So how can Europeans reverse this American cultural dominance? One way could be to take inspiration from the European music industry. European music producers are increasingly asking artists to record songs intended only for European audiences in English, without any local language versions from the start. Take for example the German singer Sarah Connor. She is unknown outside of continental Europe, yet she sings in English for broadcast on radio stations across the continent. A radio station in France will play a song in English, but not in German. Perhaps the same strategy could eventually be adopted by European television producers. If you're making a show about the Berlin police force and want it to be seen by people all over Europe, you might have a better chance if the German actors spoke in English. It may be humiliating to have to produce a homegrown TV series in a foreign language, but language remains the biggest barrier for European TV producers wanting to make big-budget programmes. If Europeans are concerned about the increasing Americanization of their television programming, filming European shows in English, with a pan-European target audience in mind, could be the way of the future. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Even in the UK, a television producer has no hope of exporting a British fictional TV series to American audiences, which is the only way one could profit from a huge investment in a production. So, the highest quality programming will likely continue to come from the United States, where television money is invested in shows that not only profit from American audiences but also from global audiences through export. Over the past decade, however, there has been a popular European television format that has been imported to America: the reality show. Of course, Americans don't watch reality shows from other countries, but they watch American reality shows based on concepts that originated in Europe. These types of low-budget programs have been produced in Europe for years, and as American television networks' budgets have shrunk lately, they have gravitated toward the same low-budget format. Examples include American Idol (from Pop Idol in the UK), Survivor (from Expedition Robinson in Sweden), and Big Brother (from its namesake in the Netherlands). These examples are limited to the game show/reality format that is inexpensive to produce. Examples of American fantasy TV series based on European ones are few and far between – and they all come from the UK. The historical list of successful examples is relatively limited: The Office, Dear John, Three's Company, All in the Family, Queer as Folk. But in these cases a new American version was made and the format was drastically changed. Only one of these shows, The Office, is currently airing in the United States. So why exactly are global (and particularly European) televisions so dominated by American TV series? Well, obviously it's not just television, but all aspects of popular culture. Movies, music, products, games - they all come from America. Is it just that Americans are much more creative than anyone else? The answer probably has more to do with the fact that the United States is such a large and developed common market. It was also the first developed market to speak a single language, meaning that as new TV, film and recording technologies (initiallyespecially in Europe, incidentally), the United States had the golden combination: a large amount of capital, and a huge population speaking a language. That large American audience offers the prospect of big monetary returns for television producers, making it worth the risk of investing tons of money into a series. With more money comes better quality, with higher quality comes better audience, with higher audience comes more money, Another example: the multiplatform sensation Transformers. Originally a Japanese toy purchased, redesigned and rebranded by the American company Hasbro, it is now a multibillion-dollar film franchise whose latest installment was filmed in China and partially financed by the Chinese. The film has no artistic merit but provided a field day for commentary on the growing soft power rivalry between the United States and China. Zhing Yu, a US-based Chinese media scholar, notes in Foreign Policy magazine that the film depicts Chinese people as bystanders in a struggle on Chinese soil to save the world. It is a group of American individualists, led by Mark Wahlberg, who “save the day”. This message of individualism, according to Yu, spread to China, where the film was seen by more people than in the United States. An example: Grand Theft Auto is one of the most famous video games in the world. It was developed in Edinburgh, but is played in recognizably American fictional cities. Why? Not only because the American market is huge, but because “American” is a global visual language. American popular culture remains pre-eminent, not only through its creativity, but also through its business acumen. Stalin may or may not have said, “If I could control the American film medium, I would need nothing else to convert the whole world to communism.” But totalitarian leaders have long been envious of Hollywood's extraordinary ability to tell stories that speak to the entire planet. The secret to Hollywood's success has a lot to do with the fact that it was founded by immigrants: Goldwyn, Mayer and Warner were all new arrivals. Their cultural frame of reference was a synthesis of new world optimism and old world culture. The stories their studios told and the way they told them made the films appeal far beyond American shores. US film and television exports earned $16.2 billion in 2012. By comparison, British film and television exports, riding the wave of popularity, were $1.2 billion. Having invented the personal computer, the United States is the primary architect of the rapidly growing video and computer gaming market. It is difficult to find export figures comparable to those of film and television in this sector of the cultural industries due to the globalized nature of the production of both games and the machines on which to play them. But clearly, America is the main influence on these products. An interesting effect of the dominance of American culture in films and other media is that many people who have never been to the country still feel they have a good idea of ​​what it's like to live there. The stereotypes that American cinema and television sell to national audiences become the subject of international opinion. For example, action heroes from films such as the Rambo and Die Hard series are regularly cited when discussing American foreign policy. (In this regard, the image of the Texan cowboy has been especially popular recently.) Likewise, people may feel they know what it's like to live in New York after watching several years of episodes ofFriends or Seinfeld. Depending on what you look at, you can easily conclude that most Americans are happy with guns or happy with girls or just happy with slaps. And, as much as these stereotypes may bother Americans when they travel abroad, they have only themselves to blame for spreading them around the world. America's cultural influence through film has been particularly strong. Just the word “Hollywood” conjures up visions of movie stars, Oscar nights and Western gunslingers preparing for the shootout. Movies may not have been invented in the United States, but modern movies were perfected there. The figures are impressive. In 2006, for example, 64% of films shown in the European Union were American. By comparison, only 3% of films shown in the US came from Europe. Furthermore, all twenty films that earned the most money worldwide in 2006 were American or were made in collaboration with an American film company. This included the number one hit of the year, Walt Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which grossed over a billion dollars, most of it from international audiences. This is what led former president Jacques Chirac to advocate limiting the number of American films that could be shown in French cinemas because he did not want to see "European culture sterilized or erased from American culture for economic reasons that have nothing to do with it." what to see with true culture.” Turn on the radio, check out TV shows, see what they're playing at the local movie theater, pull out a computer game, or just go online and look for a nice chat room—do any of these things and before long you'll come across American cultural influence. Why does America have such reach in these media? One answer is the market. The United States has a domestic market of over 300 million people as well as a potential global market of over two billion English speakers. This means that Americans can profitably produce large numbers of TV shows, movies, songs, computer games, and other products for use at home and then export the same programs abroad at very low prices. No other country has this advantage in both numerical and linguistic terms. Another reason is innovation. It is often in the United States that new forms of communication have been invented or perfected. Television broadcasting is a good example of this. In the 1950s American television networks created a zoo of new types of programs including game shows, soap operas, crime shows, Westerns, and, of course, situation comedies (sitcoms) that were subsequently exported internationally. Subsequently, cable TV expanded the variety and quality of American shows by creating international bestsellers such as The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and Heroes. And it also laid the foundation for the first international news network, CNN (Cable News Network). Perhaps the easiest example to recognize is the phenomenal increase in the use of personal computers and the World Wide Web over the past few decades. Both were pioneers in the United States and eventually spread throughout the world, bringing American cultural influences with them. Some went so far as to claim that cyberspace was American territory: an exaggeration, but only slightly. Yes, economics and innovation have their place in history, but – hey! – the same goes for style and quality. The fact is that American programming is popular. It successfully appeals to the emotions and interests of a global audience. Sitcoms like “King of Queens” or “Everybody Loves Raymond”, hospital dramas like “ER” or “House” have won fans all over the world because they stick to the basics:)