Transmedia television drama: proliferation and promotion of extended stories online

Transmedia storytelling associated with television drama has existed online for more than sixteen years. For most of its existence, this material has been dominated by texts associated with the promotion of television series. This additional material has made inroads into primetime television and most high-rating television drama productions have established an online presence. This study concentrates on additional content that is available online in relation to all Australian drama productions and some international drama productions in a five-month period. This paper asks what additional material in particular exists, finds out the prevalence of promotional material in comparison to storytelling and seeks to discover if any distinct categories of television drama productions provide more transmedia texts than others. A significant amount of additional material was discovered to feature promotion over storytelling. Differences in approach to this type of storytelling can be seen between public, free-to-air commercial and subscription broadcasters.