The two programmes both deal with the same conventions. These are called conventions of hospital dramas. Doctors and nurses in the two programmes both have to deal with moral dilemmas. Disputes between doctors and nurses arise. The use of technical language is used a lot to make the viewers respect the doctors for what they are doing and make the program seem more realistic. The viewers also treat them as professionals. Doctors and nurses home life often affects their work. A doctor or nurse often has a hidden secret, which could affect his/her work. A junior doctor often disagrees with a senior doctor in a life or death situation, sometimes the junior doctor is right, but sometimes s/he is wrong.
To be successful over a long period of time and keep the same amount of audiences, though, the writers have to develop the conventions and change them slightly. They may make them more detailed.
This, as the popularity and ratings show for the two programmes, works and in my mind the two programmes are still as good as when they first started, around ten series ago.
In order to pull big audiences the two programmes use fairly attractive doctors and nurses (which, in reality is very unlikely). To pull a mix of races, the doctors and nurses, in the two shows, are of mixed race. The writers know that this will bring a bigger audience to the show. For example. If a black doctor or nurse is used, this will attract a black audience.
I think that this is very successful and attracts a larger amount of people than it would if only white doctors were used. I think that it also attacks racism, and shows that there should be no racism in work places.
As I have already said, both programmes deal with moral dilemmas. Such as when a doctor, in ER, had HIV+. She had a moral dilemma in that she wasn’t sure to reveal her condition to her colleagues and risk her job. Or carry on working in the sense that she wasn’t being truthful. This intrigues the audience.
There is a massive difference between the two when it comes to adverts. ER has adverts, whereas Casualty doesn’t. ER could lose a number of its audience to other channels when the break starts. In order to keep the audience the storyline has to twist or have a cliffhanger to keep the audience on the same channel and watching the program. Casualty, on the other hand, doesn’t have to worry about adverts with it being shown on BBC1. But it does have to have a descent storyline, and the program has to be good to watch. The reason for this, being that the audience may get tired of the program and switch channels anyway.
With ER being such a popular and successful programme, the commerce that pay to show adverts, pay massive amounts of money. Massive amounts for a thirty- second space. But they know that many people will see their product. The advertising companies, in the US, pay between £364, 000 and £606, 000. With all this money being paid to the program, on top of all the money being spent, the writers and producers are able to pay big salaries to the programmes big stars. It also means that they have a lot of money to spend on “Set pieces”. These set pieces have a lot of action, special effects, etc, etc. They cost huge amounts of money to make. E.g. When Gerry fires a grenade launcher at an ambulance and blows it up.
However, casualty has a very small budget compared with ER. Casualty pulls in all the money from TV licensing. This TV licensing money is tiny compared to the amounts being paid, by advertisers, in the US, during ER.
With the budget of Casualty being minuscule compared with that of ER, the show doesn’t have big salary stars, or enough money for many expensive set pieces. The action scenes in Casualty are not of the high standards set by ER. Although the main characters, such as Charlie, are acted out very well, the support acting sometimes lacks reality and therefore ends up being quite bad.
I think the fact that of ER having a lot more money than Casualty rubs off on its success. And is the main reason for it being, probably, the more successful of the two.
The two shows are similar in the way that appeal to a wide target audience. They both, definitely, use a fair mix of sexes. The two programmes both, also, use a mix of races. The story lines are not racist or sexist, they are child- safe also. These points mean that both programmes can aim for a big target audience. As the storylines and characters of both shows appeal to a lot of ages, the audience ages have a wide range, stretching from, most probably, eighteen to forty nine.
ER uses a lot of music during the high tensely moments. This music emphasises the scenes seriousness and importance. However, Casualty uses no music apart from the starting and finishing credits. This, I feel, is one of Casualty’s weakness’.
Overall, I think that I have dealt with and discussed the points in this essay reasonably well. I personally think that ER is the better of the two. But then, it would have to be. The amount of money involved with ER is massive. This is one of the main reason’s why the program is so good.