Television Content and the 'Watershed'

In television, the 'Watershed' is the time at which content with mature or adult themes can be broadcasted. It divides the time at which media suitable for families can be aired and media with content suitable for adults. In the UK, this is 9pm though these times vary globally and also can restrict advertising. Content not to be aired before the watershed includes things such as death, sex, violence, drug abuse or nudity. 


One of the regulations from Ofcom states: "Audience research shows strong support and recognition for the watershed on all television channels. The watershed plays a crucial role for parents and carers with children aged 5 to 8 and trust in pre-watershed programming is essential, particularly leading up to 1930." 


(Source: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/guidance/831193/section1.pdf)


In order to comply with regulations of broadcasting and to keep with the demands of the current audiences, we need to ensure that our soap opera trailer complies with the rules depending on when our trailer is broadcasted, specifically before 9pm.

Looking at Soap Opera Episodes

Hollyoaks Table

'Hollyoaks' is a soap opera broadcasted on Channel 4, usually from 6:30pm to 7:00pm every weekday. Since the soap is shown before the watershed (9pm), it is implied there is no extreme or disturbing scenes or strong language throughout the programme. If anything that could be classed as 'distressing' is featured in an episode, a helpline is displayed at the end of the show during the final credits. As other soap operas are on later in the evening (e.g. Eastenders at 7:30pm), it's ensured there is a wider audience to watch the show. The time of broadcasting also suggests an audience of teenagers to young adults since it's after schools, colleges or businesses would close but is late enough for young children not to watch, applying to demographic groups B to E. Furthermore, this suggests that there could be mature themes, though not distressing. Without commercials, each episode lasts around 24 minutes.

The 2011 Hollyoaks cast

The specific episode of Hollyoaks (21/06/2011) that I analysed denoted several story lines, with a couple overlapping to connect the characters together, known as a fractured narrative. The themes included relationships, sex with minors, holidays and girls which are common in most soaps and include mature themes but nothing considered distressing to the target audience. There were 20 scenes, varying in location but most of which were urban or iconic settings, such as a cafe or pub. This suggests that the target audience of the soap will also most likely live in an urban area and that other soap operas will have similar settings.


There were a total of 16 characters, 9 females and 7 males, all approximately aged between 20 and 30 which implies that the target audience is both males and females in their late teens to thirties or demographic groups B and below. A majority of the characters were white though 2 characters from other ethnicities were used, perhaps as tokenism, in order to produce verisimilitude and reflect a British city or town and help the audience to identify with the characters (Uses and Gratifications Theory).
  

EastEnders Table


'EastEnders' is broadcasted on BBC1 every weekday except Wednesday, at 7.30pm or 8:00pm before the watershed. Like Hollyoaks, this means that there is no extreme or disturbing scenes and strong language throughout the programme with a helpline in place if anything distressing does appear in an episode. The time of broadcasting of the soap opera means that there is some competition from Coronation Street (ITV) as this is also broadcasted at 7:30pm on weekdays, with a similar target audience of demographic groups B to E. The later time also suggests mature themes and dramatic story lines but not that distressing to the viewer. The characters in EastEnders include a variety of ages spanning from teenagers to the elderly and so this implies that the show aims to reach a wide target audience of both sexes. As a later showing soap, more people who travel further to go to work can watch it, also reaching the target audiences of demographic groups B to E but in higher numbers. With TV tax, the BBC does not use commercials from external sources to fund their company and so there are no commercials during EastEnders. As a result, each episode lasts around 28 minutes.

Where this episode of EastEnders
was set and filmed

This episode of EastEnders (26/01/2011) followed a fractured narrative with forking paths, with most the story lines revolving around a trip to Southend (England) . These included a murder and fight, family feuds, an affair and relationships which are common themes not only in soap operas but in the ordinary lives of the targert audience creating verisimilitude, allowing the audience to indetify with the characters more (Uses and Gratifications Theory). Since there were some distressing themes and scenes, a helpline was also displayed during the final credits. There were 23 scenes across various locations, around 2/3 of which were exterior locations at Southend's Adventure Island and the beach. As unconventional locations for a soap opera, this implies a special event or story line, however, there were also the interior locations of a pub, cafe and several homes which are iconic for urban areas and soap operas. This suggests, like Hollyoaks, that the audience will also live in an urban area and, since these locations appeared in Hollyoaks also, that they're common in other soap operas.

The character of 'Whitney'
was at the centre of the
murder/prostitution story line

There were a total of 10 characters in this episode, 6 females and 4 males, all approximately aged between 20 and 80 suggesting a target audience of males and females in every age group, a large audience in demographic groups B to E. Like Hollyoaks, a majority of the characters were white though 2 characters from other ethnicities were used, perhaps as tokenism, in order to create verisimilitude and reflect a British city or town and help the audience to identify with the characters (Uses and Gratifications Theory). Previously knowing the soap before hand, I know that there are a lot more characters in EastEnders of more ethnicities and that this particular episode is not a conventional episode. I will consider this more when looking at stereotypes and characterisation during the creation of our own soap opera trailer.

Theories and Audiences Knowledge

All across media, theories are used to explain and describe the effect of media texts on audiences and why specific devices have been used in order to convey certain messages to the audience. By looking at these theories, it should enable me to create a trailer with a clear narrative, and, therefore, a clear meaning, as well as an effective and informative piece.

The Hypodermic Needle Theory describes how an audience can be manipulated throughout a media text as audience receives the film as it's presented. Media texts of this theory are just for entertainment purposes as the audience does not need to do decipher deeper meanings as the plots and narratives tend to be basic and linear. However, the theory also demonstrates the negative implications, injecting beliefs and attitudes into the audience which can influence them. This can be damaging for younger audiences especially and there have been several cases with young children watching violent films and then imitating the acts.


The Uses and Gratifications Theory (McQuail), however, explains the audience's participation in a media text to be more active and engaging to gratify individual needs. The basic need is entertainment; the audience watches the text to relax and to be entertained. The audience can also engage through personal relationships or social integration of the characters of the text, in which the audience can identify and compare their life to the character's in the text. An audience may also watch a media text to gain information and be educated about the world or others in it. 

The Reception Theory, like the Uses and Gratifications Theory, explains the audience's participation further specifically when the enigma code has been used in a narrative. The text is encoded by the producer and it is up to the audience to decode and understand it. This creates questionning as to whether each audience member receives the same experience and watches the same media text. An audience member can decipher texts through a dominant (producer's intentions), negotiated (when the audience compromises a little to make sense of the text) or oppositional (the audience does not agree but accepts the message) way. When creating a text when a specific message is to be received, it is important that the narrative and, therefore, the plot is clear. This also coincides with the enigma code; a method used to feed subtle hints and information during a text to an audience so that they can decipher the producer's meaning.

Propp's Theory of Characters describes the 7 different characters generally involved in every narrative to keep the plot moving, including the hero, princess, villain, false hero, donor, helper and the dispatcher. Some characters can play more than one of these characters in the theory, such as a hero and a false hero. An example of this is the character of Lord Farquaad in Shrek. He appears to be a hero by rescuing the princess but is in fact a villain, and therefore a false hero. In particular, trailers tend to show the hero, princess and villain as these characters are the most common and central to narratives across all media texts.

Todorov's Theory of Narrative can also be used to describe how the narrative is helped to progress through five stages. Stage one is the initial equilibrium, stage two is the disturbance, stage three is the recognition of the disturbance, stage four is resolution before returning to equilibrium once again for stage five. However, in trailers only the first 2 stages, sometimes 3, are used in order to keep the narrative open and intrigue the audience to watch the full episode and resolution of the disturbance.


With an understanding of these audience theories, it will be able to help us to decide on a narrative for our trailer and to be aware of what information we will include for our audience to decipher. It has also let me think about other mainstream soap opera television and what their target audiences are and why they have been chosen.

To gain a better understanding of the target audience for our soap opera trailer, I have noted my previous media knowledge and have defined the demographic groupings:

Group A: top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors, etc.

Group B: teachers, graphic designers, etc.

Group C1: supervisors, junior management, nurses, clerical staff, etc.

Group C2: skilled workers, etc.

Group D: semi-skilled, manual labourers, etc.

Group E: unemployed, students, pensioners, etc.

These groups should enable me to recognise the target audiences of soap operas and decide on our own target audience for our soap by looking at similar media texts and through the themes, characters and storyline of our trailer.

Knowledge of Soap Operas

Initial Knowledge

In order to introduce me to the topic of 'Soap Operas', I created an initial mind map of what I already knew about them, such as current products, the times they appear and themes/storylines they follow. By doing this, it helped me discover what I already knew, what I still had to research and which points I would need to go into further depth.
(Please note: the edges were cut off during scanning so I have placed them at the end of the document through separate scans).

Soap Opera Mind Map


Specific Knowledge

After looking over my first mind map, I expanded my thoughts and made notes on potential audiences, including theories, and specific details, such as settings and location, along with which soap they're associated with. This introduced me into our target audience and which themes, story lines and characters would be best for our own soap opera. 

Soap Opera Mind Map 2

By using these mind maps, I have become more aware about the media theories used in soap opera television and what to look for when analysing soap opera texts. I have learned that a soap opera is for entertainment purposes so the Hypodermic Needle Theory is used and that verisimilitude of demographic groups C1 and below reflects the audience that would watch the shows. On further reflection, I also concluded that group B would be included as these include teachers and business managers as these are often portrayed as stereotypes in soap operas. When I analyse other soap operas, I will look out for these characters and familiarise myself with the kind of personalities seen on soaps.

Candidate Information

Charlotte Morrison

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