Reflect and Perfect

          Media Christmas homework

Task 1) The Avengers and cuffs are different in many ways one of them is their audiences the audience of avengers lived in a different time to the audience of cuffs in the accepting 2010s whereas The avengers audience would have been very much against homosexuals and blacks as that was the normal belief in society in the 1960s.   

Background of Television in the mid-1960’s

Tv was restricted to only a few channels
Only 3 channels: BBC 1,2 & ITV
BBC2 not available on older tv's
Tv’s: Expensive ,small, black and white
No broadcasting for most of the day- all channels closed for night
Changing channels- Difficult, done manually (audiences were more loyal to one programme)
No home computing or technology to watch any other sort of programmes on
Itv started - 1955, allow advertisements online BBC, introduced TV game shows
By 1965- competition in the television market
Itv- was financially secured, television could be highly regulated

Ownership, funding and regulation 

-ITV & BBC not part of international media conglomerate (company that owns a lot of companies)

BBC- governed by Royal Charter and funded by licence-fee payers.
ITV- network of regional tv companies who competed with each other to provide programmes for the channel and provided regional content for transmission area.
Production company of The Avengers - ABC- Companies not allowed to merge(until after 1990)- British ownership was controlled by their regulator (ITA)

ITA: Independent Television Authority

ITV- Highly profitable and could afford more expensive budgets then BBC

Profitability of ITV let ITA insist on PSB requirements

Schedules includes PSB fare: single dramas, educational programmes, children programmes, art, news and current affair documentaries and more

BBC- self regulating - function carried out by a board of governors


Global TV

 World television was controlled by the US at that time

 British television production was protected by the rules pf PSB.

 the schedule reached its climax with The Avengers at 9.05pm.

 British television did compete on the world market, with productions being sold to countries overseas. (90 countries in 1969)

 A deal with the ABC required the fourth series of The Avengers to be shot on film & allowed high production values for television.

 Previous series were just filmed in the studio

 Editing was difficult and expensive so mistakes were left uncorrected.

 (1966) The fifth series of The Avengers was filmed in colour

 Production of international markets raised the prettied (cost) of television productions.

Budget of series 4 of The Avengers was £56,000 per show.

Reaching different audiences 

 Channel loyalty tended to split on class lines (ITV seen as working class).

 The rise of youth culture was suddenly 'cool' to be working class.

 The BBC was seen more as middle class.

In mid 1960's BBC's program, The Forsyte Saga, was a set of novels. Whereas on ITV, The Avengers was seen as mush more daring, youthful, irreverent and sexy.

 BBC remind London-centric.

 ITV had production centres in the North and midlands.

Targeting the audience

• BBC1 and ITV were aimed at mass audiences, both aiming to attract viewers so that they would remain for the whole evening.
• Broadcast flow was important- audiences should be led through a series of genres and formats to provide a rounded evenings viewings
• BBC2 was an exception and was consciously niche addressing a series of different audiences across one evenings schedule
• Tent pole scheduling- putting strongest program un he middle with weaker programs either side in hope the strong program will draw in viewers
• Shows such as the ‘avengers’ allowed tent pole scheduling 
• The series format dominated 1960’s television
• Narratives that resolved every episode were well suited to a channel- loyal audience, with no recording facilities
• Audiences can miss individual episodes of a series and still follow their favourite series
• There was less need to try and win loyalty to individual programmes by deploying on going serial narratives, due to the lack of competition in this era
• Television audiences were expected to be ‘light users’ (would have tv on in the background whilst they are busy doing things around the house) before prime time.
• On ITV weekdays in 1965 they scheduled programmes at specific times depending on the target audience and viewers
• the watershed at 9pm introduced in 1964 allowed for more adult programming such as the avengers.
• ITV shut down at about midnight on weekdays as thats when it was assumed that people would be in bed, and at noon on Sundays to allow families to have time for family lunches.
• The changes in Steeds character in the avengers to fit international stereotypes about English gentlemen proved to be successful, but the use of erotic imagery for example emma peel caused several episodes to be cut in America and ‘lost’ the midwest audience.
• it was the first British tv series to be shown on primetime network television in the US and achieved 28% audience share in 1966
• The mid 1960’s saw huge debates about permissiveness in society and on television 
• This was a time of rapid social change exemplified by a generation gap between a wartime generation celebrating values of duty and perseverance, and a younger generation celebrating values of freedom and consumption.
• Permissiveness was seen as lowering moral standards and coarsening language by its critics as a freeing society.

Personal identity-

-Tv audiences in 1960 were much more loyal to particular channels than contemporary audiences and used this loyalty in part to construct a sense of social identity.

-An ITV viewer sees themselves as more down to earth than BBC viewers. However BBC viewers see themselves as more cultured and better educated than an ITV viewer.

-These distinctions reflected a social context in which class was still important to people’s identity and brings a sense of belonging.

-Shows like The Avengers offered role models from the heroes: 

Steed= a debonair English gentleman who has the charm to enable him to team up with Peel.

Peel= the embodiment of ‘Swinging London’ in her self confident sexuality and savoir-faire.

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Social interaction and integration-

Tv was so important in 1960 because of its rareness.

There was normally only be one television in the household which means the whole family would come together to watch

Programmes which are unusual and interesting would generate discussion the next day amongst the audiences.

Audiences that used television as a substitute for real life social interaction would find these needs met by the recurrence of familiar characters.

In the case of The Avengers a familiar central pairing with a slightly enigmatic relationship to retain audiences interest aswell as being a communicating source about Britishness to countries all around the world.

Entrainment-

Audiences were much more naive about tv in the 1960s, a naivety that offered utopian pleasures- tv could represent a magical world of plenty into which audiences could escape.

The Avengers offered escapism through their representation of a world of competence, sophistication, humour, and heavy hint of sexual tension and eroticism.

Task 2) This view of homosexuality differs to society in the 2010s, as gay marriage was legalised In 2013, this is reflected in cuffs as Jake the main character of cuffs is gay. This can be said without any warning or worry of losing viewers and when he tells Ryan who is his partner and also the main character of cuffs and he has no reaction towards that statement which shows that it is socially accepted to be gay. Where as in the 1960s it was illegal to be openly gay this is seen in The Avengers where all of the cast were heterosexual  men and women especially steed and Emma who eve3n had from time to time tongue in cheek moments as if they were gay they would not be accepted by society  if you were you could be prosecuted and it was looked down upon in society an seen as a mental illness and if any television program included anything that could be perceived as homosexual they would have to warn the audience before the show aired in fear of losing viewers. 

Task 3) feminism is represented in avengers and cuffs through two characters in Avengers Emma peele who is the main detective alongside her partner she is the sign of empowering women with freedom of choice and by what she wears the leather cat suit shows her right to chose what she wants to wear. In the 60s and in Cuffs jo moffat who is a woman very high up in the police force representing the Morden idea of woman high up in society with power and freedom just the same as her male counterparts in the British police Force and with almost half of the police in cuffs are women these are all represented positively. This links to feminism by showing empowered women in everyday society .

Task 4)  Avengers and cuffs are different in many ways one way is there lack or use of multiculturalism.

 Avengers has a vary big lack of multicultrlism as the only characters in the program are white and a majority of males all represented as the leaders of their group such as Emma and steed are both white and everybody in little baizley we see is white . Where as in Cuffs the majority of the characters came from different ethnicities such as Ryan the lead character who is a African American male and there are police officers with an Hijab on and the boy who gets stabbed is from Asian decent most of the common stereotypes of people are countered in this episode. Most of the stereotypes are positive but there are a few negative ones such as that the white male is a racist which are negative.  

Task 5 )  How do gender Representations reflect the social, cultural, Historical contexts of the time with both set products? 

·     Gay marriage legalised (2013)

·     Equal pay act

·     Woman are seen to be just as strong as men

·     Emma is equal to steed

·     Woman given a choice

·     Joe Moffatt

·     Jake Homosexual and no reaction from Ryan

·     Women are not seen any different to the men of the police force

·     No segregation




Make sure you use quotation marks and capital letters when writing out the texts.