1. B322 exam - Section B = TV Comedy
2 revision sessions
2. How is Section B tested?
• A single question to answer – split into 2 sections
with separate marks
• Part one will focus on institution
– Scheduling / channel brand identity / regulatory issues
• Part two will focus on audience
– Programme’s target audience / pleasures offered /
audience positioning
3. Audience questions you should know
the answers to by your exam
• How a text addresses a mass / niche target
audience?
• What pleasures does the text offer its
audience?
• Why a text has been scheduled on a particular
channel?
• How the channel’s audience fits with the
channel itself?
4. Institution questions you should
know the answers to by your exam
• Why is the text scheduled on a particular
channel?
• Why the text is scheduled on more than one
channel?
• What the channel’s target audience is?
• Why the text has been scheduled at a certain
time?
• Why the text has been scheduled between other
texts?
• What else the text competes with at the time it is
scheduled?
5. You need revision notes on…
• TV sitcom
– Conventions of a TV sitcom
– Structure and feel of the programme
– Format (length of episodes, how many in a series,
etc.)
– Setting
– Values
– Stereotypes
6. You need revision notes on…
• Friday Night Dinner
– What it’s about
– Who made it
– Channel broadcast on
– Other broadcast formats
– No’s of series
– Actors / actresses
– Style of filming
– Audience figures for key
episodes
– International links
– Competition with other
channels / programmes
– When / what time it was
scheduled / changes in
scheduling
– Target audience and
reasons for
– Specific episode plot and
narrative structure
7. You need revision notes on…
• C4
– Ownership
– How big a player it is
– What it creates (types
of product)
– Where its money
comes from (all its
businesses!)
– Its successes
– Its rivals
– Its remit
– Its target audience
– What audiences want
from this channel
– Its relationship with
production companies
– Scheduling patterns –
comedy on at specific
times, etc.
8. You need revision notes on…
• Popper Productions and Big Talk Productions
– What they each create (types of product)
– Their successes
– Size
– Independent or owned by other media companies
9. You need revision notes on…
• Bad Education
– What it’s about
– Who made it
– Channel broadcast on
– Other broadcast formats
– No’s of series
– Actors / actresses
– Style of filming
– Audience figures for key
episodes
– International links
– Film versions /
collaborations
– Competition with other
channels / programmes
– When / what time it was
scheduled / changes in
scheduling
– Target audience and
reasons for
– Specific episode plot and
narrative structure
10. You need revision notes on…
• BBC Three
– Ownership
– How big a player it is
– What it creates (types
of product)
– Where its money
comes from (all its
businesses!)
– Its successes
– Its rivals
– Its remit
– Its target audience
– What audiences want
from this channel
– Its relationship with
production companies
– Scheduling patterns –
comedy on at specific
times, etc.
11. You need revision notes on…
• Tiger Aspects and Endemol UK
– What they each create (types of product)
– Their successes
– Size
– Independent or owned by other media companies
12. You need revision notes on…
• General knowledge
– Audience pleasures
– Uses and gratifications theory
– Audience groupings
– Scheduling techniques (hammocking, etc.)
– Scheduling techniques applied to comedies
studied (and reasons for these)
– Reasons for limiting access to content on behalf of
channels
– Subject terminology
13. You need revision notes on…
• Subject terminology
– Commissioned
– Broadcast
– Brand identity
– Scheduling
– Post-watershed
– Prime time
– ABC1 audience
– Hammocking
– Pre-echo
– Counter-programming
– Target audience
– Audience pleasure
– Narrative structure
– Snowballing
– Public service
broadcasting
– Production company
– Terrestrial channels
– Stripping
– Defensive scheduling
– Mass / niche audience
– Regularity
– Intertextuality
– Superiority
– Schadenfreude
– Recognition / familiarity
– Transgression
