Commissions Unit: BBC 3 Research| General Style/Audience

To help me gain a better understanding on what exactly the general criteria and style BBC 3 programmes follow, I decided to research a few of some of the main programmes aired on the show, to try and gain an idea of the type of audience and intentions of the channel.

Hair

This programme however is very different compared to 'festivals, sex & suspicious parents'. Here, a few number of contestants battle against each other for the chance to win the title of the best british amateur hairdresser where the judges are known stylistic and famous hairdressers. 

Ja'mie: Private School Girl

Also new to BBC 3, a school 'girl' named Ja'mie returns to school with a new look and is faced with a numerous amounts of challenges to be successful and to win the 'Hillford Medal'. Almost instantly you can tell that the programme will be humorous as it has the same known actor from the series 'Angry  Boys'.

Are there similarities?

When judging from these 3 programmes and the majority on BBC 3, it is clear that all these programmes have some links. Firstly, the programmes are all generally quite casual and relaxed - the sort of programmes where you can sit down and relax without having to concentrate too hard on the narrative that you don't know what is happening. For example, with 'hair' it is clear what the general narrative is, which differs extremely compared to soaps such as 'Eastenders' or 'Coronation Street'.

Linking to the previous point, all programmes are clearly for entertaining purposes. There isn't actual that much documentarian approaches on the channel as a whole - most programmes have been made for entertaining purposes and the idea of a casual narrative so that the audience can simply just relax. 

Nonetheless, there is a variety in terms of formality in the programmes. Some programmes are simply just comedy-based whereas otherwise are more say competition and more formal. For example, 'Private school Girl' is clearly comedy-based whereas 'Hair' is more competitive however they both remain entertaining.

Controversey of the BBC Three: Will the channel be closed and erased?

After hearing rumours of BBC Three being potentially scrapped from live TV, I decided to research whether this was actually going to happen or not.

A recent news article (2 days ago, published on the 4th March 2014) states that the programme will be taken off live TV in 2015. Director general Tony Hall quoted "It's not the end of BBC Three, it is the beginning of a new BBC Three". This is when the director general then went to explain by saying that the programme will be taken off live show and moved to just BBC Iplayer in Autumn 2015, as well as facing funds cut from £85m to £25m.

This cut was to allow there to finally be a BBC 1+ and to allow a one hour CBBC extension to 8pm from 7pm. At first I felt that this change wasn't entirely necessary until I began to think about why exactly.

This leads me to the next point by showing that BBC Three clearly targets the younger audience, which  you can tell from the majority of the programmes aired on TV. Simiarily, the director general also quoted: "I want younger and less affluent audiences to be better served by the BBC. Younger audiences are increasingly moving online and on demand. The challenge is to take the brilliance of BBC Three into that world," . 

You can see this news article from the link below:

BBC One to get £30m from BBC Three Closure

To conclude, BBC Three is generally aimed to be a casual and more informal styled TV channel which tends to aim for a younger audience. Meaning, my documentary should make sure that it follows this style in a consistent way.