Institutions

To fully understand television crime drama, you should understand that undustry behind the programmes. Producing and broadcasting a television crime drama is a highly technical process that requires a vast array of resources and equipment. Programmes have to be written, filmed, edited and involve hundreds of people in the production process.
For this reason, broadcasting has tended to be done by large media corporations who have those resources. Let's look at some of the major television instituations and their contribution to crime drama.

Terrestrial channels

BBC
The Broadcasting Corporation provides public service broadcasting to the United Kingdom. It is the largest broadcaster in the world as is funded by a licence fee that raises about 3 billion pounds a year. Unlike commercial television, it doesn't rely on advertising revenues, but operations under the public broadcasting remit to 'educate, inform and entertain'. In terms of crime drame, the BBC has been responsible for the production of a wide range of successful shows, as well as importing a number of American crime dramas.
Recent BBC productions have included;
New Tricks, Inspector George Gently, Wallander, Waking the Dead, Sherlock, Five Days, Criminal Justice and Luther.

ITV
The ITV channels - in particular ITV1 and ITV3 - show a wide range of crime dramas, including the recently cancelled and long-running The Bill. Classic crime examples include Foyle's War, Agatha Christie's Poirot, Maigret, Miss Marple Inspector Morse and A Touch of Frost.
ITV also has an interest in new crime drama, commissioned from the UK, such as Identity, Whitechapel, DCI Banks: Aftermath, Law and Order: UK, Murderland and also those acquired abroad eg Numb3rs.
ITV also hosts the Crime Thriller Awards on ITV3, which includes the People's Detective, where ITV3 viewers vote for their favourite. In 2010, the winner was Foyle from Foyle's War.

Channel 4 and More 4
Channel 4 shows some crime dramas, few of which attract vast audiences. Some, however, have been critically acclaimed a attract niche audiences eg Without a Trace, Southland and The Closer.

Five and Five USA
Five and its sisiter channel Five USA are well known for their raft of US crime dramas. These channels were taken over by new owner, Richard Desmond is 2010. He has said that his channels will continue to give priority to this genre, although this may change in the moblie media world. Programmes include: True Justice, Justified, the CSI franchise, The Mentalist, Law and Order and Dark Blue.

USES AND GRATIFICATONS THEORY

REMEMBER THIS -

This suggests there are 4 reasons why we need media.

1- For Information
2- For Escampism / Entertainment
3- For Personal Identity
4- For Personal Relationships

Theory

AUDIENCE
Uses and Gratifications Theory
- Explain how we 'use'the media and what gratifications (pleasures) we receive.


Hypodermic Needle Theory
- Early theory that suggest we are injected with ideas that we believe to be true

NARRATIVE
Todorov - 3 parts to a narratove (equilibrium, disruption, resolution)

Propp - character types (hero, villain, princess, donor, helper etc)

Levi-straus - binary opposites - narrative feature conflicts between opposing forces (good / evil etc)

Barthes - Narratives involve ENIGMAS - questions / puzzles to be solved by the audience

Enigmas

Who is this man?

What is in the rapping?

Why is he throwing it in the lake?

Why is he in a foreign country?

Who is this man

Why is he holding them houstage

what is it time for

why are they running

why is he playing chess

why is he starign at him

why are they hugging

who on the phone and why does he have 3 phones

how can he talk english

Enigmas in Crime Drama

Roland BARTHES is a theorist who looked into narratives (storylines) One conclusion he came to was that all narratives have ENIGMAS. These are puzzles / questions which have to be solved. Typically these are questions that are raised which the audience are encouraged to think about.

Venn Diagram

Crime Drama Characters