My Chosen Brief and Early Research

My Chosen Brief
A promotion package for a new soap opera, to include a TV trailer, together with two of the three following options:
- A listings magazine front cover featuring the soap
- Two hyperlinked webpage’s (with video extract) for the soap’s website
- A poster for the soap

My two chosen options are the Poster and listings magazine front cover.

Early Research

Define: Soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented on television or radio.

History of Soap Operas

The term Soap Opera has originated from the fact that for some of the first Soaps, the early sponsorship came from manufacturers of household cleaning products; while "opera" suggested that like an opera, the programme was to tell a dramatic story. Soap Operas began on the Radio in America, with a programme called "Guiding Light", in 1937, however, in 1952 it jumped from Radio to the TV. Many other soaps were also being broadcast on TV rather than the Radio and they began to spread across the world, growing in popularity. Coronation Street is the longest running TV soap in the world, however The Archers which is a BBC Radio programme is at the moment the longest running overall. The success of other Soaps in America, such as Dallas the Soap Opera suddenly became increasingly popular again in the 1980's which caused British soaps to change and develop as well as new soaps were broadcasted such as Eastenders and Brookside. Australian soaps such as Neighbours and Home and Away were also extremely popular which is thought to be due to them tending to be aimed at teenage viewers which had a knock on effect and caused the makers of British soaps to reconsider their target audience, characters and plots. For example, Hollyoaks is a British soap that is aimed at young people and it is a very popular soap among young people proving the decision to change target audiences was the correct action to take and consequently soaps are now more popular than ever with them being the most popular genre of TV programme watched.

Conventions of a Soap Opera
- Weekly, all year round e.g. Eastenders
- Storylines are often domestic and relationship based
- Characters all linked e.g. live in same area
- Aim to be realistic
- Set in one area
- Characters generally common, working class
- Often several storylines with the characters at the same time
- Episodes link together
- Typically end in a cliff-hanger
- Evening soaps that screen once a week are likely to feature the whole cast in each episode to show all of the ongoing storylines
- Popular among both genders and all age groups

Examples of popular soaps


UK
- Coronation street
- Eastenders
- Emmerdale


US
- Days of our Lives
- Guiding Light
- The Young and Restless
- Falcon Crest


Australian
- Neighbours
- Home and Away