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HW - Plan a powerpoint/ presentation on one of the following:

The Scheduling tricks of TV companies

Insitutional factors including:

Ethos and mission statement of the channel
Brand identity of the channel
How the channel is funded
Which shows are the flagship for the channel

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Part B - Question 1

Scheduling and channel

What can you say about how the programme is scheduled?

Techniques?

Channel demographic?

Watershed?

Programmes in competition with?

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Part B – Question 2

What are the Audience Pleasures?

Contrasts?

Characters?

Examples of behaviour that is funny?

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E4 is a British digital television channel, launched as a pay-TV companion to Channel 4 on 18 January 2001.

The "E" stands for entertainment, and the channel is mainly aimed at the lucrative 15–35 age group.

Programming includes U.S. imports such as The Cleveland Show, The O.C., Smallville, Veronica Mars, Everwood, What About Brian?, Desperate Housewives, How I Met Your Mother, 90210, One Tree Hill, Ugly Betty, Scrubs, Rules of Engagement, The Big Bang Theory, 2 Broke Girls, Revenge, and formerly Friends. Other programming includes British shows such as Misfits, The Ricky Gervais Show, Shameless, Hollyoaks, Skins, The Inbetweeners, Made in Chelsea, and My Mad Fat Diary.

Some U.S. imports, such as Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty are screened on E4 up to one week ahead of their Channel 4 broadcasts.

Its most successful broadcast to date was on 11 October 2010 when an episode of The Inbetweeners pulled in over 3.7 million viewers.

General Info

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Channel 4's primary purpose is the fulfilment of its public service remit, which is defined in the 2003 Communications Act.
This states that "the public service remit for Channel 4 is the provision of a broad range of high quality and diverse programming which, in particular:
(a) demonstrates innovation, experiment and creativity in the form and content of programmes;
(b) appeals to the tastes and interests of a culturally diverse society;
(c) makes a significant contribution to meeting the need for the licensed public service channels to include programmes of an educational nature and other programmes of educative value; and
(d) exhibits a distinctive character."
The remit was updated by the 2010 Digital Economy Act, which, in addition to the above, requires Channel 4 to participate in a broader range of activities.
The Digital Economy Act 2010 requires Channel 4 to participate in:
the making of a broad range of relevant media content of high quality that, taken as a whole, appeals to the tastes and interests of a culturally diverse society.

The E4 remit continues on the following page: http://bit.ly/lvaxdH

Remit

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E4 appeals mainly to younger people such as young adults from 16+.

This is down to the nature of the programmes such as The Big Bang Theory, How I met your Mother, Hollyoaks, Skins and so on.

The gender of the audience is both men and women but as the majority of shows follow a comedy genre, it may appeal to young adult men more.

The viewers will typically be on a low or no income at all due to the young age and could either be single or in a relationship.

In terms of psychographics the audience will be the strugglers as they don’t have any plans for tomorrow and tend to be young adults who people might see as losers and so they use the programmes on this channel such as The Big Bang Theory to immerse themselves in and escape from reality. Also possibly mainstreamers who attend university as the programmes fit in with their daily university schedule that they are in and are looking for stability and trust in their lives.

Audience

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This programme matches E4’s target audience of the strugglers as it appeals mainly to younger adults around the ages of 15-16+,

the primary age range of characters in the programme also reflect this as they are mainly between 16 and 35 and so people of this age will be attracted to it.

It is also for people who find escapism essential as the storylines allows people to fully immerse themselves in the hectic lives of all of the different characters.

BBT

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BBC One is the flagship television channel of the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) in the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands.

It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution.

It used the Marconi-EMI all-electronic television service and, for the first three months, the Baird 240-line intermediate film system. Germany introduced television with a medium level of image resolution (180 lines) in 1935, initially based on intermediate film, but fully electronic by 1936.

It was renamed '''BBC TV''' in 1960, using this name until the launch of sister channel BBC Two/BBC2 in 1964, whereupon the BBC TV channel became known as 'BBC1, with the current spelling adopted in 1997.

General Info

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Funded

BBC funded by license fee £ 145.50 a year (approx.) PSB – Public Service Broadcaster – remit abide by
Everyone in the UK who watches or records TV programmes at the same as they are shown on TV needs to be covered by a TV licence. This includes TVs, computers, mobile phones, games consoles, digital boxes and DVD/VHS recorders.
No advertising

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You can rely on the BBC to reflect the many communities that exist in the UK. These communities may be based on geography, on faith, on language, or on a shared interest such as sport. You can expect the BBC to stimulate debate within and between the communities of the UK, and to encourage people to get involved with their local communities.
What the BBC will do to achieve this Purpose
1. Represent the different nations, regions and communities to the rest of the UK.
Across the range of its network output, the BBC should portray and celebrate the range of cultures and communities across the UK at national, regional and local level.
2. Cater for the different nations, regions and communities of the UK.
The BBC should provide a range of output, including original content, designed to meet the needs of the nations, regions and communities of the UK.
3. Bring people together for shared experiences.
The BBC should broadcast individual programmes that bring together a very wide range of people – for example, great state occasions, important national sports events and high-quality entertainment.
4. Encourage interest in, and conversation about local communities.
The BBC should provide engaging output that gives an accurate picture of the many communities that make up the UK and that informs understanding and stimulates discussion about their concerns. The BBC should provide forums in which these communities can debate among themselves and with other UK communities.
5. Reflect the different religious and other beliefs in the UK.
The BBC should give people opportunities to understand the beliefs of others, and to examine their own beliefs critically.
6. Provide output in minority languages.
In its output, the BBC should support the UK’s indigenous languages where appropriate. It may also provide output in other languages used by licence fee payers in appropriate contexts.

The BBC 1 remit continues on the following page: http://bbc.in/n5NA5h

Remit

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BBC 1 has a very wide target audience (mainstream). Similarly to ITV, the audience BBC 1 aims itself at changes throughout the day.

In the morning, programmes such as Breakfast are broadcast. These type of news programmes can appeal to anybody but they mainly appeal to working adults who are on an average or high wage who are around the age of 25 and over who could maybe be married or have kids in the house and want to keep up to date with the latest news. These people could fall into the mainstreamer category but it anybody from any category would find the morning programmes appealing.

The afternoon schedules consist of programmes such as Escape to the Country and Bargain Hunt, appealing to more of an older audience from the ages of 40 – 50 and older, who are unemployed possibly and may be single or looking after the children within the household. The resigned group would find these programmes appealing as they are traditional, nostalgic and the resigned will find the contents of the programmes familiar; this continues with later programmes such as Antiques Road Trip and Pointless.

In the evening BBC 1s target audience widens again with soap operas (Eastenders) and entertainment programmes (A Question of Sport) being broadcast. The target audience for this time can be anybody of any gender, mainly between the ages of 16-70 who may be part of a family unit.