The problem with popular polarizations in television reception research is that either quantitative or qualitative methodologies considered separately fails to render a complete understanding. Television viewing is both individual and collective. Thus this paper proposes an analytical framework synthesized from alternate approaches not conventionally petitioned in reception research, among them Gramsci's consent theory, which identifies a logical and justifiable space for both considerations, a means of accounting for the ebbs and flows of both individual and collective forces continuously at work in culture and in television reception.