Commissions Unit: BBC 3 Research| Documentaries

Because we are making a documentary, it is essential to see what documentaries BBC Three offer (as well as there other programmes) to help us learn the style they follow and if it is similar to the other programmes which I have already discussed.

Festivals, Sex & Suspicious Parents

Following on from the successful series 'Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents', this brand new series (from

this year) shows the reality of what teenagers get up to at festivals. With excessive amounts of booze, partying and throwing up, the party-goers don't know that they are being spied on by their parents/guardians whom themselves are actually at the festival. This is an example of a programme which is questioned for being a documentary - it is clearly for entertainment reasons and there isn't

much factual within the programme - it is literally following someone's experience at a festival, showing the ups and downs. Therefore making this programme quite informal however entertaining for the audience as both the younger and older audience can associate with the characters in the series.

18 Pregnant School Girls

Nonetheless, this programme is a fine example of one of BBC Three's '1 off' documentaries - the channel often has these one offs and there is rarely any documentaries which follow as a series. Moving on, this documentary shows the lifestyles of young pregnant teenage girls who turned up for the test at a school clinic. Below is a link giving brief information about the programme found on the BBC 3 website.

18 Pregnant School Girls

A Special Kind of Mum

This documentary is arguably more personal than '18 pregnant school girls' - mainly because it focuses on one individual instead of a variety of different stories. Nontheless, the programme focuses on a 25 year old mother who was born disabled and cannot leave her wheelchair - however still has a family and has had children. She can't even use her arms and legs and uses her mouths for every day tasks, thus showing the depth of her disability, yet however she still manages to have children. Below is a link to a page on BBC 3:

A Special Kind of Mum

Are there any similarities?

Like most documentaries, these 3 examples clearly have a sense of individuality and uniqueness - the stories hasn't been aired before. Additonally, you can argue that they are all considerably emotive as well - the stories used can be related to by some of the audience, however this applies more for 'festivals, sex and suspicious parents'. 

This however can also apply for my other 2 examples however the audience can't relate to as much but tend to draw in a wider range of audiences. For example, some women can relate to the issues of pregnancy for 'a special kind of mum' as well as some audiences who may be disabled who can relate to the issues and troublesome of being disabled. Thus, the audiences in general aren't actually specific - they can vary depending on what the story is.

Despite this, when comparing documentaries to other programmes found on BBC 3, you can argue that they tend to clash in terms of style/approach. For example, other programmes have a set audience of younger people - programmes which are relaxed and less formal. This juxtaposes against documentaries which generally seem to be more serious and formal - perhaps focusing on a more sophisticated or even older audience. This therefore creates an opposition between programmes which arguably can be quite effective as it initially collects two types of audiences to watch programmes on the BBC channel.

One simiarlity all programmes have however is the idea of relaxing and watching TV. To me, I feel that all programmes remain entertaining which allows the audience to forget about everyday problems/life and to simply watch TV to relax.

Therefore, there is a clear juxtaposition in these types of programmes which is evident from the different types of audiences, however you can tell that BBC 3 clearly promotes entertaining as well as interesting and learning programmes.