Soap Opera

SOAP OPERANicolle Carter-Grice

Coronation Street, created by Tony Warren, and is generally the most t is an award-winning soap opera watched programme on British television.It is the longest running television programme in the United Kingdom, first broadcast on 9 December 1960, made by Granada Television (ITV Studios) and broadcast in all regions of ITV almost throughout its existence.

From its 1960 launch, Coronation Street was shown twice a week, on Wednesday and Friday evenings at 19:30. The weekly episodes were changed to Monday and Wednesday evenings at 19:30 when the programme went fully networked on Monday 6 March 1961, followed by the introduction of a third weekly episode, on Fridays, in 1989.As of 23 July 2009, Coronation Street is broadcast in five weekly instalments, at 19:30 and 20:30 on Mondays and Fridays, and at 20:30 on Thursday on the national ITV network.

This T.V. times magazine is a very early edition which just shows how long the show has been running, picturing two of the shows longest running characters, now the magazine is much more textually orientated still having a central picture generally being the highlight of the soap week. Although on newer versions soap magazines there are other smaller pictures around the outside of the magazine to attract other audiences that may not be interested in the main soap being promoted.

To the right are examples of more recent magazine issues:

EastEnders is a long-running, popular and award-winning television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985. It currently ranks as one of the most watched shows in the United Kingdom. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End of London The series was originally screened as two half-hour episodes per week. Today, four episodes are broadcast each week on BBC One and an omnibus edition screens on Sunday afternoons. It is one of the UK's highest-rated programmes, often appearing near or at the top of the week's BARB ratings. Within eight months of its launch, it reached the number one spot in the ratings, and has remained, almost consistently, among the top-rated TV programmes in Britain ever since.

There are many TV magazines with Eastenders storylines as the main article, this could be because it’s the biggest soap, but also because they have a bigger advertising budget than any other soap and this benefits them because they don’t have sponsorships like other soaps that are broadcast on itv and channel 4 such as Hollyoaks and Coronation Street. Hollyoaks who are sponsored by extra gum and Coronation Street by Harvey’s Furniture.

Emmerdale, known as Emmerdale Farm until 1989, is a popular and critically acclaimed British soap opera that has aired on ITV since 1972. It is set in the fictional village of Emmerdale (known as Beckindale until 1994) in West Yorkshire, England, and was created by Kevin Laffan, with Steve Frost and Gavin Blyth serving as Executive Producer and Series Producer respectively since 2009.Emmerdale is the third most popular soap opera on British television, behind Coronation Street and EastEnders.

The series is produced by Yorkshire Television and broadcast on the ITV network, and was first aired on 16 October 1972. It was originally conceived and broadcast as a daytime programme in an afternoon slot, becoming an early evening programme in 1978 in most ITV regions - but excluding London and Anglia, both of which followed in the mid-1980s. Until the mid-1980s, Emmerdale took seasonal breaks and was not an all year round soap. The series was first broadcast over the Christmas holiday period in 1988.

Emmerdale is shown on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at 19:00 and on a Thursday at 19:00 and 20:00 (as of 23 July 2009). Episodes are first broadcast on ITV1

Again here there is a very old edition of “TV times” with Emmerdale on the front cover and also a new version of “We love telly” its quite hard to find magazines promoting Emmerdale as with Coronation Street because they also have a sponsorship and adverts to make more money and are not as popular as Eastenders, who tend to be on most front covers.

Hollyoaks is a long-running television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was originally devised by Phil Redmond, who has also devised shows including Brookside and Grange Hill. The programme is set in and around the fictional Chester suburb of Hollyoaks and is centred around a local higher education college called Hollyoaks Community College with the characters generally being in their late teens or early twenties. Since 1995, the cast has expanded from just seven major characters to approximately 50 cast members.

The soap is currently produced by Lucy Allan, who replaced Bryan Kirkwood in 2009

Hollyoaks is produced by Lime Pictures and filmed mainly at studios in Childwall, Liverpool. The show currently broadcasts at 18:30 each weekday on Channel 4, with an omnibus edition on Sunday morning, usually at 9.50am but this time often varies. At 19:00 each weekday, one of Channel 4's digital sister stations E4 airs a 'First Look' feature, in which viewers are able to watch the next episode to be shown on Channel 4 the following day.

Hollyoaks is a very unconventional soap as it is aimed at a younger target audience (ages 15-27) and has non-linear storylines and non-diegetic sound which is uncommon for a soap opera. I could not find any magazines with Hollyoaks on the front cover due to it’s small viewing numbers of 2million and its specific target audience that generally wouldn’t buy TV magazines. Hollyoaks’ cast are generally younger members which makes it more appealing to the target audience due to its glamorous and non-realistic images in comparison to other soaps in Britain.