The channel has a target audience of 16-34 and has a variety of content, including comedies and dramas, sport, documentaries and more. The content on BBC is aimed towards a younger audience and is currently reaching 8.5% of people in its intended reach.
Due to being an online-only platform since late 2015, BBC 3 does have a smaller reach than it's opponents channels. Even so, the Top BBC 3 iPlayer shows are still reaching over 1 million people, with Drama "Thirteen" being the highest at 3 million viewers. These numbers exceed what the channel what was getting as a Television station, with content receiving less than a million viewers, mostly between 600-800,000 on average. iPlayer use increased since BBC 3's switch to online and BBC 3's content receives over 7% of its total requests.
BBC3 online controller Damian Kavanagh has stated that he is not just after large audiences. He is focusing on broadcasting new and interesting ideas and increasing the viewer's engagement. Much of BBC 3's iPlayer content is now being uploaded onto YouTube to help reach a further audience. Their YouTube channel now has over 1 million subscribers and it's most viewed video has reached 12 million views. Our documentary is going to have a YouTube release as it will enable us to reach an audience who does not watch content via the iPlayer.
WHY BBC3?
BBC 3 is the ideal platform for this documentary. When watching their content you find yourself being interested in subjects that you were not even aware of, this is done by storytelling that engages the viewer in the subject matter. This is what our documentary wants to do for club-level motorsport. We are bringing the club-level Motorsport scene to the public, who may only be aware of Formula One beforehand. We will be able to do this by connecting the viewer to the emotional side of the story which will lead them to follow my journey and understanding the route taken by a racing driver.
BBC 3's mottos are clear - Here is how Dream Chaser fits into BBC 3's needs.
Why Now? - Timeliness and Relevance
British Motorsport is in it’s prime with Lewis Hamilton is battling for his 5th World Championship and younger British drivers are winning many of the lower categories. This documentary aims to show the issues they may have faced on their journey in motorsport and what kept them passionate about their dream.
It is a perfect time to illustrate this topic as many young motorsport fans in Britain will be intrigued by the success of our top athletes, this documentary will give perspective on what the journey is really like. Our angle of "chasing dreams" is something that is also always timely and relevant.
Talkability
This documentary is designed to get people talking. We want to make people question themselves as to why they never followed their dreams. From the motorsport side, as a fan of the sport, it always frustrates me people say "They just sit down and drive, they are not athletes". This statement could not be further from the truth and this documentary will help show the reality of the sport.
Once we show our journey we want to discuss how hard it was and if we feel differently towards our dreams, once we have completed them. This will ideally allow the viewer to evaluate their situation and set themselves some goals to achieve. We want to show a positive side of living a dream, even through all of the struggles to make it happen. This will enable people to question why they never went out their way to achieve a dream. We want people to really think about this question and we hope it will enable people to make a difference in their life and chase it.
Originality
The subject matter of chasing your dreams isn't generally brought into the mainstream media or television culture unless something big happens that has changed peoples perspective on a situation. Once this is combined with Motorsport our show is truly unique and unlike any other show on BBC 3, while still being interesting and relevant to a large audience
There is no reason that this subject matter hasn't been talked about on a larger scale. It's definitely a passion project and the presenter and the staff around them need to be passionate about the subject matter to make a project like this. It will be exciting to explore a new route in Documentary making and understand a subject that we are passionate about and one that has never been talked about to this level before.
Why not another channel?
It's important to understand why this show is being broadcast to a BBC 3 audience rather than one of its competitors. This could have been Channel 4 or ITV2 as they have a similar audience age and style of content.
ITV2 and E4 had both gained popularity because of the change of BBC 3 over to an online-only platform. However, most of the gain in the audience was sitcom and reality Television that was transferred from BBC3 to Terrestrial Television and not content that the channel produced themselves.
ITV2 would not have suitable as it was very different to the style of the programme I a trying to achieve. The channel is aimed at reality television, not factual documentary storytelling. The show would not have fit the brand that ITV2 stands for and we did not want to change the story to fit a specific channels audience.
Channel 4, like BBC 3 is a channel that supports more obscure ideas and documentaries. To try and gauge if Channel 4 or BBC3 was better, I started by looking through the current documentaries on Channel 4. Channel 4's factual documentaries typically inject more humour. Whereas BBC3 has a stronger emphasis on the story and the people behind it. BBC 3's documentaries certainly do include some humour, but that typically comes from a specific situation that happens, rather than being forced upon us by the presenter.
There are exceptions, but BBC 3 definitely has a style of documentary making that is present throughout. Example work by Reggie Yates and Stacey Dooley helps set the tone for the style of documentaries that BBC 3 is trying to create.
BBC 3 certainly fits the style of the documentary we are creating and it also produces a lot of short-form content which our project would fit under. The fact that BBC 3 is online-only does not affect our potential reach, however, as the best BBC 3 shows generally get aired on BBC 2 and sometimes on BBC 1 if they seem to be good enough. As BBC 3 also produces a lot of content on a tight budget, it fits perfectly with our plan of a total budget of under £2000.
What Genre is it and why is it this Genre?
The genre of this Documentary is "Self Exploratory" it could also be called a "Performative" Documentary in which the presenter (and filmmaker) is viewable to the audience. Performative pieces also include an "emotional response" to this subject. This style of documentary tries to make the viewer feel they are apart of the topic and give a perspective on the reality of a situation that the presenter is experiencing.
This documentary works best in this genre because it connects the viewer to the subject matter in a much more personal way than if it was a Participatory documentary where the presenter tries to be involved but not so much that they actually live the situations they surround themselves in. They simply ask people about situations instead of actually doing it, which can lead to the truth being slightly changed. Less perspective is given to the subject matter as the presenter themselves does not know how the situation actually feels
It also works much better than observational documentary storytelling as the viewer has little connection with the people on screen, as we would not know the backstory of the characters in this format. Observational documentaries also would distance us from the production value as you would have to place cameras in hidden positions so that it does not affect the reality of each scene. As soon as the camera is visible without knowledge, it can change peoples reactions and what they do.
We know that a Performative documentary allows myself as the contributor to be involved in the subject, meaning I am able to gain greater knowledge of the situation, giving us a deeper understanding of the issue. This format also allows us to be creative with our cinematography meaning we can test ourselves in new situations, rather than sticking to a format restricted by cinematography. This genre will allow us to explore our subject in the most genuine way, allowing our documentary to have a personal story which allows the viewer to connect.
References
The BBC 3 Audience: https://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/tv/articles/bbc-three
BBC Viewing Figures: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/aug/22/bbc-youth-viewing-bbc3-tv-itv2-e4
Performative Documentary https://collaborativedocumentary.wordpress.com/6-types-of-documentary/
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