Review of British soaps

Soaps

There are many current mainstream soaps aired on British TV and the majority of the soaps are British. Examples of current mainstream British soaps would be Eastenders, Coronation Street, Brookside, Hollyoaks and Emmerdale.

Eastenders is one of Britain’s most successful television soap operas. First shown in 1985 it has regular half hour primetime viewing slots, three times a week. Within a year of its launch it reached the number one spot in the ratings, knocking Coronation Street off the top spot (which it had retained for a number of years), and has almost consistently remained amongst the top five programmes ever since.(average viewing figures per episode are around 16 million)

The programme is set in Walford, a fictitious area of London’s East End, and focuses on a number of mainly working class, often interrelated families living in Albert Square. Most of the action takes place around the local pub, ‘The Queen Vic’, and in the local café. Eastenders has similar characteristics to other mainstream British soaps like Coronation Street. For example… working class families and the presence of strong female characters e.g. Pauline Fowler and Deidre Barlow.

Eastenders is a typical soap opera, due to it maintaining two or more major with several minor storylines at any one time, and it ends with cliff-hangers.

One of the reasons Eastenders retains its undoubted popularity is due to its extensive issue exploration. Throughout its history it has focused on issues such as drug addiction, abortion, AIDS, homosexuality, racial and domestic violence, murders and attempted murders, teenage pregnancy and adultery. All these issues are relevant to everyday life. Relevance is very important to why soaps are, and remain popular. The audience wants to watch issues which are relevant to the world we live in. A good example of this is the storyline in Eastenders of teen pregnancy, where Vicky gets pregnant and has an abortion.

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Eastenders tries to be realistic and relevant rather than just issue-led; this makes it more appealing to the audience. Relevance is also very important as it makes the soap more realistic if the issue that are used reflect normal life.

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Coronation Street is the longest running, and also one of the most successful British TV soap operas. It was first shown on ITV on Friday the 9th December 1960. Its broadcasting duration has a lot to do with its retained popularity as many of its viewers are loyal and have continued to watch it since the beginning. This is why, out of all the current mainstream British soaps, Coronation Street has viewers with the highest median age of 53. Eastenders has viewers with a median age of 40, Brookside is 46 years old, and Hollyoaks is 27 years old.

Coronation Street is known for its realistic depiction of everyday working-class life in a Northern community. It is set in a fictional area of Weatherfield in a working-class area of north-west England.

Another reason for it retaining its popularity is due to its strong characters and northern roots. And its sense of community has created a loyal following. From its opening sequence with scenes of terraced houses, there is a strong sense of regional and local identity which is also shown through the dialect of the characters. This programme shows a high degree of realism due to its everyday looking homes, pub, shops, streets and characters.

The storylines of Coronation Street normally concentrate on relationships within and between families rather than on social issues and issues that are currently present in the media like in the newer soaps e.g. Eastenders and Brookside. Like Eastenders, Coronation Street also has an average audience of 16 million, and its longevity and success retain its audience.

Mediational techniques are used in soaps. Unlike in Australian soaps, British soaps mainly have the use of diagetic sound; this makes it more like real life, therefore making it more realistic.

Also they normally use 2 cameras and this also makes it more realistic. The use of the ‘over the shoulder shot’ gives the audience the impression that they are seeing it from the characters point of view. For example when Dirty Den returned to Eastenders we see his reunion with Sharon and we see him from over her shoulder and we see the silhouette of her head, making us believe that we are seeing him through Sharon’s eyes. This is very effective and gives a sense of realism to the scene.

Soaps such as Eastenders and Coronation Street, and even radio soaps like The Archers are scheduled with omnibuses. This is so that viewers/listeners who miss episodes during the week are able to watch/listen to the episodes in a repeat show. This allows the soap to attract the largest audience possible and to retain its popularity by giving more people the opportunity to watch it. Soaps also try to avoid being scheduled at the same time. This is so that viewing figures remain high and loyal viewers are not made to choose which soap to watch.

Radio soaps like The Archers are extremely different to TV soaps; therefore they have different ways of projecting realism. The Archers is a daily fifteen minute serial of country life. It is much harder for a radio soap to be realistic than it is for a TV soap, as the listeners cannot see normal everyday thongs which present the idea of realism. This may be why it’s not as popular as TV soaps because people don’t find it as realistic enough, also its not very relevant to the majority of people’s lives as it is about a farming community. Also it has a majority of older viewers who have remained loyal since it began in the 1940’s. Not many younger people listen to The Archers as it is associated with older people and agricultural issues.

There are many reasons for soaps to be more popular than others. They must have better storylines which are more interesting, gripping and dramatic; also the storylines must deal with issues of everyday life as this makes the soap more realistic and relevant to the lives of the audience. The soap must have good strong actors and some stereotyped characters which the audience can relate to.

Scheduling is also very important to how popular a soap is. If the soap is broadcast at primetime it is more likely that the soap will get a larger audience, also if the programme is scheduled at a time suitable for its audience it will increase the chance of popularity.

I think overall Eastenders is more popular than Coronation Street and other mainstream British soaps because although it maintains the important soap opera qualities, it distinguishes itself from other British soaps by appearing courser, faster paced and more dramatic than Coronation Street, more humorous than Brookside and more realistic than Hollyoaks and Emmerdale.

Eastenders also has a variety of issues presented through the different characters. This makes the viewers more involved with the families and personal lives of the characters and with the realistic situations and personal dilemmas they go through. And the genre has retained its undoubted popularity among the British audience and has established itself as a piece of primetime broadcasting in Britain.