Channel 4 aims to produce documentaries that highlight niche topics, provide international perspectives, and explore British culture. They often focus on very niche subjects through their "Three Minute Wonders" series, which helps expose audiences to new topics. Channel 4 also shows documentaries from international perspectives to give audiences a wider understanding of other parts of the world. Additionally, they produce many documentaries about British culture that can provide deeper dives since British audiences already have familiarity with the topics.

1. Conventions of Channel 4
Documentaries

2. Channel 4’s Mission Statement
‘Channel 4 will continue to encourage documentaries
with social purpose, personal authorship and an
international perspective’
This extract from Channel 4’s Statement of Promises
shows that Channel 4 sees the relevance of
highlighting niche topics as they have the power to
give a mass audience an understanding of lesser
known subjects.

3. Niche Subjects
Channel 4 often airs documentaries which
focus on very niche topics. They have a series
known as ‘Three Minute Wonders’ which focus
on very niche subjects.
A shot from a Three
Minute Wonder on
street art
A shot from a Three
Minute Wonder on
niche music
Three Minute Wonders helps to inform Channel
4’s mass audience of topics they wouldn’t
normally study, possibly broadening their
interests.

4. Internal Perspective
As stated in their Mission Statement, Channel 4
promise to show documentaries with an
international perspective. This gives audiences a
wider knowledge of topics they wouldn’t usually
get to study.
This is an advert for a Channel 4 documentary on the 2011 Japanese Tsunami
and Earthquake. This shows that Channel 4 are producing high quality
documentaries on international affairs.

5. Productions Within Britain
Channel 4 also produces a vast amount of
productions on British culture. As they are a
British company, their audience will already have
an understanding on their topics, meaning they
can explore them in greater detail.
This production focuses on a figure of British history, meaning that non-British
audiences may have initial confusion towards the production, but Channel 4’s British
audience would already have at least a basic understanding of the subject.

6. My Production
My own production incorporates several of these
aspects. Firstly, it focuses on a very niche subject,
meaning it can give completely fresh information to
almost everyone who watches it. Secondly, it has
several connotations of Britain and the local music
scene that may be difficult to understand for
people who aren’t already familiar with these
aspects.