Research and Planning: E4 and the Brief

E4 was launched as a pay-TV companion to Channel 4 on 18 January 2001. Channel 4 is a publicly-owned, commercially-funded public service broadcaster, they do not receive any public funding and works across television, film and digital media. 

The channel E4 with a demographic aged roughly 15-35 and psychographic of working classes and lower middle classes regularly shows programs such as The Inbetweeners, Rules of Engagement, 2 Broke Girls, New Girl, How I met Your Mother and Made In Chelsea. 

I believe that E4 has achieved their primary target audience, being teenagers and young adults as the program The Inbetweeners holds the channel's record for most watched programme, pulling in roughly 3 million viewers for every episode of its third series in 2010. Made in Chelsea also shows that this is the channels primary target audience by what they wear and the dialect used as it is usually spoken by teenagers and young adults. The interaction with social media reinforces the idea of the primary audience aimed at ages 16-24 as they are in the category that is most influenced by social media.

The secondary target audience would be a slightly older demographic, those aged roughly 30-50, who may of fitted into the primary target audience in earlier years, and enjoy replays of some slightly older shows. Another reason I believe that this would be the secondary audience Is because they may relate to shows such as This England '86, '88 and '90 as they may of grown up in that era and experienced it in a similar way. Additionally in the show Gogglebox they use a range of ages in the programme from 16 to 50, showing that the secondary audience is shown in a few of their programmes, but not as many as the primary audience. 

After looking at Channel 4's other channels such as Film 4, it seems that it more focused towards the channels secondary audience. During an average week the channel would show films ranging from 1950's to 2014. The main films during a weekday would range from films produced in the 1950's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's. occasionally Film4 has the odd few films that are aimed at the primary target audience, which are usually screened on a weekend or late at night when someone of their primary target age group would be most likely to watch a film. 

Here is the listings for film4 on a Thursday and a Friday.

E-Sting

An E-sting is a channel ident made specifically for E4. Best described as an animation, or motion picture that appears in the breaks either before or after a progamme begins/ends. The initial purpose of an E-sting is to promote the corporation, the brand and to give the channel coverage. However another purpose is to make the audience known of what channel they are watching, so that if they are enjoying a good programme, it reminds them what channel is screening this for you. It's also a way for the channel to promote their website or any other sites they have that the audience can interact with, it is the reminder of brand. 

The E Stings are produced by members of the public in an open competition on E4's website. Sixteen of the entries are short-listed every year, and aired on TV to allow the public to vote for the best E Sting.

Examples of E Stings



In this E-sting it begins rather dull with the rain which leads up to the logo of E4 lighting up and creating better weather. This could suggest that E4 is a channel that will cheer you up and make your day better, showing the channel in a positive light. I believe the audience for this covers the 16-24 category due to the cut out paper people at the bottom of the screen look like they would fit into that category. However it could also appeal to the 30+ as well as the 16-24 year olds because everyone can relate to the feeling rain makes us feel, sad and dull, and suggests E4 is here to make your day better and change your mood. I believe this is a successful E-sting because the E4 logo is shown throughout which keeps it in the audience minds and is recognizable, it is also shown in a positive light which will help those remember. Additionally the paper people cut outs move closer together as the E4 light shines, this suggest this channel is good at bringing people together to watch good programs, again another positive point that will help the audience remember.



This E Sting is a computer animated comedy, made for the teenage demographic, maybe 16-24 years of age due to the humour. This E Sting consists of several sloths celebrating over some decks, and eating a giant E4 shaped leaf. I liked this E Sting because it was funny, and the animation style really stands out with its high quality look, and plenty of details throughout,  I believe this is a successful E-sting due to the fact that the E4 logo is shown throughout which keeps it in the audience minds and is recognizable, it is also shown in a comedic way which will help those remember and it could also represent that the channel shows humorous programs which reach out to that demographic.



this e-sting is both surreal and comedic, I think it is aimed at a family audience based on the characters represented in the sting. I personally enjoyed the e-sting because of it's unique style, the animation quality is fantastic and the e-sting is entertaining overall, It's a successful E Sting as it shows the E4 logo and reaches out to E4's demographic audience.

Planning & Preparation

 To prepare for producing my own E Sting, I have been experimenting with different types of animation.

In groups, we produced a Lego stop motion animation; our one featured a brick character getting kidnapped in a hovercraft. We found that it was rather difficult to keep a smooth movement when working with the hovercraft as we had to hold it in each shot as well as making sure we didn't move the Lego too little or too much.

In groups, we produced a live action animation which featured Adam riding on a wet floor sign. We had to be extra careful to keep the action continuous to make sure that each photo created an action, I found editing quite difficult as it took a while to get all the shots in order and to avoid continuity errors.