Client research CITDA

1. Client research- BBC
G E O R G I A D O D S W O R T H

2. About The BBC
The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is the national broadcaster for the United Kingdom, it is also the
worlds oldest broadcaster with the first live public broadcast dating to June 1920. The BBC has over 22,000 staff
members with 19,000 of them being within the public sector of the job. The main broadcasting services that the
BBC provides is BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four, they also provide other services like BBC
Sounds and the BBC Radio.
The BBC is an unbiased corporations whos' main goal is to both educate and entertain all their viewers by
creating different shows, from comedies to documentaries the BBC creates a wide variety of shows to keep their
audiences engaged. They keep their audiences engaged by:
• Creating programs/ shows for all ages
• Creating a portfolio of all their current shows and a description on what the main themes of the show are
• Offers their services worldwide in 40 different languages
In 1932 as the ‘BBC Empire Service’ the BBC broadcasted their services in 28 different languages by providing
radio, TV and online services in Arabic and Persian, which allowed the company to stream their services not only
in the United Kingdom but also worldwide. By the BBC creating a wide variety of genres and streaming them in
different languages, this shows the audience how much the BBC wants to create more diverse content and show
it worldwide and include everyone who wants to watch their shows. This allows their audience to see the effort
that the company is going through to include everyone worldwide and not just un the UK.

3. BBC Three
BBC Three and BBC England is a free to air tv channel owned by the BBC, BBC three is a
channel target towards 16–34-year-olds and have a scheduled airtime from 7pm to around
4am. BBC three is a youth-orientated television channel that was first launched in 2003
covering a various number of genres ranging from comedy, drama series, sport,
documentaries etc.
BBC Threes most popular genres are comedy and drama as this is what keeps their target
audience engaged. Many people within that age range wish to escape their reality when they
watch a show and wish to feel like they are there in the show. The shows are carefully made
with strong detail to ensure that every characters has a story line which people may be able
to relate to. When making the shows the topics are also carefully taken into consideration to
make the audience want to watch the show. Dramas and comedy shows are made around
current events that are happening in today's society so people can relate to the storyline and
maybe some of the characters.
In the screenshots I have included we can see that on the ‘New & Trending’ page on BB
Iplayer many of the shows are dramas, comedies or reality shows. BBC Three draw their
audience in by creating a brief but detailed description of what they show is about and what
the audience can expect when they watch the show underneath the icon. They also chose
the main image that is on the icon on the main website and carefully chose what they show
to gain the audiences attention.
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4. Northern Voices- BBC
For the first time BBC Three and BBC England are collaborating to launch Northern Voices.
Northern voices is a Factual Development Scheme for the North of England. This partnership has been able to create many opportunities for local
independent business to create and submit ideas that reflect the real life experiences for the target audience. The Northern Voices collaboration
furthers BBC Threes commitment to uncover the untold and original stories from outside of London. The scheme has been targeted at people aged
16-24 as they will be able to relate to the content the most.
The Northern writers projects is able to give voices to writers and creators who are able to show how it is growing up in different regions in Britain
as each region has a different experience about them. Each writer has been able to write a piece about growing up in their region and how different
they are compared to each other, as some had to deal with racism, homophobia and much more. The north part of England is not very as diverse
as London or Manchester as they are not as known as others but they are trying to represent much diversity as they can. This scheme has allowed
for more and better opportunities for the North of England and allows for people to see what it is like in other areas of England rather than just
seeing what it is like in more southern areas. The Northern Voices was created to show that we should all get equal opportunities no matter where
we come from and everyone should get involved with the scheme who wants to get their independent production company out there.
One of the members who use to be apart of the Norther Voices scheme is Tony Schumacher, Tony has become very successful after being apart of
the Northern Voices scheme as he has now started to produce his own show. ‘ The Responder’ started production last year, staring Martin
Freeman. Martin is a very famous actor after staring in The Hobbit, Nativity, sherlock etc.
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BBC Blogs - BBC Writersroom - The Northern Voices Writers 2020

5. The Brief
From the brief that I have been given by the client I understand that I have to create a documentary based around
the topic of ‘Culture in the digital age’. This documentary will be aimed towards 16-34 year olds as that is within
BBC Threes target audience. I have been given this brief as the BBC and BBC Three have partnered with Northern
writers to help future talent in the North of England to have better opportunities within the industry and show off
their work throughout the show.
With the wide topic of culture in the digital age I have chosen to talk about social media for my documentary. While
this might be a sensitive subject for some I believe that it is an important topic to talk about, especially through
recent times and with different social media platforms growing exponentially over the past 2-3 years. Social media
can have a large impact on your mental health both positive and negative and I would like to show both sides
throughout my documentary. One social media platform that has grown very quickly is TikTok, throughout lockdown
TikTok became an escape from the outside world for many people around the world, in 2022 TikTok has an
average of 800 million active monthly users and during lockdown the app seen 8.7 million people in the UK
becoming daily active users. As of recent updates, TikTok has found another way of making profit from the users
by adding the ‘TikTok shop’ where creators can link where they have got the products in the video from so users
can see and be temped to buy it themselves. Many adults and teenagers can be easily persuaded by their
favourite creators to buy specific products which allows the different corporations to gain profit off their users.
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