How do television companies us scheduling to attract an audience

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How do television companies use scheduling to attract viewers to their channels?

        All television companies need to attract viewers, and they attract viewers in many different ways. I shall be exploring how channels use one method of attracting an audience, TV scheduling. I will find out the different methods of scheduling, how and why they are used, and why channels need to attract a large audience.

BBC

        The BBC is one of the only channels in the country that doesn’t use advertisements to make profits. Instead, they use merchandising. To make money, the BBC sells popular programmes to other countries, such as selling “Eastenders” to America. This makes millions for the BBC, but when they get this money, they don’t just give themselves a pay rise. Instead, they put the money back in to the programmes to make them better. The BBC also gains funding through the TV licence. A colour TV licence costs £131.50 and a Black and White TV licence costs £44. This is paid by everyone who owns a TV, and all this money goes to the BBC, so they can develop their programmes to gain more viewers. The BBC needs to attract a good share of the audience (around 30-40%), in order to give good reason for the TV licence. There are many popular shows which the BBC broadcasts, such as “Eastenders”, “Little Britain” and “Only Fools and Horses”.

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ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5

        The other Terrestrial channels all make their money from advertising. They sell the spaces in between programmes to companies, so one; the companies get more customers and two; they don’t have to charge anyone for watching their channels. Many people like this idea, whereas others don’t, due to the fact that their favourite channels get interrupted half way through and would rather pay to stop this. Different advertisement slots cost more money. This depends on how popular the show is. Programmes such as “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me out of Here!” on ITV ...

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