Introduction to Long Form TV Drama

What is a TV Drama?
A TV Drama is a series of episodes that create a narrative and tell a story to an audience.

Network Television
- Access to everyone. Therefore there is more exposure, so the content must be conservative/viewer conscious.
- Examples of US Network Broadcasters are NBC and CBS.
- They are controlled by a federal regulation that moderate if the broadcasters are satisfying their advertisers.

Cable Television
- Started in the 1970s.
- Consumers pay extra for this service.
- The first US subscription cable channel was HBO.
- A difference between cable and network is that cable have the ability to take more risks with the content they show.
- For example, The Sopranos featured on cable in the 2000s and was a very raunchy show. The risk paid off, and The Sopranos won various awards.

UK TV Drama
- Compared to the US drama, UK's drama is more conservative and less risk taking. Therefore there hasn't been a challenge mounted to the US cable channels regarding long form drama.
- BBC and ITV has been successful with their soaps (Coronation Street/Emmerdale/Eastenders) and relied on the same drama genre. In the 90s a show called 'The Bill', focusing on Police, was highly successful, however the plugged was pulled in 2010. The show began in 1984.

Viewing On Demand (VOD) via Subscription
- Television viewing still dominates any other method of viewing in the UK. Although this could change in the future due to the rise of technology (Laptops/Smartphones/Tablets), all offering On Demand.
- 3/4 UK households have Personal Video Recording which allows users to record a programme and watch it whenever suits them.
- Streaming and Streaming on Demand is becoming much more popular. For example, the rise of Netflix, Amazon Prime and Now TV.
- Netflix is the most used. 24% of the UK with 5 million subscribers.

Why do Audiences choose to watch Long Form TV Drama?
- The multiple episodes and series culminates to years of entertainment which overall creates and emotional connection/bond between the show and the audience. The audience will begin to feel emotions towards the characters e.g care for them, hate them etc.
- High quality narrative and storyline which engages audiences.
- Contains some of the worlds best writers and actors.
- Specific genres.
- Easy to follow narratives.
- Ability to catch up, record and watch on demand if an episode is missed.

Genres
- Horror
- Comedy
- Mystery
- Thriller
- Crime
- Drama

Themes
- Relationships
- War
- Location (Local Town/Pub/Football Club/Community/Village)
- Murder
- Family

Characters
- The characters in LFTVD must be interesting and relatable as this character will be watched for a plethora of hours so the audience must be engaged with them.

Factors for Successful TV Dramas
- High production values.
- An hour long episode per week.
- Familiar characters with a slow introduction of new characters that are interesting and relatable.
- Dramatic Cliff Hangers that keep the audience wondering what is going to happen next, and even ask people what they think too. This helps to spread word of the TV Drama and get more viewers. This can be over Twitter or through small chat at work.
- Various locations and scenes.
- Multiple small narratives within a large main narrative.