Broadcast Channel for documentary on autism and education

1. 
Broadcast Channel
5AM Productions

2. Broadcast Channel
 Our production piece is a documentary and therefore
we had the choice of whether to show our final edit in
cinemas, like some other documentaries have done such
as “Stephen Fry Live: More Fool Me”, or we could show
our documentary on television, which is much more
conventional. We also had the option to put our
documentary straight on to Video-On-Demand (VOD)
services such as Amazon Prime or Netflix, or on to video
hosting sites such as YouTube or Vimeo.
 After the group decision was made of wanting to show
our documentary on television (as it’s more likely to get
a higher view rating) we had to look for a suitable
channel to show it on.

3. Why Television?
 We chose television to feature our documentary on as it’s
where you would generally expect to see it first. Due to this
conception, it means that our target audience of 11-60 year
olds would probably go to the television first if they fancied
watching a documentary. This means we would probably get a
higher viewer rating than if we put it straight out on to DVD.
 It is also a lot easier to advertise an up and coming
documentary that would appear on television rather than one
that would be shown on websites such as Netflix, as the
television companies would have things such as more than
one channel, multiple websites and newspapers run by the
same conglomerate to promote the documentary on, whereas
websites such as Netflix, doesn’t quite have the same amount
of coverage available to use.

4. Suitable Channels
BBC1
 BBC1 does frequently show
documentaries so broadcasting our
documentary on here would make sense
as we know that it wouldn’t be out of
place. Previously, they have shown
documentaries about current affairs such
as ‘Life and Death Row’, and show quite
historical documentaries such as ‘Who Do
You Think You Are?’ which looks into
family history.
 BBC Panorama is also a current affairs
programme which shows investigations
and interviews based around topical
subjects.
 Whilst we believe our documentary will
be based around an issue which should be
addressed, like most current affairs,
however this particular topic (autism) isn’t
one which has recently been in
mainstream news.
BBC2
 BBC2 is self confessed as being a mixed-genre
channel, appealing to a wide,
predominately adult, audience. It shows
programmes with substance that contain
knowledge-filled content. However, it also
shows some comedies and some dramas
alongside this. Programmes they show
include ‘The Motorway: Life in the Fast
Lane’, ‘Marvellous’ and ‘Mock The Week’.
 Whilst BBC2 do show the occasional
documentary, it’s not their main priority,
and as their target audience is mainly
adults, and ours is 11-60 year olds, a much
wider range than theirs, we do not think
broadcasting our documentary on this
channel would be suitable.

5. Suitable Channels
ITV1
 ITV1 is known for showing adverts in
between their shows and as we plan
to have small breaks in our
documentary, it means this channel
would be suitable to show our
documentary on.
 However, ITV1 quite commonly
shows entertainment, family-based
shows such as ‘X Factor’, ‘You’ve
Been Framed’ and ‘Britain’s Got
Talent’ and it’s quite rare to see
documentaries on this channel, so if
we did distribute our documentary
on to this channel, it’s quite likely
that we wouldn’t get many views.
Channel 4
 Channel 4 is known as a ‘publisher-broadcaster’
which essentially means
that they buy independently made
productions which they will then go
on to broadcast on their channel.
This means that, as an independent
production company, we would have
good chance at actually getting our
show on to this channel.
 In terms of what they show, Channel
4 generally focus on reality TV shows
such as Big Brother (before this was
taken over by Channel 5) and My Big
Fat Gypsy Wedding, but they do also
show quite light-hearted
documentaries such as Educating The
East End and Secrets of the Living
Dolls.

6. Suitable Channels
Channel 5
 Channel 5 deals with a lot more
‘tabloid-type’ issues rather than
issues shown on the main news
channels. For example they focus on
a much younger audience than the
BBC (namely BBC1) so therefore have
a lot of young people in their shows.
 They also show documentaries
alongside their Dramas and Soaps,
but they are usually very lighthearted
in comparison to BBC1. Documentary
series they show include ‘Age Gap
Love’, ‘Baby Face Brides’ and ‘Never
Teach Your Wife To Drive’
BBC Three
 BBC Three focuses its documentaries
based more on teens and current
affairs, but in general show almost
anything from animations and
comedies, to dramas and current
affairs. Their target audience is 16 – 34
year olds and likes to broadcast
innovative content.
 Shows they have broadcast in the past
include “Gavin and Stacey”, “Blood,
Sweat and T-shirts” and a series of
shorts from Aardman Animations.

7. Our Decision
 We were torn between two channels: Channel 4 and
BBC Three. This is because they are quite similar in
terms of target audience and what they show.
 However, one major difference between the two
channels is that Channel 4 has advert breaks whereas
BBC Three doesn’t, and as a group, decided that if we
did have breaks in between our documentary then we
would keep the audience interested as we believe a
series of interviews in a row could be quite
overwhelming, and lose impact of the message we are
trying to put across.

8. Channel 4
 It is important to know what channel we plan to show
our documentary on as it affects our advertising
campaign. For example, if we were to make newspaper
adverts or posters to increase how aware people are of
the documentary, we would need to use the Channel 4
logo, and it also affects our layout of the posters, and
how the production is edited.
 For example, Channel 4 have a very specific, minimalistic
but eye-catching way on how they advertise their shows,
and we would need to replicate something very similar,
especially when it would come to creating our ancillary
tasks.