Hypernym for "movie" and "TV series"

Solution 1:

Extending on Pam's answer, Show is considered the lowest common hypernym for TV program and Movie.

This can be backed up with reference to the WordNet lexical database. See several papers including:

• Miller, G. A. WordNet: a lexical database for English, Communications of the ACM, ACM, 1995, 38, 39-41
• Miller, G. A. Nouns in WordNet: a lexical inheritance system International journal of Lexicography, Oxford Univ Press, 1990, 3, 245-264

The definition of the show synset in question (show.n.03) is:

'a social event involving a public performance or entertainment'

Which is quiet far from the base words, but according to the lexigraphers that constructed (/and continue to construct) WordNet, as good as we can get.

For interest of others, one can make such queries against wornet in python via NLTK:

from nltk.corpus import wordnet as wn
wn.synset("television_program.n.01").lowest_common_hypernyms(wn.synset("movie.n.01"))

#Or equivalently (because NLTK integrates Morphy):
wn.synsets("TV_show",wn.NOUN)[0].lowest_common_hypernyms(wn.synsets("movie",wn.NOUN)[0])

Its also possible to query WordNet online, though I don't know of a good way to get lowest common hypernym:

• Movie
• TV show

The short of the matter is, if we are willing to trust WordNet as an authoritative source (which thousands of peer reviewed publications have), then we can be confidant that Show is the lowest common hypernym.

Solution 2:

How about a show? Is it too broad?