RESEARCH INTO TV CHANNELS AND THEIR STYLES OF DOCUMENTARIES

ALL THE CHANNELS

BBC 1, 2 & 3 ITV Chanel 4 Chanel 5 More 4 E4

BBC 1 AND 2

Longest running documentaries are “panorama and “Frozen Planet” with David Attenborough.

Prime aim is to educate- Panorama looks at issues within society.

They also aim to entertain as well as educate and they have a weekly running slot.

They are usually “ fly on the wall documentaries” with a voiceover or presenter.

BBC 3 There main aim is to entertain there target

audience of young people aged 15 to 25 with programmes which reflect their lives such as “sun, sex and suspicious parents”. In which they use people there own age in the documentary with a voice of god narrator or fly on the wall technique.

However they do sometime use a narrator with sensitive topics such as they do with “ I want to change my body”.

ITV Unlike BBC, ITV don’t have long running

documentaries in weekly slots. There main aim is to entertain so a huge scandal or a big event must take place for ITV to conduct a documentary.

For example they did a documentary on the Royal Family around the time of Will and Kate’s wedding.

They use a very factual style so they often use a voice of god narrator.

CHANEL 4

Out of all or the terrestrial channels, Channel 4 have the most variety of entertaining ad educating documentaries.

They make informative documentaries such as “One born every minute” and then others which entertain such as “ My big fat gypsy wedding”.

They normal use a presenter who is the main focus and he provides fact and information which the audience isn't expected to know.

CHANNEL 5

Channel 5 also show a wide range of documentaries but their main aim is to entertain not to educate.

For example “ The worlds toughest trucker” is designed to entertain.

They often use hand held cameras in their documentaries and they use a voice of god narrator.

E4

They often do one of special documentaries aimed to educate in an entertaining way.

They have often aired documentaries such as “Gleeful: The Real American Choirs”.

The types of documentaries they do use all different sort of styles.

MORE 4

They often create documentaries to educate their audience and they do this by use lots of talking heads or interviews.

They make documentaries such as “Dave Gorman's googlewack adventures”.

They seem to use narrators on screen with images which support what he is saying.

THE END