Discussion Main / SweepsWeekLesbianKiss

"Homo Promo" would imply that it's used for gay male smooching as well. As far as I know, it is not.

Honestly, it strikes me as rather odd that this is classed as an Always Female trope. Male-on-male smooching is certainly used as a publicity stunt to boost ratings.

I have never seen the gay male version being used for Sweeps. Examples?

Not sure about the precise point in the year - and British TV works a bit differently - but both The Archers and The Bill used them as ratings stunts.

Sweeps is a particular phoenominon over here in Eagleland; Homo Promo could be a super-trope encompassing all queer teasers (hmm, that came out wrong), but I'd like to keep SWLK as Always Female because it has a particular meaning in the history of US TV. Heck, The Other Wiki had an article on it before we did.

Possibly so, though it may be overly narrow as a trope. Might be better to note that the Homo Promo is especially popular in America during the sweeps, and link the Wikipedia article detailing the phenomenon.

I'm pretty sure that not all the examples on this page were precisely from then, and one of the marks of a good trope is broad applicability.

The fact that we have so many examples is already indicative of the trope's viability. Relevant Other Wiki article.

The New York Times, in examining the lesbian kiss episode phenomenon, concluded that women kissing women is often used as a gimmick during "sweeps" periods, times when Nielsen ratings are used by the broadcast networks to determine advertising rates.

I don't see why we need to rely on the other wiki for a trope page, though. It's a thing. It happens. We can wiki it. The points where the examples deviate slightly from Sweeps are generally marked on the trope page, as normal.(see: Smallville entry).

If you want to roll with Homo Promo, then just YKTTW it like I did with this one. You could even list this as a sub-trope and pillage the entries before listing the gay male ones that you've got up your sleeve.