TV Scheduling

Most TV Dramas are scheduled no earlier then about 6.30. The first soap is on at 6.30 everyday (hollyoaks) followed by emerdale, coroation street and eastenders, although these are not always on everyday. Crime Dramas are usually on after 8 or 9 depending on how violent they are. TV programmes that use swearing or have sexual content are also on after 9 because thats when younger children would not neccesarily be watching them. Childrens TV programmes are usually scheduled in the morning because younger children are awake earlier.
It's increasingly important for TV networks to know whether viewers watch shows on the internet, via a service like Hulu Plus, BBC iPlayer, YouTube or Amazon, or whether they watch 'live' (at the time of original broadcast), or time-shift their viewing via DVR.
Television broadcasts used to be the only way audiences could experience TV shows. However, the advent of the video recorder in the 1980s brought in the concept of time shifted viewing, and also the reality that viewers could fast-forward through advertising. Today, there are a number of different technologies on which we can consume a TV show - as a DVD box set, online (including via pirated downloads), on a phone or tablet, via a DVR recording. Therefore the old patterns of TV scheduling are fading.

• Audiences Now Rarely Drawn To Live Television — New York Times, 14/5/12

While it's still important for a TV network to programme in blocks, and consider the different merits of different nights of the week (audience want different shows at the weekend than they do in the week, comedy traditionally does well on a Tuesday etc), there is now much more emphasis on content delivery across different media. Networks accept that online TV viewing is here to stay, and that, over time, audiences will abandon their traditional TV sets altogether. Whether you watch online or on TV, the network want you to be exposed to advertising, so that they can generate revenue to make more shows. However, it's still easiest for networks to maximize ratings (and therefore advertising dollars) through traditional prime-time broadcasts.

Social Media and the TV Schedule

Before the video recorder, watching a TV show was a shared social experience. Whole nations would all "tune in at the same time" to watch a popular show, especially if there was some kind of cliffhanger set up or resolution, or for the finale of a drama. In a small country like the UK, where all viewing happens in the same time zone, this causes a phenomenon known as TV Pickup, a surge in the National Grid that occurs immediately before and after a record-rated show, as everyone switches on their kettles or other small appliances after walking away from their TV. In the age of time-shifted viewing, it's very rare to see the kind of power surge that occurred after the 1984 broadcast of The Thorn Birds finale (the biggest surge experienced after a TV drama), but surges still happen, after big events like major football matches or a royal wedding.
If people watch the same TV show at the same time, then that's what everyone wants to talk about the next day at school or work. In the days before time-shifted TV, episodes of shows became hot topics the following morning 'around the water cooler', discussed simultaneously in newspaper reviews and ordinary conversation. "Water Cooler TV" is still a phrase bandied round by TV executives, but it's now used to describe the global discussion that goes on about TV shows via social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, as well as via blog posts.
Social media is useful to TV networks for generating excitement prior to the broadcast of a show, and for ensuring that as many people as possible tune in during the original time slot. The creation of Facebook pages and Twitter feeds for shows and characters is a vital tool for building fan loyalty. This is particularly important for the finale of a talent show like American Idol or BGT. Because so many people discuss the content of a show via tweets and status updates as it happens, spoilers abound on the internet for anyone who's not next to a TV set.
However, social media is a double-edged sword where international drama sales are concerned. When viewers in one country get to see a show first, their online discussion may spoil things for viewers in other countries, especially where the death of a character or a plot twist is concerned. Networks are well aware of this problem, because it generates demand for pirated shows. Unable to wait, a fan might illegally download episodes of their favorite show so that they can keep up with the online chatter - and know what happens! Dexter was the most downloaded TV show of 2011, because Season Six was broadcast in the US long before it appeared anywhere else.

Why do audiences enjoy watching Crime Dramas?

People may watch Crime Dramas as a way to escape from there own lives. The suspence and excitment of watching the crime drama may make people forget about the stress and upset of whats going on in there lives. The tension that crime dramas bring make people fixed on them and concentrate on what is happening which makes them zone out and forget about all the problems. Crime dramas also can become part of your routine where you look forward to them being on every week. They may also become part of your routine because you want to know what happens next or what differnet event is going to happen in the next episode, therefore audiences enjoy watching them and look forward to when they will next be on.
Audiences may also enjoy watching Crime Dramas for emotional support. By watching crime dramas you may feel like you can interact with the characters causing you to feel things torwards the character and the programme. This may help people with personal relationships and emotionalproblems because the person may feel the characters feels the same as them therefore feeling like they can connect with the character and share the way they feel even though the character isnt actually real. This works with crime dramas because crime dramas can show a lot of different emotions like, anxiety, fear, anger.
People may enjoy watching Crime Dramas as you can learn things from them, in some crime dramas you may learn more about the criminal justic system and how that works, in some you may learn more about the jobs a police officer or detective does which may interest you and make you change the way you think and feel about society. People may enjoy this because they are learning about things they are interested in as well as being entertained.
Crime Dramas may teach you certain things that you need to know to live, for example it may teach somebody about self defence which you may need either now or later in your life. People may also enjoy them because they teach you about policing and the way the law works which is helpful in your life as well.

Crime Drama

Key Elements

• Verisimilitude
• Team work and pleasure in success
• Conflict between different modes of policing
• Father/Son relationship - experienced and detective sidekick
• Conflict with the law
• Sacrifices in private lives

Range of crime

• Criminal led e.g hustle
• Investigate detective and sidekick stories e.g A touch of frost
• Cold case narratives e.g silent witness
• Court room naratives e.g judge john
• Soap series e.g The bill

Uses and Gratifications theory

During the 1960's, as the first generation to grow up with television became grown ups, it became increasingly apparent to media theorists that audiences made choices about what they did when consuming texts. Far from being a passive mass, audiences were made up of individuals who actively consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways.

In 1948 Lasswell suggested that media texts had the following functions for individuals and society:

•  Surveillance
•  Correlations
•  Entertainment
• Cultral Transmission

Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded his theory and published their own in 1974, stating that individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes (e.g uses and gratifications):

•  Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.
•  Personal Relationships - Using the media for emotional and other intercation (e.g substituting soap operas for family life)
•  Personal identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behavior and values from texts
•  Surveiliance - Information which could be useful for living (e.g weather reports, financial news, holiday bargins)

The list of uses and gratifications has been extended, paticularly as new media forms have come along (e.g video and games and internet)

Narrative

The difference between narrative and story.
Story - A sequence of events, known correctly as the plot.
Narrative - The way those events are put together to be presented to an audience.
Therefore when we analyse a narrative we analyse the construction of the story e.g the way it has been put together, not the story itself. Also considering what the story is about in its most basic terms e.g the theme.
All media texts have a narrative whether they are a six hour TV mini-series or a one paragraph story or a glossy magazine photograph.
Analysing a narrative will involve the following:

Technical Codes
This refers to all the aspects of narrative constuction that involve technical decision making. Therefore anything to do with camera angles and movement, lighting, sounds, props, shot framing, composition, design, layout and editing. What do each of the choices made tell you about what is going on. E.g how does a camera shot make you feel if it is from a high angle or a low angle, how are sound affects used to help you understand?

Verbal Codes
The use of language - written and spoken - and signs contrained in graphics. We learn a lot about a narrative from what we are told in this way, but the best narratives show rather then tell, leaving the audience to draw their own conclusions.

Symbolic Codes
These are the signs contained in the narrative that we deocde (work out the meaning of something) as being significant (shows or means something) and having meaning. E.g a ragged coat may mean a character is poor. Use them as clues that have to be followed, and different viewers/readers will follow clues in different ways.

Structure
Russian theorist, Tzvetan Todorov suggests that all naratives follow a three part structure. They begin with equilibrium, where everything is balanced, progress as something comes along to disrupt that equilibrium, and finally reach a resolution, when equilibrium is resotred. Equilibrium - disequilibrium - New equilibrium.
The simple formula can be applied to virtually all naratives - it is a more formal way of thinking from the beginning, middle and end and it takes into acounnt Aristotle's theory that all drama is conlfict. e.g there is a disequilibrium at the heart of every narrative.

Narrative Conflict
Aristotle - "All drama is conflict"
Claude Levi-Strauss came up with a theory of Binary Opposition, meaning that all narratives had to be driven forward by conflict that was caused by a series of opposing forces. This theory is used to describe how each main force in a narrative has its equal and opposite.
Analysing a narrative means identifying these opposing forces, e.g light/dark, good/evil, noise/silence, youth/age, right/wrong, poverty/wealth and understanding the conflict between them and will drive the narrative on until finally, some sort of balance or resolution is achieved.

Bobo's doll experiment;
One theory of whether watching something violent can cause you to act in a violent way e.g video games.
Bandura had a number of predictions about the outcomes of the Bobo Doll Experiment, fitting with his views on the theories of social learning.

1. Children witnessing an adult role model behaving in an overly aggressive manner would be likely to replicate similar behavior themselves, even if the adult was not present.
2. Subjects who had observed a non-aggressive adult would be the least likely to show violent tendencies, even if the adult was not present. They would be even less likely to exhibit this type of aggression than the control group of children, who had seen no role model at all.
3. Bandura believed that children would be much more likely to copy the behavior of a role model of the same sex. He wanted to show that it was much easier for a child to identify and interact with an adult of the same gender.
4. The final prediction was that male children would tend to be more aggressive than female children, because society has always tolerated and advocated violent behavior in men more than women.

Shot Types

EWS (Extreme Wide Shot)
The view is so far from the subject that he isn't even visible. Often used as an establishing shot.

VWS (Very Wide Shot)
The subject is visible (barely), but the emphasis is still on placing him in his environment.

WS (Wide Shot)
The subject takes up the full frame, or at least as much as comfortably possible.
AKA: long shot, full shot.

MS (Mid Shot)
Shows some part of the subject in more detail while still giving an impression of the whole subject.

MCU (Medium Close Up)
Half way between a MS and a CU.

CU (Close Up)
A certain feature or part of the subject takes up the whole frame.

ECU (Extreme Close Up)
The ECU gets right in and shows extreme detail.
Variation: Choker

Cut-In
Shows some (other) part of the subject in detail.

CA (Cutaway)
A shot of something other than the subject.

Two-Shot
A shot of two people, framed similarly to a mid shot.

(OSS) Over-the-Shoulder Shot
Looking from behind a person at the subject.

Noddy Shot
Usually refers to a shot of the interviewer listening and reacting to the subject.

Point-of-View Shot (POV)
Shows a view from the subject's perspective.

Weather Shot
The subject is the weather. Can be used for other purposes, e.g. background for graphics.

How stereotypes are represented or challanged..

In a episode of Eastenders,
Stereotypes are usually challanged by another character that the stereotpe would be seen to not get on with. For example, Ray is challanged by a policeman. In real life black people, especially men, are stereotyped as casusing trouble and ending in conflict with the police so this is shown in Eastenders. It is also represented by the police man talking down to Ray like he is nothing.

Stereotypes are also represented in the way a by stander acts. For example, Mo in eastenders just stood there and watched until Ray was found not guilty she then went over and helped, but if there was someone from the same race they may have got involved sooner. This also shows how stereotyping can effect other people when they are standing by and that it is very different if someone is being judged from the same race or not and that would have a big impact on how they acted. This is also represented in TV dramas and was represented in Eastenders.

TV Drama, Research task 1

Types of TV drama and examples
1. Soaps - e.g Eastenders, Coronation street, Emerdale
2. Costume/Period drama - e.g downton abbey, Emma, Jane Eyre
3. Medical/emergency - e.g Casualty, Holby city, Doctors
4. Litery adaptions - e.g The only way is essex, To kill a mocking bird, Sin city
5. Crime drama - e.g The bill, CSI, Law and order
6. Contempory melodrama - e.g Waterloo road, Wizard of Oz, Titanic
7. sc-fi/fantasy - e,g Star treck, Star wars, Lost in space
8. Spy drama - e.g MI high, Hunted, Nemesis
9. Family - e.g Smallville, My family, Gilmore Girls
10. High school - e.g Skins, High school musical, Beverly Hills
11. Comedy - Miranda, Beaver falls, shameless

Conflict in TV Dramas

CONFLICT

Conflict vs Victim
Conflict vs police
Conflict vs law (court)
Conflict vs detective
Detective vs suspect
Detective vs criminal
Detective vs police
Detective vs lawyer

TV Drama

Why do people watch TV Drama?

• Entertainment
• The plot
• Suspence, Engaged
• Relaxation
• Reliable
• Links to there life
• Verisimilitude
• Daily routine