sabah babamiya and sarah khan

1. POST 14-
RESEARCH FOR
CHANNEL
S A B A H B A B A M I YA A N D S A R A H K H A N

2. HISTORY OF CHANNELS- BBC AND ITV
BBC: The BBC is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation has been running under royal charter
since 1927. It produced television programmes from its very own studios since1932. The BBC's domestic television channels
have no commercial advertising and they provide for more than 30% of all UK viewing. That means a lot of the UK view
channels which could benefit our documentary if it was ever to be broadcasted on one of their channels. In 2016, the BBC
Television division was split with in house television production being separated into a new division called BBC studios and
remaining parts of television were renamed as BBC content. E.g.. BBC Sport, BBC Three, etc. The BBC domestic television
channels do not broadcast advertisements they are instead funded by television license fee which TV viewers pay annually
However, this benefits the viewers because now they can watch real time live streams or catch up services of the BBC
online or via their mobile phones. Some BBC channels are available to are outside of the UK to neighboring countries such
Belgium and Netherlands. This tells us how much technology has advanced throughout the many years BBC has aired. The
is very well known as it owns many channel in the UK and quite a few in different countries. This means that the BBC gets a
huge audience worldwide which means they do not really need to rely on advertisements.
ITV: The ITV channel stands for the ‘independent television’. This channel goes all the way back to the 1954’s. On 29th
February 2016, the ITV officially had fifteen regional licenses for the network which was shared between two owners: ITV Plc
and STV Group. On ITV’s channel it was made obligatory that commercials would be clearly distinguishable from
The new ITV is called the ‘independent television’ because it shows that they are now free and independent from the BBC.
was admitted as an active member of the European Broadcasting Union in 1959. In 1968, there was a strike which involved
ITV as they had made changes and it led to people disliking them and people in the franchise didn’t want to work for them
anymore. However, there were no job loses due to this strike, there was a lot of chaos because people were forced to move
from Manchester and Birmingham to Leeds, from London to Cardiff and, sometimes some people from London to another
of London. Many of ITV’s staff stayed in the same location but they would have a different employer. During August 1968, a
strike action was taken and management lock outs which meant that ITV was taken off air and no one was able to watch any
programmes. In 2013, there was a huge change to ITV 1 as it was renamed to ITV and there was an introduction of the new
colour logo. During this year the ITV attempted to cut costs, curb debts and to reduce reliance on advertising. ITV had a lot
franchise holders such as ABC Weekend TV, Southern Television, Thames television, etc. This is good because this means
channels air in different countries which means they get many viewers to watch their shows.

3. WHAT OTHER PRODUCTS DO THE
CHANNELS PRODUCE, WHICH WILL HELP
ADVERTISE OUR DOCUMENTARY?
BBC: The BBC offers twenty five public services in the UK; there are eight television channels, sixteen
radio stations and online/ red button interactive service. Some of the radio services that BBC offers
Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2, 6Music, Radio 3, Asian Network , 5 Live sports Extra, etc. It offers 39 local
across England and many worldwide. This will help me advertise my documentary because the radio
networks could do previews of my documentary or list my documentary on their listings. In addition,
radio networks could do chat shows based around my documentary and what they truly think of it and
they could also call in one of the producers to talk about the documentary with them.
ITV: The ITV operates one of the largest family of channels in the UK . They have free to air digital
channels such as, ITV2, ITV3, CITV, ITVBe. The ITV recently partnered up with the BBC to launch a new
subscription video on demand service in the US in 2017. The streaming service allows subscribers to
access the best of British television. ITV has ITV news online, which makes it easier for viewers to
the news on the go. ITV does not specialise in radio networks even though they are a huge company,
they are getting commissions from advertisements. ITV could help me advertise my documentary
because ITV has a lot of advertisements on their channels and this means they could advertise the
viewing of my documentary on their channel between programmes.

4. WHAT PROGRAMMES DO THEY
CREATE?
BBC: The BBC creates a lot of programmes such as: BBC 1, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, CBBC, Cbeebies, BBC
News Channel, BBC Parliament, etc. These are some of the channels that BBC creates and they air on TV. They cater
all types of audiences such as males, females, adults and children. They have created specific channels for children,
such as CBBC and Cbeebies. Usually, when you think of BBC you think of the news channel however, now there are
many channels that the BBC has created that the audience has so many choices to pick from. Some programmes
(documentaries) they air on TV are: Annie: Out the ashes (BBC One), Blue planet (BBC 1), The money lab ( BBC
Panorama (BBC 1),etc. These are documentary examples that BBC airs on their different TV channels and these
programmes are most likely similar to the content that we are going to be creating. BBC do different programmes
soaps, ‘EastEnders’ ,music ‘6 music live’ (BBC Radio), sport ‘match of the day’. They have a variety of different
programmes that cater to all types of age groups and ethnic interests.
ITV: ITV has created a lot of programmes on their various channels which help them cater to all the different age
groups, genders and ethnicities. They air drama and soaps ‘The avengers’, sport ‘ITV racing’, News ‘ Good morning
Britain’, etc. These are programmes that ITV air on their different channels and they all have different categories that
appeal to different audience interests. The programmes on ITV are not very similar to what we want to create for
documentary as they do not advertise any documentaries on any of their channels and none of the content that we
have personally researched into matches what our documentary is going to be like. However, ITV has a category
their website which says ‘factual’ which may be a category which our documentary comes under as it will be very
informative and will hopefully try to educate our audience.

5. THE CHANNEL WE CHOSE…
• As a group we have chosen to BBC1 to air our documentary. This channel is very
popular, especially throughout Britain. I think airing the documentary on this will
attract lots of public attention, it is also very easy to find the channel on a television.
There is also an ”iPlayer’ which allows anyone to catch up on programs that they have
missed. This gives the audience another chance to watch the documentary if they
missed it. You can also check the TV guide on this website, preparing the audience.
The channel also includes lots of other documentaries similarly to our documentary, to
do with illness or health.

6. TARGET AUDIENCE
• The BBC themselves have said that there target audience is the whole of the UK
population which means that the BBC does not disregard any groups of people.
However, in my opinion for some channels the BBC airs, caters to specific age groups.
For example, the CBBC caters to 6-12 year olds because they show children’s shows. I
think that the BBC has a large audience and successfully entertains all their audience.
In my opinion I think that the BBC’s audience is both primary and secondary audience.
The secondary audience mostly watches BBC 1 which means that the audience is aged
19+ years old and they watch it to keep informed on the news and keep educated on
what is happening around the world. By using BBC to air our documentary it will
impact our documentary positively as we will be able to get all types of age groups to
watch the documentary and this will mean we will have a mass audience. We will gain
both primary and secondary audiences.

7. FINAL DECISION
• Our final decision as a group is that we will air our documentary on the
BBC because as we will be able to get all different ages, ethnic groups,
social classes to watch our documentary. This means we will be able to
raise awareness nationwide and also will be able to air our documentary
on BBC radio shows and this will encourage the audience to watch the
documentary. We will be getting a lot of publicity by airing on the BBC.
Both our primary and secondary audience will get to view our
documentary on BBC’s different channels.