2. BBC Purpose/History
The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) are a conglomerate media
company that was created in 1922 by Lord John Reith. It has 4 channels
and over 22 radio stations. Lord Reith created the BBC with an
Philosophy that overtime came to be known as ‘Reithianism’. The ideas
of this philosophy were heavily linked with Lord Reith’s personal beliefs
with the key points of BBC, in the beginning, to be educational (PSBR)
with BBC using an early form of Uses and Gratification Theory. A more
controversial view of Reithianism is that the BBC must be government
funded with people wishing to even watch BBC iPlayer having to pay as
TV license with prices for Coloured TV being £159 and Black and White
TV being £53.50. The BBC has its content checked by OFCOM to make
sure that the audience is protected from certain things like bigotry,
Bias/inaccurate programmes, Inappropriate viewing for children and
adverts imbedded into programmes as the BBC is not allowed to have
advert bumpers at the beginning of an ad break and at the end of one.
This is due to Reithianism and its core ideas of Inform-Educate-
Entertain. As previously mentioned, OFCOM does check if some
programmes are not fit for young viewers but something called the
‘Watershed’ comes into effect at 9:00pm. This means that programmes
for more mature audiences begin to air until 5:00am. There are certain
channels that are dedicated to showing these programmes and only
come on after 9:00pm for instance BBC Three.
Reithianism - History of
the BBC
TV Licence - GOV.UK
(www.gov.uk)
Ofcom’s annual report
on the BBC - Ofcom
Sources:
3. BBC Three/Northern
Voices
BBC Three is a national television channel that is owned by the
BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). This channel is directed
at younger audiences between the ages of 16-24 and was
created in 2003. Because of it catering to this age group the
channel switched to exclusively being a streaming service in
2016 as not many young people watch television with most
successful television shows being on Netflix or Amazon Prime.
Also because of BBC Three catering towards younger audiences
there views and policies are more forward thinking compared to
the rest of the BBC as majority of BBC Three’s comedy series
being female led which is incredibly unique in British television.
In 2020, BBC Three along with BBC England created Northern
Voices which is a development scheme that aims to support
young people from the north of England with getting started in
the media industry through creating documentaries that are
meant to relate to young people and their experiences.
Sources:
Women overtake men to dominate BBC Three
comedy in a first for British TV (telegraph.co.uk)
BBC England and BBC Three join forces to launch
the Factual Development Scheme for the North
of England - Media Centre
4. Documentaries
Documentaries are a form of non-fictional films that
document events from the past this can range from true crime
documentaries to nature documentaries. Some techniques
that documentaries are famous for are “Talking Head”
interview that are shot in a medium close up at an eye level
angle, “The voice of God” which is a voice over probably the
most famous of which being David Attenborough and archive
footage which is just old footage from the event or relating to
the event the documentary is about. There are six main
different forms of documentaries my favourite of which being
poetic documentaries which are normally quite short with the
“voice of God” reading out a poem with footage that is related
to it. Its desired effect is to create a feeling rather than display
truth as it isn’t linear and asks the audience to come to a
conclusion to find out what they think it means. The more
conventual form of documentaries are called expository
documentaries which include all of the techniques listed
above as well as its goal being to inform people on what the
event was about and what that meant for the people involved
in a straight forward manner.
Sources:
The 6 Types of Documentary
Films (premiumbeat.com)
Documentary film - Wikipedia
