Examine how soaps attract their target audience Essay

The reason I am writing this essay is because I am going to identify the difference between two soaps, one is Australian and the other is English. The Australian soap is called â€Å"Neighbours† and the English soap is â€Å"Coronation Street†. We are looking at these two soaps because we are seeing how successful each soap is at attracting its target audience. The first soap I will write about will be â€Å"Coronation Street† this soap is the English soap out of the two, so it is set in England at a town called Wetherfield, just outside of Manchester. In real life Wetherfield is a town down south. The set of â€Å"Coronation Street† has an old pebble street, with old terrace housing. There are many meeting places within the soap which are Peoples houses, but in the specific episode I am talking about the house that it is set in are Janise’s house. The houses that it makes the street typically English are old Victorian houses which are Terrance houses. The other meting places within the soap are Rovers Inn, the cafi and Roy’s Rolls. On the episode I watched the climate was very cold and cloudy. The main characters which appear on the soap â€Å"Coronation Street† are Janice and Les who are married but are getting a divorce. Dev and Gina are another two big characters in the episode I am writing about. They are getting married, in the episode we only see them on there hen and stag night. The other characters which don’t play much of a part in the episode I am talking are Deidre, Ken, Curly, Terry and Maxine. There are 10 storyline going on in â€Å"Coronation street†, I will tell you some of them. Deidre had a one night stand with Dev, but now Dev is getting married to Gina, so Deidre is upset. A surprise party is being organized of the happy couples getting married, which are Dev and Dina. Curly and his partner had a baby. Janice’s boyfriend Dennis died in a car accident. Last but not least Maxine is pregnant. The way the storylines are set out in the episodes is that the skip to one storyline at a time so it would be like a cycle e. g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. I think the best characters in â€Å"Coronation Street† are Dev and Dina, because they really do look like they are in love, as I don not normally watch this soap I could tell straight away that they were in love. Since I don’t have background information on the soap I can’t tell if Dev and Dina are together in real life or not, but if they are not they are really good actors. The best storyline in â€Å"Coronation Street† has to be the â€Å"party† that the street was organizing for the married couple to be, and how Deidre looks all upset and depressed. The way that the producer makes the soap â€Å"Coronation Street† typically English is the English accent is brought into the soap, many pubs in the street which England has take fleet for example we must have roughly about 10 pubs where I live. The way the characters use the typically English phrase â€Å"do you want a cup of tea? † which this phrase is often heard in the English language. Also earlier in the essay I mentioned that there were coble streets and Terrance houses. The target audience the soap â€Å"Coronation Street† is aimed at is mainly older people and their family and middle aged women. The theme tune makes you feel really old. The reason I said family was because â€Å"Coronation Street† is put on in prime time when all the family gets together. An middle aged women can convert to there life through an soap like â€Å"Coronation Street† there is also another reason an middle age women might watch â€Å"Coronation Street† this reason would be that there are many female characters in the soap. †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. One of the characters in â€Å"Coronation Street† is a certain race to this will encourage other races to watch the soap. Another character in the soap has they same affect on the audience and that is Roy because he owns his own company other people who think that they can’t relate to â€Å"Coronation Street† they watch how is business is going. I know this because my Uncle Robert does the same thing. The storyline with Janice and lose of her boyfriend is another eye catcher for the audience as many people can relate to it as they might have lost there boyfriend through death or just breakup. The other storyline with attracts the audiences attention is Maxine and her that she is carrying even tough the baby isn’t her boyfriends she will have to face the truth one day, another case of the same story is in â€Å"Eastenders† where Lisa has had Phil’s baby. The location of the soap â€Å"Neighbours† is set in Australia. Also in â€Å"Coronation Street† the soap â€Å"Neighbours† also has many meeting points which are people’s houses but in the episode i watched it was just â€Å"Lou’s place†. The other meting places were Good Hair Day Salon, the Dina, outside Karl’s warehouse and the school. The Climate unlike â€Å"Coronation Street† was sunny hot with a lovely clear sky. Some of the main characters which appear in the soap, are Karl and Susan who are married and have two kids called Stephanie and †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. Lou and Louise are other two main Characters in the soap and Lou is the Father of Louise. Sandy and John are married. And there are many other characters who are Libby, Drew, Paul, Felicity, Joe, Todd, Toady, Maggie, Emily, Evan, Lyn, Harold, Leo, Matt, Dee, Tess, Michelle, Joel and Sandy. There are only 5 compared to â€Å"Coronation Street† in which there are 10. In â€Å"Neighbours† Lou is losing Louise his daughter because he lost the Hearing. Stephanie has got a job interview, which she doesn’t get because her Mum and sister give her a makeover, in which the Interviewer did not like as Stephanie would be working with men. Stephanie also runs into an old mate who she new through Woody, as woody and him shared the same room in hospital. Leo’s dad recons that Leo is being bullied, so he takes action. As Leo confronts his dad to say that he wasn’t bullied but didn’t give certain people their essays that they paid for. Karl is receiving a delivery in which he hasn’t the slightest clue what the deliver contains. I think the best character in â€Å"Neighbours† is Lou as he has such a hard part to play, losing his Louise is a very heart breaking experience, which also brings Lou thinking how much one Human being means to him. I also recon the best storyline has to be Lou losing Louise, I does make you want to cry, it also brings the audiences emotions into the picture. The soap â€Å"Neighbours† is typically Australian because of the climate which I mentioned earlier on in the essay. The registration number on the car is Australian. At the beginning of the soap while the theme tune is playing the characters are all around a pool and are having a BBQ in which the Australians are famous for. The Target audience for â€Å"Neighbours† is completely different from the audience that â€Å"Coronation Street† is aiming for. The producer of â€Å"Neighbours† is aiming for a much younger audience than â€Å"Coronation Street†. The storyline where Lou loses Louise attracts too different ages of the audience, the younger and the older, because some kids could refer to Louise’s situation, and some adults can refer to Lou’s situation on letting Louise go. Early twenties are aimed at as well as Stephanie goes for a job interview in which she doesn’t get. Leo brings younger people to the audience as he is in high school, and Karl brings business people to the audience as he owns his own business in the soap the same as Roy in â€Å"Coronation Street†. My conclusion on the soaps â€Å"Coronation Street† and â€Å"Neighbours† is that â€Å"Neighbours† attracted the audience it was aiming for much better that â€Å"Coronation Street† as in â€Å"Neighbours† they brought the story of Lou and Louise. In â€Å"Coronation Street† there was much to relate to in my age group. As I have mentioned before Lou’s story brings everyone’s emotions together. As I do not normally watch these soaps I don’t see if â€Å"Coronation Street† relates to me or not.