This document discusses crime documentaries and the institutions that produce them. It notes that the BBC and ITV are two major UK broadcasters that have produced popular crime documentaries. The BBC documentaries discussed include "Sex, Drugs and Murder: Life in the Red Light Zone", "The Chillenden Murders", "OJ: Made in America", and "The Met: Policing London". ITV documentaries tend to include many interviews, especially with victims, and are often presented by people such as Trevor McDonald. While ITV has been successful, there has been criticism that they have "dumbed down" programming to attract more viewers and advertisers. ITV is launching a new channel called ITVBe targeted at younger females.

1. Institution

2. • I am interested in producing a documentary or something along the lines of that.
• Crime documentaries are reflective documentaries, personally like the style of these documentaries. A reflective
documentary creates a more personal effect to the filming process, this is due to the omniscient cameraman whom
will ask questions to who is being shown on camera so that things would be revealed in which the audience would
want to know.
• Various questions are asked through the use of direct address, the interviewee’s interpretation of events or personal
account may be rendered to seem trustworthy or untrustworthy depending on the context of surrounding shots or the
nature of the statements being made in their own right. Reflective documentaries helps the audience gather their own
opinions which I think makes it more interesting as it develops an active audience. They are usually shown post
watershed as it can sometimes have explicit content involved.
• The most popular crime documentaries according to IMDB is the documentary Made in America, this documentary
type involves biography and defines cultural tale of modern America through crime.

3. Institutions
• There are a variety of institutions who follow the genre of crime to produce crime documentaries, with my extensive
research, I found that the BBC have made a good few crime documentaries for example: sex, drugs and murder: life in
the red light zone, the chillenders murders, OJ: Made in America and The met: Policing London. These are the most
recent crime documentaries in which the BBC have produced, they are currently on BBC I player.
• I also researched ITV as it is one of the largest broadcasters in the UK.
• The content produced is shown through various platforms such as TV and Demand. The programs broadcasted have a
wide variety of content from documentaries to soap operas. The channels consisting of ITV are ITV1, 2, 3 etc.
• Documentaries on ITV are post watershed, this is due to explicit language, scenes and violence, especially within
crime documentaries, as some people may become violent whilst being questioned. ITV documentaries tend to have a
lot of interviews usually with the victims themselves, these documentaries are presented by people such as Trevor
McDonald who has made documentaries such as The Mafia and Inside the Death Row.

4. How successful are they?
• ITV are very successful however, since the launch of ITV, there have been concerns from politicians and
the press that ITV faced a conflict concerning program audiences and advertisers. As advertisers are
reluctant to buy advertising space around low viewing programs, there is a pressure on ITV to broadcast
more popular programs in peak times. This has become more profound in recent years following a
relaxation in regulation and significantly more competition in the advertising market following the huge
increase in commercial channels. In recent years, program have started to dominate from the reality
television genre including the celebrity and talent show subgenres. This has led to accusations of ITV
'dumbing down' their program. ITV was also heavily criticized for scaling back its regional programs,
including regional news.
What are ITV’S target audience?
• Currently the target audience are more so for adults from 20+, however, ITV is to launch a new
female-focused, free-to-air channel, called ITVBe, which will become the home of shows including
The Only Way is Essex. The new channel, which will focus on lifestyle and reality TV programming,
will launch towards the end of this year and will be available on Freeview, Sky and Virgin. ITV said
that ad-funded ITVBe will be targeted at a younger, female audience and will feature acquired
programming such as the USA Real Housewives. The broadcaster said that the new channel will
complement ITV2 – despite plundering its schedule for shows including TOWIE and Real
Housewives. ITV2 is to tighten its focus onto entertainment programming aimed at 16- to 34-year-
olds, including comedy and drama series, panels shows and formats.