4  
Profilage 11.3  
Meurtres au paradis 11.1  
Section de recherches 10.8  
Inspecteur Barnaby 10.6  
Dix pour cent 10.3  
Un village français 10.3  
  Aged 61–70 10.2  
Julie Lescaut 9.8  
Falco 9.6  
Castle 9.2  
Downton Abbey 9.0  
Hercule Poirot 8.9  
Broadchurch 8.9  
Camping Paradis 8.5  
  Aged 71+ 8.0  
Columbo 7.6  
Joséphine, ange gardien 7.2  
Borgen 6.8  
Scènes de ménages 6.8  
  Favorite genre: crime 6.6  
  Aged 51–60 6.5  
Peaky blinders 5.9  
  Favorite genre: legal 5.8  
 Married 5.3  
  Viewing position: armchair 5.3  
  Favorite genre: historical 5.0  
Sherlock 5.0  

Test values greater than 5.

old and older) and married respondents. Like Class 2, though less intensively, they con-
sume series via their television sets: the corresponding test values (not shown in the
table) are “TV 1 or 2 times/week” (3.77), “Live TV 1 or 2 times/week” (2.95) and “Live
TV every day” (1.72). Even more than those in Class 2, members of Class 3 are
Combes and Glevarec 881

distinguished by their non-use of digital services (VoD, streaming, downloading) and

new screen devices (computers, tablets, telephones), all of which present negative test
values.
The large classes of shared series revealed by the classification counterbalance the
differentiations in practice. The classification draws three types of spectators having
series in common: a predominantly young, educated, male, single audience; a predomi-
nantly popular, family, female audience; and, finally, a predominantly elderly couples
audience. Nevertheless, it remains differentiated by variables such as age, degree, sex,
and marital status. Those who are differentiated on the socio-cultural level, higher cate-
gories and popular categories, share an age condition (a relation with time) that brings
them closer together in terms of their tastes.
In 2015, we described two major modes of consumption (Author A, 2015). The first
consisted in adhering to the set times determined by the broadcasters and the principle of
the regular TV timeslot, while the second was characterized by the audience taking back
control of viewing times. The typology generated by the hierarchical classification
enriches these two modes of consumption by linking the first (“legacy”) mode to Classes
2 and 3 and the second mode – which has gained ground in recent years – to Class 1,
made up of young and educationally qualified viewers. The mode of consumption of the
latter, partly freed from the constraining framework of the television institution, aligns
their practice of serial-watching less with the practice of movie-watching and more with
that of reading. These two cultural genres – series and reading – were already close in
their respective characteristics: a lasting narrative that calls to be broken up into chapters
and needs to be sustained over time, and a more personal, even intimate, rapport with the
practice. While series may, in recent years, have encroached upon the mindshare of the
reading public, the two practices share the same exponential diversification of contents
and the same differentiation of their audiences.

Conclusion: The differentiation of series watching

The series appears less as a common culture than as a differentiated cultural practice,
both in terms of the series viewed and, albeit to a lesser extent, in terms of taste. The
number of different series cited reflects the diversity of the productions people watch in
practice. The amount of series cited manifests a diversification of the content fre-
quented, echoing the recent inflation in the number of series produced, sometimes
referred to as “peak television” (Loock, 2018). Age, primarily, followed by educational
level – and indeed socio-professional category inasmuch as it adds further symbolic and
economic dimensions – seem to account for the differentiation in tastes. These variables
act both on a material level, by being conducive or unconducive to the use of digital
services (VOD, catch-up TV, illegal downloading, and streaming sites) and new screen
devices (computers, tablets, smartphones), and on the level of people’s preferences, by
determining expectations linked to age on the one hand, and to educational level on the
other. Age-related expectations account for the preference of the under-30s for ani-
mated, fantasy and humorous series, which tend to be peopled by young characters, and
for the penchant of the over-60s for historical and crime series starring more mature
characters (often as a “double act”). The former tends to rely more on new screen
882 Media, Culture & Society 43(5)

devices and digital services, while the latter remain primarily attached to television and
“live” broadcasts.
By differentiation we must understand, in the case of series viewing practices, the
result of a determination by the moment of the life cycle and by the socio-cultural level
that define for each person a relationship to the world, more precisely some socio-exis-
tential questioning. These are linked to uncertainties and questions specific to a shared
historical situation. We could also say – giving back to series their own strength of deter-
mination, anticipation and invention, or segmentation – that this differentiation is
revealed/produced by serial creation itself.
Of course, since the time of the inquiry in mid-2017, those practices have certainly
further evolved in favor of SVOD platforms. Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ have
all recorded high numbers of subscriptions since then and especially during the Spring
2020 confinement resulting from the COVID19 pandemic. Those new subscribers have
certainly become familiarized with SVOD platforms and their catalogues and we can
assume that many of them will maintain their subscription over time.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD
Hervé Glevarec https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4752-5774

Notes
  1. The notion of the “reality effect” is taken from Roland Barthes (2005). For Barthes, the “real-
ity effect” is, in literature, an element whose function is to give the reader the impression that
the text describes the real world.
 2. A DIME-SHS (Data, Infrastructure & Methods of Enquiry in the Humanities & Social
Sciences) équipement d’excellence project funded by a government grant managed by the
National Research Agency under France’s Future Investment Program. For more details on
the ELIPSS panel, see http://quanti.dime-shs.sciences-po.fr
  3. Socio-demographic details were absent for some individuals: 77 of the 2439 did not specify
their gender, educational level, or age. They were removed from the tables that use socio-
demographic variables.
  4. ELIPSS panelists are asked to respond every month to surveys designed by researchers on a
range of topics.
  5. In response to the question: “even on an infrequent basis, have you at any time in your life
watched a television series or soap opera, on television or elsewhere (on cassettes, DVD, on
the Internet, etc.)?”
 6. This observation does not, however, apply to retirees, although they are also outside of
employment: they belong to a generation that watches fewer series.
  7. We would like to thank Maxime Valette, director of BetaSeries, for this availability. https://
www.betaseries.com
  8. The same viewers also cited other series, with few exceptions: there were only cases where
13 viewers cited only one series and that series was cited by no-one else.
  9. We therefore abandoned the canonical MCA-based approach in favor of a correspond-
ence factor analysis (CFA) based on a Burt table, crossing the series with each other and
Combes and Glevarec 883

removing rows and columns that represent non-responses. We thank P. Cibois and D. Mahut
for their advice, and R. Nowak for his reading.
10. This choice entails two exclusions: firstly, 137 of the 1491 respondents are excluded from the
analysis because they did not cite at least one of the 84 series most cited by viewers in general;
and secondly, the other series that the remaining 1354 individuals cited are omitted from the
analysis. What are the characteristics of the excluded viewers? The great majority of these
viewers cite only one series (63.9 %), and only one individual cites five series among the 84
series. They form a set of spectators citing very few series.
11. The active frequencies of CFA fulfill the same role as the active modalities of MCA.
12. To characterize each of the universes of taste, we use the “test values” of the active variables.
“Test values” designate the most characteristic modalities of the class, that is to say the most
significantly distant from the mean value. A strong positive “test value” for a modality indi-
cates a strong relative power of characterization of the class by this modality. The dendrogram
of the AHC shows a break between a first class (33.3%) and two others. Going beyond three
classes produces a 4.1% singleton class, emanating from class 2/3. Thus, the AHC shows the
particularization seen at the level of practices.
13. We define “seriephile” here in a broad meaning. As a synonymous of spectator of series, it do
not presume an intensity of practice neither a self-definition as a fan.

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