Skip to main content

Featured Post

Welcome to my blog!

Hi. My name is Jack, I'm 17 years old, and I'm taking Media Studies at Hills Road. This is my coursework blog. I've been tasked with producing a cross-media piece, consisting of a 2.5-3 minute audio-visual sequence, and a double page magazine spread and front cover. The video piece must be from an ITV or Channel 5 show of my creation, either factual or fictional, with a target audience aged 18-35, and containing either 'a key turning point, a point of significant conflict, or a resolution', while the print elements will contain interviews and promotional materials relating to the show. I haven't yet decided which channel, genre, or direction my piece is going to take, but I'm excited at what lies ahead. I'll be keeping my blog up-to-date with all my progress, so feel free to stick around and have a look!
4 comments

TV Listings



Looking at the TV listings for ITV and Channel 5 exemplifies the differences between the channels. ITV airs a large range of shows for a wide array of audiences - from live sports to Loose Women, Emmerdale to Endeavour (a prequel to the famous Inspector Morse). Football in the UK has a predominantly male following - an estimated 67% in fact - while Loose Women is aimed squarely at women, in particular stay-at-home mums or housewives, which is why it has it's daytime slot. On the fictional side, soaps such as Coronation Street share much of the same audience as Loose Women, with YouGov polling showing a "very strong" correlation between the audiences of the two shows. Dramas such as Innocent have a broader audience with cross-gender appeal, and their late-night post-watershed slots mean they can afford to be darker and perhaps more gripping than their dinnertime soap counterparts (this late-night slot is likely the one my show will be taking, as it usually houses shows with the kind of plot and style I'd like to replicate).

Channel 5 on the other hand has a less wide-ranging repertoire. The vast majority of its programmes are factual in nature - to the extent that I struggled to find even four fictional shows in the week I looked at. Those that are fictional are almost exclusively imported - usually from the US or Australia (Neighbours and Home and Away being two of Channel 5's biggest Aussie hits). Many of the network's non-fiction shows are home-grown, however, with The Gadget Show and Big Brother (not broadcast on the week above) being notable hits.

As my show is likely going to be a) fictional, and b) British in origin, it doesn't seem to be a good fit for Channel 5. ITV on the other hand has a fantastic worldwide reputation for producing award-winning dramas, and as such seems like the network for me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shooting day I

Today marked my first day of access to my primary location, and thus my first shoot. I managed to film over two thirds of my footage, meaning I'm happy I'll be able to finish off tomorrow. Here are some photos from the shoot. I also decided to experiment and see how I'm going to grade the footage. The strong green grading is going to be one of the things that ties my extract and my magazine piece together stylistically, and as such I thought I'd try it and get a feel for how the final piece could look. My first test is shown below - it hasn't been stabilised or sound edited yet, so ignore the squeaky dolly.
1 comment
Read more

A look at ITV

Having more-or-less decided that ITV is the channel I'm going for, I've decided to take a closer look at it. ITV owns the largest commercial family of televsion channels in the UK, comprised of ITV, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CITV, ITVBe, and (briefly) ITV Encore, before it closed . In addition, ITV plays host to a few on demand services - mostly the ITV Hub, but also the North American streaming service Britbox, in partnership with the BBC. ITV is a public service broadcaster, and as such has a list of values which they follow, shown below: They're a member of several different groups of publishers - including the Albert Consortium , the Responsible Media Forum , and the Creative Diversity Network - which work together to use their vast media influence to actuate social change, in particular when it comes to diversity and environmentalism. Each channel has a different target audience: ITV1: General, varied, airs shows that have cross-generational appeal. Usually family vi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Magazines

Aside from the audio-visual piece, I also have to create a front cover and double-page spread about my show for a lifestyle magazine. As such, I've been looking at several of these magazines to see how they're designed and laid out. One thing I've noticed is that practically all the covers are more about the star than the show itself. Take the following examples: All of them have a celebrity taking centre stage on the cover, usually with their name in the strapline or main cover line, always either looking into the camera or slightly off into the middle distance, surrounded by several cover lines promising to drastically improve your life, entertain you, or both. As this format is shared by practically every lifestyle magazine under the sun, this is the format I'll use. Originally I was planning to have a cinematic-looking still from the show as my cover, perhaps the opening shot of DCI Griffin tied up in the chair, but that's not really right for lifestyle ma...
1 comment
Read more