GCSE Section B - TV Comedy Comedy Programme Research

Comedy Programme Research

Learning Objective - To research a comedy programme of your choice and make notes on its audience pleasures and scheduling (including channel, brand identity and timing).

Exercise One: Pick a comedy programme of your choice and use these points to help your research.

• Programme Name
• Comedy Type
• Channel
• Day and Time

Audience Pleasures - Write down the range of audience pleasures offered in this programme. Make sure for each audience pleasure you mention, you give detailed, specific examples from your chosen show.

Scheduling - Write about how and why your comedy programme is scheduled on a channel and at a particular time. Make sure you comment on the brand identity of the channel and how your chosen show fits in with the others on the same channel. 

Also consider:

• The type of channel
• For example, is it a channel ruled by PSB?
• Is it a mass channel (a channel aimed at the whole nation, like BBC1) or a niche channel (a channel aimed at a smaller section of the audience, like ITV2)
• Who is watching TV at that specific time?

Exam Tip: When you answer your question about how a comedy show is scheduled, you need to be able to say how it fits in with the brand identity of the channel and the other shows.  

For the higher marks you also need to be able to say how the scheduling targets or affects audiences, so make sure you explicitly mention this in your answer. ie:
“The programme is on after the watershed, which might suggest the content of the programme is not suitable for younger viewers. This shows that the target audience for the show is a more mature one.”