BBC Research Task

 The BBC

The BBC, British Broadcasting Company, is a Public Service Broadcaster funded by the UK government through a mandatory "TV license" for all TV owners in the country.

BBC 3 is a channel operated by the BBC that launched in February 2003, aimed at 16-34 year olds.

In 2014, BBC budget cuts resulted in BBC 3 becoming an online-only service, eventually going off-air in 2016 and substituted for a BBC3-branded streaming channel on BBC iPlayer. However, in January 2022, the BBC plans to reintroduce BBC3 as a television channel.

"The remit of BBC Three is to bring younger audiences to high quality public service broadcasting through a mixed-genre schedule of innovative UK content featuring new UK talent. The channel should use the full range of digital platforms to deliver its content and to build the interactive relationship with its audience." -- BBC Three Remit

BBC3 faced heavy competition from ITV2 and E4 due to the overlapping target audience. It had an average of 2.6% of the 15-34 year old audience.

70% of BBC3's content was original, including a wide range of genres like comedy, drama and current affairs. An example of comedy output is the award-winning Little Britain, which was later broadcast on BBC One and Two.

Audience Considerations:

BBC Three's target audience is aged at 16-34 years old, and BBC Three tries to direct most of it's content at them through their inclusion of concepts and issues that young people would care about, like social media and technology, racism / sexism, and relationships.

The characteristics of media content's characters is also affected by the target audience. Most of the characters are young people, with lots of diversity between gender and race. 

One of the most popular genres among young people is drama and it's various sub-genres, which makes it a good choice to include on BBC Three. As such, the platform has distributed many drama series online and on television while it was still on-air.

Television Dramas:

A television drama, or TV drama, is a genre of programme that was gained massive popularity on streaming platforms and television in the last 20 years. It is created in "seasons" which are each composed of a number of individual episodes that can be watched individually over a set duration, such as once a week if it's airing on TV or whenever the audience wants on on-demand streaming platforms. 

Normal People, Killing Eve, Make Me Famous and The Left Behind are examples of TV dramas available on BBC Three.

Conventions of TV Dramas:

TV Dramas are usually 25-50 minutes long so that they conveniently fit within television airing timetables. This is because they are commonly distributed on TV channels, as well as on-demand and digital streaming services. 

The structure of the shows is episodic, in which the show is split into (mostly) equally sized episodes that can be viewed independently. Each episode has it's own plot that plays into the overarching storyline, building from previous episodes. TV dramas also usually have opening sequences that play after an introductory scene. Some shows also have "recap" sequences in the beginning to show the audience the main events of previous episodes to get them up to speed.

As the genre suggests, the key feature of all TV dramas is the drama that forms the basis of the programme's content. Tension is the main technique used, more than other genres.

This tension is usually focused around social experiences and interactions between people.

The tension created in TV dramas is mostly comprised of characters keeping secrets from one another, which results in characters not trusting each other and causing conflict when the secret is exposed.

TV dramas follow a fictional, character-driven narrative that is grounded enough that the audience believes the events could happen in real life.

The characters in TV dramas often follow common archetypes like "good"/"bad", sympathetic and unsympathetic characters, use of stereotypes as well as Levi-Strauss' theory on the use of "binary opposites", characters that have opposing beliefs or desires that clash to create tension. The narrative is often based around these characters competing for their desire to be fulfilled.

The narrative also often has expansive sub-plots that follow different characters besides the protagonist, that each tie-in to the main storyline. Some dramas are composed entirely of sub-plots and don't even have a focal "main" character.

Competitors:

Of course, BBC Three is not the only platform that distributes TV Dramas in the UK. An obvious competitor is the TV channel Drama, which exclusively airs popular TV Dramas and is also available online on UKTV. ITV and Channel 4 also air Drama shows, but do not have a dedicated channel to do so. Both channels do also have online platforms where TV Dramas are available on-demand.

There are also many, perhaps larger, competitors in the international stage, particularly the online streaming services Prime Video, Netflix and also Disney+ with it's new additions of Star shows. These platforms boast a considerable number of TV Dramas, and have gained massive popularity from marketing campaigns using social media as a spearhead, bringing many of the UK's young people to them. 

Perhaps BBC Three's redeeming quality is that it is (essentially) free to use for UK citizens, assuming that they already pay their TV license. (That said, the iPlayer can still be accessed for free without a license since you can just lie and say you have.)