BAD EDUCATION & CATS DOES COUNTDOWN : SCHEDULING

MONDAY 23 MAY at 1:30 is your final REVISION for the ACTION ADVENTURE question.

Meanwhile, learn these two answers by heart, one on scheduling (time and day) and one on audience pleasures (what makes us enjoy the shows).

THE EXAM QUESTION

SECTION B
Media Topic: Television Comedy
Answer both parts of this question using comedy programmes you have studied.
4 (a) Explain why two programmes were chosen by two different channels. Then explain why each channel chose one time and one day to schedule the programme.

YOUR ANSWER:

Bad Education BBC Three 10 p.m. Tuesdays

The BBC is a  Public Service Broadcasting instutition with a remit 'to inform, educate and entertain'. It is funded by the licence fee of £145.50 per household. BBC Three is one of its channels, now online. 

• BBC Three's target audience is 16-34 year olds. Its ident reflects this with its innovative technology. Its remit states that they want to bring 'younger audiences' to quality entertainment written by 'new UK talent'. Bad Education fits the description as it is the first show actually written by Jack Whitehall and it is fast-paced with sharp editing, jump cuts, montages, bright colours and innovative post-production. 
• Its remit states that they 'want to build an interactive relationship with audiences'; Bad Education is a good fit as in all three series, the Twitter account @alfie_wickers is displayed on his whiteboard encouraging the audience to follow the show on Twitter.
• BBC Three's remit states that they want to create 'innovative content'. Bad Education fits because it is a new type of school comedy with a new twist that appeals to younger audiences as the teacher played by Jack Whitehall is often more childish than the pupils. The teachers are cartoon characters whereas the pupils are presented more positively.
• Bad Education was scheduled for its final terrestrial show on Tuesday 16 February 2016 at 10.30 pm. This is after the watershed of 9 p.m., so more adult content can be broadcast, such as swearing and sexual references. An example is...
• Adult comedy programmes scheduled around it, and after it, such as Gavin and Stacey and Little Britain before it, then Family Guy after it, making Tuesday evenings a comedy zone. Top Gear at 7 earlier in the evening is a tentpole show, with huge ratings, so it 'holds up' or supports later programmes, which benefit from inheritance (inheriting an existing audience that doesn't switch off). EastEnders is another huge draw immediately before Bad Education. It is also a tentpole show. Together, Top Gear and EastEnders hammock the less popular programmes in between and let Bad Education inherit some of their audiences, who don't switch off.

8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, C4 10 p.m. Fridays

Channel 4 is a PSB, non-profit broadcasting institution whose original remit was to cater for minorities and arts. It is commercially funded, that is, it answers to its shareholders and advertisers (who expect profits) whereas the BBC have a duty to keep audiences happy. As a PSB channel, it has a duty to provide quality entertainment. It is given guidelines by Ofcom and the government. C4 is a channel within Channel 4. 

Currently : catchup tv 'stripping'

• Channel 4 is known for taking risks with comedy programmes and also for nurturing new talent like writers and comedians. The C4 commissioning website says that they 'take risks on new talent' and want to find 'the next generation of great comic performers' and be 'innovative and distinctive'. 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown (open link) is a great example of innovation and comedy as it is a hybrid /crossover / mashup between the panel game 8 Out of 10 Cats and the game show Countdown. It follows Countdown's format but its hosts and contestants, mostly comedians, are from 8 Out Of 10 Cats. 
• C4 sets out to offer quality entertainment and this show fits because of the successful classic  Countdown format offering Rachel Riley as mathematician and Susie Dent as lexicographer. However, the twist is having the cutting edge comedian Jimmy Carr as host as he takes the comedy in unexpected directions and turns a panel game into a game show.
  
• It is scheduled at 10 pm which is after the watershed of 9 pm, so more adult content can be broadcast, such as swearing and sexual references. One example is in Series 3 Episode 5 when Jimmy Carr uses the f word. Another is series 8 Episode 8 when Tom Allen translates an erotic novel (open link for several clips), substituting railway stations for adult words.
• C4 has a tradition of showing comedy on Friday nights so the show fits into the comedy zone. It is a male-led show which has a 'boysy' quality and it pushes the envelope. Its banter and irreverent style create the comedy. Some of its comedy can be offensive but it has mainstream adult male appeal. It is based on an established, successful show and is therefore a safe draw for audiences in a prime time slot. Friday nights on C4 traditionally offer a variety of comedy programmes to choose from. 
•  Who are the audiences on a Friday night? Familes with older children, who start watching at 6 pm with The Simpsons, then Holllyoaks, C4 news, Gogglebox.  C4 were competing with BBC's Outnumbered for their audience. C4 used stacking by showing 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown after their flagship programme of The Simpsons. That may function as a tentpole, that is, putting less poplrar shows near more popular one to help the less popular show hold onto its audiences.The first mashup in 2012 was watched by 2.49 million viewers, making it the second most watched Channel 4 show that week.

THE EXAM QUESTION

SECTION B
Media Topic: Television Comedy
Answer both parts of this question using comedy programmes you have studied.
4 (b) Explain how the audience pleasures offered by two programmes are different or similar. Give at least one example from each programme,

YOUR ANSWER:

Programme 1: The IT Crowd         Programme 2: QI

Both comedy programmes meet audience's needs for escapism, diversion and entertainment (Blumler and Katz) but in different ways because of their different genres and different audiences. The IT Crowd is niche comedy in the sitcom genre with a target audience skewed towards younger males whereas the quiz / panel show QI has a mainstream family audience including older viewers. 

The IT Crowd offers the audience the pleasures of the sitcom genre, such as getting to know a small set of characters (Moss, Roy and Jen) whose quirks and foibles make us laugh and whose weaknesses we are familiar with as the jokes are repeated every episode (running gags) such as Moss’s need for order and security, shown when he counts the staples in his staple gun after Roy has borrowed it. The audience for The IT Crowd is likely to include viewers who relate to the central two characters Moss and Roy who are 'computer geeks' and understand their irritation with their boss Jen who is ignorant about computers. 'Standard nerds, that's what we are to them.' In the episode ‘Yesterday’s Jam’, Moss remarks, “Did you notice how she didn't even get excited when she saw this original ZX81?” and Roy replies,  “Yeah, that was weird. It's almost as if she doesn't know anything about computers.”

In the episode ‘Smoke and Mirrors’, Jen asserts, “With all due respect John, I am the head of IT and I have it on good authority that if you type "Google" into Google, you can break the Internet. So please, no one try it, even for a joke. [the executives laugh] It's not a laughing matter. You can break the Internet.” However, Jen is very competent socially, as can be seen in the episode ‘Dinner Party’:

Jen: “Now please, I am here with all my friends, I don't want you to talk like nerds. I want you to be normal. No talking about memory, or RAM.”

Moss: “Memory is RAM!”

The audience derives entertainment from Moss who relates more easily to hard drives than people; he cannot chat with what he calls 'real men' without the aid of a computer teaching programme that sends daily phrases to his computer about 'manly' topics such as football together with a pronunciation guide. In the episode 'Are We Not Men' he and Roy end up feeling awkward in a pub after they have learned ‘how to speak like real men’ in a ‘football voice’. They manage to blend in with a group of football supporters but know nothing about football. Moss clutches a pint of milk and looks anxious. When the gang pressures them to be 'one of the lads' they get caught up in a robbery and are terrified as they are out of their depths. When Roy is asked to name the football team that he supports, he hasn’t a clue, so his eyes desperately scan the lunch counter until they alight on the carvery and he announces “West Ham?” in a worried tone. Audiences laugh at them as they always get it so wrong, which is similar to the way that Alan Davies is positioned in QI with audiences feeling superior to him.

By contrast, QI  has an educational appeal as well as what McQuail, Blumler and Brown (1972) call a ‘self-rating appeal’ in that audiences like to measure themselves against the experts, imagining that they are on the side that does well and laughing at contestants’ mistakes.

In this panel game, Davies appears each week as the foil to the host / quiz master Stephen Fry. To win the game, panellists have to answer questions that the average person thinks they know but the questions are usually traps. Alan Davies always looses as he buzzes to answer and gets it wrong, making the audience laugh and Stephen Fry correct him.

This panel show is unusual as the way to score points is to offer answers that are 'quite interesting' (hence the title QI) rather than being correct. Each panellist is allocated a silly buzzer and Alan Davies's buzzer always makes the most embarrassing noise of all. He is the ‘fall guy’ to Stephen Fry's genius. In comedy, therefore, we enjoy laughing at both panellists' and sitcom characters' misfortunes. QI offers families a basis for social interaction and the excitement of getting the answer right as they watch together and compete to answer correctly. We are positioned as superior to both the sitcom characters and some of the panellists.

Nevertheless, the writer of The IT Crowd Graham Linehan set out to make 'sweet old-fashioned comedy' so the characters are rarely crude or the comedy unkind. It does border on vulgar in the episode 'Amsterdam' in which Moss is instructed to tell a social gathering about their trip and misunderstands what is socially acceptable by mentioning a failed attempt to relate to prostitutes. Similarly, QI is after the watershed so the humour can be adult but it is all verbal humour (unlike the sitcom's slapstick). However, the host Stephen Fry is unfailingly genial and affable, gently mocking Alan Davies. He could never behave like the quiz show host Ann Robinson in The Weakest Link, dismissing people rudely and abruptly. For example, Fry debunks the myth that Eskimos have 50 words for snow and that haggis was invented in Scotland, but he does it with a smile. Lee Mack is rewarded for his humour, asides and quips rather than the 'right answer'. Sandy Toksvig remarks that the lemur would find it easier to get a better fitting hat than an aye aye. The comedy is mainstream (not niche) for all the family so even if there are adult themes, the emphasis is on humour. Sandy Toksvig uses a euphemism for genitals, for example. 

One of the audience pleasures of QI, therefore, is Stephen Fry's erudition. Audiences at home feel in awe of the way that he speaks many languages, elaborates easily with asides, puns and offers so much additional information. He knows about anthropology, for example, and why the Malagasy people in Madagascar fear aye ayes. Anticipating this and knowing the quality of entertainment on offer reflects what Blumler and Katz call the 'points of recognition' and 'building relationships' with onscreen characters. The content also fulfils the BBC’s remit to ‘educate, inform and entertain’ in this way.

Equally, Stephen Fry is well known as an actor, writer, comedian and TV host, so audiences feel that they know him well. Alan Davies is also an actor, comedian and director, whilst the panellists are usually famous comedians and politicians.

Similarly, in The IT Crowd, audiences become very familiar with a small set of characters and the show uses stereotypes as do most sitcoms: the running gags include Jen's failure to understand computers despite being office manager. In the episode 'The Internet' the boys tease her by placing a black plastic box in her outstretched hands and telling her that it is 'the whole internet' and that 'the elders of the internet' have allowed her to use it for her presentation to management and that 'they will be impressed'. As an audience we know that Jen is being made to look a fool. Normally, it is Moss and Roy that we laugh at. They are stereotypes of adult men behaving like teens, a permanent state of geekdom with computer bits lying around, comics, computer games, CDs and branded T-shirts.

In conclusion, whilst the aim of The IT Crowd is principally comedy, QI entertains through informing audiences.