TV crime dramas appeal to three main audience groups - families and mass audiences who enjoy the entertainment and escapism, niche audiences who form close bonds with characters, and educated specialists who learn from the depictions of forensics and crime solving. These genres must use conventions like narrative disruption, character overcoming obstacles, and restored equilibrium to engage audiences while catering to different tastes. Audiences also enjoy TV crime dramas for the identity, relationships, and information they provide through their depictions of settings, characters, and realistic yet thrilling stories.

1. TV Crime Drama: Audience Appeal
C: To understand the 3 main audience groups Key words:
for TV Crime Drama Appeal
B To explain with specific examples the appeal Identify
of TV Crime Dramas for different audiences Engage
Active audiences
A: To evaluate how audiences can actively Niche audiences
engage with TV Crime Drama Mainstream audiences

2. Todorov’s Narrative Structure
Stage 5: situation is resolved,
Stage 2: Disruption (the crime) equilibrium is restored
Stage 1: Equilibrium
Stage 4: Character overcomes
obstacles to repair disruption
(solves crime)
Watch an episode of a crime drama.
Stage 3: Character Use your sheet to plot the narrative
recognises the disruption (story) stages.
EXT: What are the enigma codes
and action codes in your episode.

3. TV Crime Dramas are very popular and attract
a wide range of audiences
Three key types of audiences are:
Family/Mass/Mainstream
Niche
Educated/specialist
1
2
3

4. 4 key ways that
Bulmer and Katz- audiences enjoy TV
Uses and Gratifications Crime Dramas
Escapism form own lives, exciting,
Entertainment dangerous. Can make us feel better
about our own lives-shock, fear, thrills
Develop a close bond with characters
Understand how they think/act.
Relationships
Complicated people that we learn
about. Can also discuss with others
Relate to characters, settings and
situations. How would we feel, respond
Identity
in these situations-in the shoes of the
detective solving the crime
Learn about psychology, forensics and
Information crime solving and also about the world
around us.

5. Practice exam question
20mins to use all your knowledge and terminology so far to answer
the following question:
Explain some of the reasons why TV Crime Dramas are so
popular with audiences.
Discuss:
Characters
Settings
Narrative and Storylines
A/B Extention:
Use as many real examples as you can and discuss uses and gratifications
Eg. One reason that TV Crime Dramas are so popular with audiences is
because of the use of settings and locations. Urban settings such as
London in Luther provide lots of opportunities for drama and excitement.
This offers audiences escapism if they are not from a large city like London
or identity if they are as they can recongise some of the landmarks.

6. 14/03/12
What TV Crime Drama are you going to create?
•To develop your own TV Crime Drama in preparation for the
Exam
•To conduct “audience feedback”
•To self assess current “working at” level
God I hope
my Crime
Drama is
good…

7. Planning your TV Crime Drama
5 mins on each section
Programme Title: Genre: TV Channel:
Genre Character 1 Character 2
ID Protagonist / Antagonist / Protagonist / Antagonist /
PD Sidekick Sidekick
CSP Character Traits
Character Traits
Costume
Costume
What is the Setting? What are the key locations? What genre conventions have
(specific) you used?
Country
Detective’s HQ Look back at your genre, what
Rural / Urban Detective’s Home conventions have you used and
The Lab why?
Era Crime scene (famous landmark)
Specific building

8. Who is the audience?
Swap with a partner and try to identify who their audience is.
3.Family mainstream (conventional, closed
endings) older Parents and children
4.Niche / Cult (unconventional, open endings)
media aware couples
5.Educated / Specialist (Adult audiences,
specialist language scientific and legal jargon)
specialised professionals
Partner Feedback
2 features that are effective about the TV Crime Drama
1 thing that you would improve

9. Self Assessment Success Criteria
How many keywords have you used in your idea? Rough Mark Guide:
Genre: sub-genre, Individual Detective, Procedural Drama, 50 – 45 A*
Crime Solving Professional, enigma codes, action codes,
cliffhanger ending, open-endings, closed-endings 44 – 39 A
Characters: protagonist, antagonist, binary opposite, hero,
38 – 30 B
villain, anti-hero, quirky, rookie, sidekick, psychopath, detective, 29 – 20 C
costume, props, angry, brilliant, heroine,
19 – 11 D
Setting: rural, urban, audience, realism, escapism, crime,
deviance, Wide open spaces, hills/woods/valleys, close 10 – 5 E
communities, limited outsiders, wealthy, quiet, sleepy, isolation,
poverty, gritty Streets, alleyways, threat, noisy, crowded, 4–0F
cosmopolitan, exciting, mise-en-scene
EXTENTISION TASK – what words
did you use that you think should be
on the list?