Eastenders
Eastenders currently ranks as one of the most watched shows in the UK. Its main storylines revolve around the dramatic domestic and professional lives of people who live and work in the East End of London. When it was first launched, within 8months it reached number one in the ratings and has consistently been near the top since. It was also one of the first shows to tackle different controversial issues on mainstream TV in the UK. The story lines are often repeated or repeated in a similar mannor over the years and episodes with different characters but the way in which this is done in a different and the dramatic yet realistic atmosphere that is created keeps the audience watching. For example, a crime may be committed but there will be several suspects all revealed in different ways, making the audience drawn in and always ending on a cliffhanger.
When it was first launched in 1985, the episodes were twice weekly and only half an hour long. However, nowdays, it is screened 4 times per week with half hour episodes. This is significant because it is emphasising the continued and constant popularity Eastenders has among the target audience.
Right: Dot, Lou and Ethel
Over the years the characters have changed alot, ranging in ages, race and sexuality. This allowed space for a wider target audience with young people becoming interested and following the show as Eastenders began to focus on the lives and problems of young people as well as those of parents and other family members. Older characters, such as Dot Cotton, represent the voulnerability and determination of older working class people deomonstrating them as people for younger characters and the youger audience to look up to in reality. As well as this, the inclusion of a range of characters of all ages creates a far more realistic atmopsphere and the lives of the characeters become more alive and meaningful to the audience. The fact that the producers of Eastenders have made the show so culterally diverse takes it away from the typical soap opera making it far more interesting and again, causing the appeal of the show to broaden to a wider target audience and the show became more realistic of the setting becuase of the culteral variations with the characters. This is very important becuase it is one of the key factors that has allowed Eastenders to become so popular amoung a larget audience as well as being one of the main factors that makes it different and far more intriguing than the typical soap.
Left: Queen vic pubHowever, the diverse range of ctaracters aren't the only thing that created the level of realism in Eastenders, but the storylines played a massive part. The writers wanted to create realism so they produced storylines that involved issues that very few mainstream TV shows had taclked before, for example. drugs, homosexuality, racism, mental illness, domestic violence, mugging, shoplifitng, divorce, prostitution, rape, teenage pregnancy and many more. This allowed the show to emphasise the importance of saftey, family and expressed the voulnerability of people, n ot only on the show but in real life. Eastenders made these problems real to people, it allowed people to see that they do happen but people didn't talk about it enough. By doing this the producers and actors of Eastenders not only made the audience aware of all these things but allowed them to confront them on top of making the show realistic attracting more viewers. Eastenders has always had a way of getting the audience emotioanlly involved too which draws the audiene in and allowing them to relate to the show. And its becuase of this that Eastenders has had such a larget impact on British television and will continue to do so for many years to come.
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is known as Corrie to many people, a nickname that has developed over the years. It is also the longest running British Soap Opera. Its slot is in prime time to allow the highest ratings possible from the target audience. The target audience is seen to be different by different people. Personally, I believe that it is aimed at an audience similar to that of Eastenders, young adults. However, because it has been around for so many years since the 60's, many older and elderly people watched Corrie as a young adult and have continued to watch it over the years. Corrie is set in Weatherfield which is a suburb of the city on Manchester and revolves around the lives of a set of fictional working-class characters. However, when Coronation street was launched in 1960, it was not a success to start with. It received alot of criticism but the target audience was immediately drawn to the programme and Corrie made number 1 in the ratings in 1961 and stayed there for the rest of the year. The storylines developed alot throughout the 1960's, the marriage of characters and the death of others, the birth of the Barlow twins, a murder, a train crash and the unexpected mystery poison-pen letter received by Elsie Tanner along with a coach crash. But yet again, Corrie was still receiving criticism, critics were saying that Corrie was unrealistic of life in the 1960's but demonstrated life in the 1950's. The storylines were then thought to be changed yet again, introducing story's about sex, drugs, homosexuality and pregnancy but all of the ideas were dropped in fear of the viewers disliking them. And still Corrie continued to be highly popular among its target audience, but why?
In the 70's many of the leading and core members of the cast left for various reasons and the viewings of Coronation street dropped to a massive low of only 8million viewers. From there, the roles of new characters were built up in the years of 72 and 73 and they then became the main characters of Corrie for many years. New storylines examined relationships between these characters, old and new, devloped and changed with age and background. Some of the main storylines were a warehouse fire, the birth of new characters that would become important in later years, another murder and lorry crash along with the maraige of Gail Potter and Brian Tilsley. During the 70's there was little competition for Corrie in its prime time slot and still it continued to be successful with millions of viewers despite some critics saying that Corrie still only presented a dated vision of working-class life.
Right: Ken Barlow in the first ever episode of Corrie
In the 80's, Coronation Street underwent its biggest changes yet with Ken Barlow as the only origional cast member in 1984 and the media yet again predicting the end of Corrie. However, when Ken married Deirdre Langton over 24million viewers tuned in to watch, demonstrating the immense popularity of Corrie with its target audience. When Brookside hit the screens in 1982 and Eastenders 1985 there was heavy competition in the prime time slot along with even more criticism aimed at Corrie for being old fashioned and dated. Finally, new producer David Liddiment took this criticism into account and began to modernise aspects of Corrie, for example, a 3rd episode being shown weekly, more location filming was introduced and a new studio was built. Corrie also became the first soap to gain individual and widespread media attention about a storyline, which was of the affair of Deirdre Langton. This allowed further storylines to devlop between the men involved along with deaths of other main characters causing the ratings to increase and achieve its highest ever rating, of over 26 million viewers.
Again, over the 90's and the years of 2000 up to 2010, storylines for Corrie have continued to change along with characters, relationships and addressing new issues. Some of Corrie's most famous storylines happened in the 90's and 2000's with the imprisonment of an innocent character. In the year 2000 Corrie celebrated its 40th year on air by broadcasting an hour long live episode and in the 2000's after the death of a newborn baby and the kidnapping of another, Alison Wakefield committed suicide; two famous storylines that opened doors for many other huge and successful storylines to develop in the years to come. Younger characters were promoted more rather than the older characters, allowing Corrie to hit another wave of viewers allowing the producers to broaden the variety of people that watch the show. On top of this, because Corrie has been running for so many years; this means that it has developed a very loyal audience who have grown up watching the show for generations and will continue to do so as long as it runs. The target audience is now younger people as well as older and more people were watching Corrie because it is so diverse and remains to be to this day.
Emmerdale
Emmerdale was launched in 1972 when it was originally called Emmerdale Farm until 1982 and until the mid 1980's it wasn't an all year round soap. For a long time it was deemed as boring and dull by the public and because of this it was rather unpopular, especially in viewing ratings, compared to Coronation Street and Eastenders. It was thought to be so boring by the public because it was simply based around a farm, and realistically, how exciting can the producers really make it? Some regions began to threaten to drop Emmerdale from the prime time slot; which made the producers realise that the show needed to become more juicy to really hit the top ratings and draw in the target audience. So in a bid to keep Emmerdale in its prime time slot a new fantastic, exciting and dramatic storyline of a plane crashing in the village killing many characters was written into the script in 1993 which transformed the public's and the press' opinion of Emmerdale. The audience began to grow because of the revamp of the storyline's and soon a dramatic disaster or tragedy was happening every few weeks.
Right: The plane Crash
In 1994 Mervyn Watson took over the production of Emmerdale. He had previously worked on Corrie and two of its most famous and popular storylines were created under his control as producer. From this it was clear that to save Emmerdale his instruction and influence was much needed. He decided to revamp and think again as to how he could increase the popularity and attract the audience that he needed. Watson decided to introduce new younger characters and the Dingles became the main characters.
It seems since this revamp, Emmerdale has grown in strength. In 1996 Emmerdale was the only show on ITV to show a consistent increase in viewings and as well as this in two one hour special episodes, one shown in February and the other in May 1997, Emmerdale gained 4 million more viewers than Eastenders. This may have been due to the fact that the episodes were specials but I believe that this also has a certain significance in showing how much Emmerdale had developed over the past few years from a dull, unpopular soap to a popular and largely successful soap that hits attracting its target audience on a regular basis. Emmerdale is now shown every day and has proven to be so successful and has a wider target audience, similar to Corrie. Like Corrie it has been running for many years and as gained a strong and diverse audience that will continue to watch it for years to come and becuase of this it too is one of the most watched shows in Britain besides Eastenders and Corrie.
Conclusion
To conclude, I think that its easy to see that all three of these shows are incrediably popular for both different and similar reasons. They are three of the most watched shows in Britian and all equally successful despite their competition between each other. They have all struggled to gain the trust of their target audience but after taking the given criticism on board; all three soaps, Eastenders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale have proved that they understand what the audience expects from a british soap opera and how to create it. The storylines of the soaps are similar in the drama and tradegey that happens on screen but every one is presented in a differnt way, creating its own individual atmosphere to attract and broaden their audience.
