Presented at CCRC research seminar, Sheffield Hallam University

1. Dr Ruth A Deller
(r.a.deller@shu.ac.uk @ruthdeller)
Soap opera anniversaries as media events

2. • Anniversaries, events and hype
• Trailers, paratexts and promotional media
• Whodunnits and audience speculation
• Nostalgia
• Liveness
• Social media and play
• Inter-soap references
• Ratings and results

3. ‘[A]nalysis of soap operas has been limited in recent years
precisely because it is assumed that all the work that needs to
be done has been completed and we now have an agreed
approach towards their analysis. The fact that alternative
approaches have not been developed, and changes in soap
operas in the last couple of decades have not been taken into
account, demonstrates how easy it is to ignore soaps, precisely
because they are always there, part of the furniture of
television, ordinary and invisible’ (Mills 2010: 8).
‘British soaps are no longer discussed, or even very much
watched, in television and media studies. Soaps have become
the staple of textbooks and, if they have a role in contemporary
debates, it is as the standard binary against which other, more
significant or engaging, programmes are measured. A similar
lack of interest can be found in the broader television culture
online and in the British press... This shift away from soap opera
pre- dates but is aligned to debates about quality and
aesthetics.’ (Geraghty 2010: 82-84)

4. Matt Hills’ (2013) four anniversary types:
1) Naïve – mainstream media event with little to no sense of targeting fans; not time-bound
to specific dates
2) Hybrid – ‘something for the fans’ combined with ‘consensus TV’
3) Niche – fan-oriented
4) Hyped – part of an extended branding and marketing campaign
Media Anniversaries change over time according to a range of industry/audience factors

5. ‘Anniversary brand extension permits an even greater degree of transferability than might be
usual: under the guise of cultural commemoration, a TV series can find its
character/narrative/design elements carried over into documentaries, histories, docudramas,
conventions, Proms, special screenings and Q&As, coins, stamps, assorted merchandise of all
stripes and price points and even royal receptions. Multiplicity is further heightened by this
proliferation of products, tie-ins, associated texts and “intertextual commodities” (Marshall
2004: 23), with different markets and demographics being targeted by variant items… And, of
course, longevity is another key rationale: the media anniversary is premised on highlighting
cultural endurance. In terms of brand management, then, anniversary celebrations are
hugely valuable. They cut through the noise of an “attention economy” (Webster 2014: 49),
garnering audience awareness and potentially even exerting a social pressure whereby
viewers feel they should “join in”. Adam Arvidsson has perceptively argued that the “purpose
of brand management is to guide the investment of affect on the part of consumers ... it is a
matter of creating an affective intensity, an experience of unity between the brand and the
subject” (2006: 93). And a TV birthday party also enables this fusion by seeking to link
audience memories, emotions and personal self-narratives to narratives’ (Hills 2015: 3-4)

10. • Anniversaries as ‘Pseudo-events’ – constructs for
marketing and promotion rather than naturally occurring
(Boorstin 1963).
• ‘Media events’ as moments of connection between
dispersed people, privileging the home as a centre of
encounter (Dayan and Katz 1992).
• ‘[P]opular media events break with the everyday but in a
much more routine way; they do not monopolize ... media
coverage in total, but in a certain segment…’(Hepp and
Couldry 2010: 8)
• Anniversaries as a site that connects the present, past and
future – and draw upon television’s obsession with
nostalgia and remembering/reiterating its own
importance (Holdsworth 2011)

11. • Paratextual anticipation and speculation (Garner 2015, Gray
2010)
• Mystery narratives extend beyond fictional form (soap itself)
to paratextual speculation, not only about storylines, but
about production, actors, audiences. Will this please the
fans? Will X return? Will the episode(s) be a ‘fitting’
tribute?
• Plural audiences for anniversaries (see Hills 2013, 2015).
• Media event beyond the episode(s) themselves – reveals,
clues as moments of ‘mini-event’ and inducement to watch.
• Reveals outside of the text: SnapChat, NTAs…

15. There’s a killer among them

16. The week of revelations

17. One killer week

18. 2015 teaser

19. 30 years, one street (c5)

20. • Social media as sites of paratextual play between producers, actors and
audiences – e.g. sharing memes, jokes and humourous lists (Deller 2014)
• Affective sensibilities of play – appealing to audiences’ nostalgia and
recognition as well as humour.
• ‘Social networks don’t switch off in the face of contemporary media events:
rather, they are energized by, and in turn work to narratively (re)activate, the
paratextual prefigurations and after-images of a brand anniversary. (Hills
2015: 21)
• ‘Television topics that trend highly are generally those considered as
‘watercooler’ TV such as reality television programmes, contests and talent
shows, or ‘event’ drama, such as cult television or series finales… While soap
operas are discussed on Twitter regularly, the frequency of episodes means
they do not generate enough traffic to ‘trend’ regularly – unless there is the
climax of a major storyline, they are not considered ‘event’ TV.’ (Deller 2011:
225-6)

22. ‘This special week will give a nod to the past and
welcome the future. With storylines culminating
and big momentous events happening, the
EastEnders 30th anniversary will take its place in
television history.’ (BBC statement in Kilkelly 2014)

23. ‘The main aim was to celebrate the past, present
and the future of the show in a way that would be
satisfying for our viewers. With the show
screening two weeks apart in Australia and the UK,
it was also very important to craft two story peaks
that would hit either territory on the same day. We
didn't want anyone to miss out. In celebrating the
past, we knew we needed a dash of nostalgia and
returning faces. Regarding the present, we wanted
to bring some of our current storylines to a climax.
And looking ahead, we wanted to launch some
new plotlines that would keep viewers hooked into
the future.’ (Jason Herbison in Kilkelly 2015c)

24. ‘The final episode is my favourite one of the week.
It's got the explanation that the audience has been
so keen to find out, about why the Gloved Hand
Killer has been committing these murders, so it's
the aftermath of the biggest reveal of the year.
"It's got some terrific performances and it's also
full of heart and warmth. It features our longest-
serving, most-loved characters in the Hutchinsons
and the Osbornes, as well as a fantastic
reappearance from James Redmond's much-loved
character Finn. It's got precisely the right level of
big heart-stopping drama, warmth, nostalgia and
everything that loyal viewers want to see.’ (Bryan
Kirkwood in Kilkelly 2015b)

27. ‘“Liveness” naturalises the idea that, through the media, we
achieve a shared attention to the realities that matter for us as
a society. This is the idea of the media as social
frame, the myth of the mediated centre. It is because of this
underlying idea (suggesting society as a common space
focused around a ‘shared’ ritual centre) that watching
something ‘live’ makes the difference it does: otherwise why
should we care that others are watching the same image as us,
and (more or less) when we are?’ (Couldry, 2004: 97-99)
Maximum liveness: ‘we are watching at the same time as the
event, at the same time as everyone else, and, what is more,
with an event taking place in different locations connected by
television, as is typically the case with major media events’
(Bourdon 2000: 534-535).

28. ‘EastEnders created a further sense of being part of the
viewing community in its approach to “live week”,
encouraging audience participation in the event through
live viewing and simultaneous engagement on social
media. The show’s Twitter, Instagram, Vine and Facebook
accounts were all updated as the episodes were
broadcast, providing commentary on events as they
happened. The notion of a ‘live week’ emphasised the
importance of watching the show as broadcast, rather
than via catch-up services at a later time. This draws upon
the notion that liveness indicates a sense of commonality,
bringing viewers together around one central moment.’
(Bell and Deller 2016)

30. ‘[Soap] plays upon the spectator’s expectations of the melodramatic form, continually stimulating…
the desire for a just conclusion to the story, and, on the other hand, it constantly presents the
desire as unrealisable, by showing that conclusions only lead to further tensions and suffering.’
(Modleski 1984: 372)
‘We always said that this story had to come from the heart, and with this, it's the start of a whole
big new story for the Beales. We kept on going on about [2003 novel] We Need to Talk About
Kevin - we need to talk about Bobby! So actually this is the beginning of an even bigger story for
the Beales. We've got to keep going!’ (Dominic Treadwell-Collins in Kilkelly 2015)
‘Soaps have long been concerned with family units and interfamilial interactions. However,
beginning with the death of Lucy and its impact on the square, the period of the storyline has
focussed these themes in an unusually cohesive way, bringing them to a climax during live week, as
the Lucy storyline was interspersed with narratives involving conflicts within other families on the
street. Live week even included a wedding, a birth and a death to further emphasise the
importance of families. If viewers had missed the unusually cohesive themes of the Lucy storyline,
live week left no doubt as almost every aspect of the soap became embroiled in inter-generational
conflict. The reveal of Bobby as the killer offers both a continuation of this theme, as well as a
climax to it.’ (Bell and Deller 2016)

32. ‘The likes of Ang (1985) and Spence (2005) note the ‘ironic’ pleasures in
watching soap opera and using it as a source of humour. Of course, some of
this is bound up with notions of taste and the idea that soap opera is a less
venerated form than other media, however, we would argue that this is not
the only salient factor. Bonding over humour and shared social experience is
a key part of the appeal of soap, as it is with many other media and cultural
forms. The humorous appeal of soap is something producers are keenly
aware of, particularly in the way they use social media…By engaging in the
same forms of humorous talk as the fans, and by sharing fan-created media,
soaps like EastEnders are able to both build their own hype (Gray 2010: 6)
and give the impression that the producers understand what fans want. ’
(Bell and Deller 2016)

33. Modes of play included:
• Role-playing accounts (e.g. as Ian Beale,
Mick Carter)
• Memes
• Intertextual jokes and references
• Teasers and speculation
• ‘Canonisation’ by producers of fan ideas
(Deller 2014, Veale 2013) and live
mishaps.

36. Happy 20th

37. EastErinsborough

38. • ‘A small piece of TV history was made last
night. EastEnders viewers finally found out
who killed Lucy Beale, and the episode
broke all Twitter records for a soap, with
over a million messages posted in a single
evening. 32,0638 tweets were sent in the
minute after (spoilers!) Bobby Beale was
revealed to be Lucy's killer.’ (Gill 2015)
• EastEnders live week: 20 million reach; most
episodes over 10-11 million (Kilkelly 2015a).
Increase in viewers short-lived.
• Neighbours anniversary episodes do not see
any significant ratings changes in Aus or UK.
• Hollyoaks anniversary week: ratings
increase marginally, especially for E4 first
look (Kilkelly2015b) - no significant long-
term increase in viewers.

39. Two weekends, four nights Halloween 2015

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