His Dark Materials: Industry and Audience blog tasks

Audience

1) Read this audience rating guide for His Dark Materials. Based on the screening and this article, who do you think the target audience is for His Dark Materials and why? What about psychographic groups? You can revise Pyschographics here. 

• Aimed at a contemporary family audience for the BBC Sunday night broadcast slot (8.10pm)
  
• Targeted at fans of the fantasy genre along with fans of the original books by Philip Pullman.
• Diverse representations of gender and race may appeal to a younger audience.
• Rated for 14+ by HBO due to some scenes that may be frightening to younger children.
• The UK DVD release of His Dark Materials season 2 is rated 12 by the BBFC.

2) What audience pleasures are offered by His Dark Materials - The City of Magpies? Apply Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory to the episode. Make sure you provide specific examples from the episode to support your ideas.

Personal Identity:  Family, funny

Personal Relationships: 

Diversion (Escapism):


3) Thinking of the 3 Vs audience pleasures (Visceral, Vicarious and Voyeuristic pleasures), which of these can be applied to His Dark Materials? Refer to specific scenes or moments in the episode to explain your answer.

VICARIOUS PLEASURE: Experiencing something through the characters. 



4) How did fans react to Season 2 of His Dark Materials? What about critic reviews? You can find some possible answers for this in this BBC website article on the critical reception for His Dark Materials and watch the fan reaction video above. Shocked and in love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5Yyw_J0YW8. You can tell from her eyes and they widen

Industries

1) Which companies produced this His Dark Materials series? 

By the BBC and the American television network HBO

2) What were the UK viewing figures for A City of Magpies? How did this compare to season 1 of His Dark Materials? 

The first broadcasts of the CSP episode had audiences of 4.4 million on BBC1 and 227,000 on HBO.

3) What was American network H+BO's role in making His Dark Materials and why is this important? Look at the notes above for more on this. Co-production:

4) What famous stars are in His Dark Materials and why do you think they were selected for the show? Watch the Comic Con panel video in the notes above to see the stars talking about the show. As His Dark Materials was aimed at an international audience, the show features both British and American star names such as Brits Ruth Wilson and James McAvoy and American Lin-Manuel Miranda who wrote the smash hit musical Hamilton.

5) Who are Bad Wolf and what do they produce? Bad Wolf was founded in 2015 to create ambitious, imaginative and relevant drama for the global TV marketplace.  From its headquarters in South Wales the company has built up an international reputation as one of the foremost independent production companies in the UK, producing over 50 hours of high-end drama for broadcasters and networks including HBO, BBC, AMC and Sky.