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Diagnostic Essay :Autumn term
The television schedule for Thursday the 30th October has many interesting features and offers many insights into the way in which , and the reasons why programs are scheduled on the terrestrial channels in this country . ... These programmes are long established , they have a guaranteed audience and as a result become “fixed features” of the television schedule . The demographics undertaken by the BARB audience surveys provide the television channels themselves and potential advertisers with both projected ratings and the type of audience certain programmes are attracting . ...
“BARB works jointly for the broadcasters and advertising industry it costs well over 10m a year to run “ The fact that the television industry and advertisers finance BARB is indicative of how much attention they pay to the demographics which it produces . ...
ITV1’s “The Bill “ has been a consistant ratings winner in the early evening slot and in this very schedule marked 20 years on television . ... The success of this style of television programs has lead to an influx of programmes with this sort of style and caused a storm of controversy whilst doing so . ... When television was first introduced to this country the then Director General of the BBC John Reith a firm advocate of public service broadcasting said “ He who prides himself on giving what he thinks the public wants is often creating a fictitious demand for lower standards which he himself will then satisfy “ . The fact that the post watershed slot has so many of these programs (Wife swap , Holiday Showdown etc ) must at least lead us to consider that the quest for higher ratings has led to the schedulers filling prime time slots with more “low brow “ programmes at the expense of those that “ educate and elevate “ people as Reith initially intended television to do .In the book “ Media Culture and Society “ John Ellis comments on the issue “ Cycles of generic oversupply do seem to be characteristic of contemporary television. Indeed the very existence of this tendency is a testament to the central place of scheduling in televisions creative process “ .
Approximate Word count = 1644
Approximate Pages = 6.6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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