4Urban

Our group is called the Out-betweeners. The reason we chose this name was because during the group-making period we were the only people who did not join a group at the time; it was also pun of outsiders and the UK sitcom Inbetweeners, which sounded good at the time. The Out-betweeners consisted of Connor Hynes, Noah Poole, and Suaibu Jallah. It originally consisted of Connor, Suaibu, and another person called Pansy Agamy. Noah joined the group a few weeks later, and Pansy left the group two weeks ago. We have been given the task of producing our own show on Channel4 called 4Urban, with our target audience being 16-21-year-olds. All groups have the same tasks and each of them have a specific purpose and focus of 4Urban, but our model focuses on adulthood and societal issues in the UK, specifically in London (namely the stigmatisation of mental health, gangs, and knife crime). On this show we also talk about preparation for adulthood. We will also add a YouTube channel to compliment the TV show.

Who is the target audience?

16-21-year-olds; teenagers & young adults. This channel is specifically targeted towards 16-18 year-old people as they are finishing compulsory education and are moving into adulthood. They are also in the E demographic as they are students, although a percentage of our target audience have part-time jobs. This is important to the producing of our show because although we intend to target students in Further Education, some may have jobs that they work over the weekend and holidays.

Why are we doing this?

We want to produce this show as follows:

Educate them about higher education, how to become responsible, more mature, and more self-reliant.

Raise awareness on societal issues and youth-specific problems. Help young people find new interests, how to form certain relationships, what to do concerning friends, dating, etc. To help other young people realise that they do relate to all these issues.

Help young people find new interests, how to form certain relationships, what to do concerning friends, dating, etc.

Raise awareness on societal issues and youth-specific problems. Help young people find new interests, how to form certain relationships, what to do concerning friends, dating, etc. To help other young people realize that they do relate to all these issues.

Where are the platform(s)?

A TV show which airs on Channel 4 from 7-8pm on weekdays.

Any Behind the Scenes, extras more suitable online, or clips/montages of all shows, will be posted on 4Urban’s YouTube channel daily. Syndication of TV shows will also be posted on YouTube.

What is the episodic structure?

Every episode is going to discuss a different topic that every 16-21-year-old person can relate to. From advice on adulthood, to societal issues & personal problems they go through, 4Urban aims to teach that age group how to deal with them. We will host guest interviews with celebrities & influencers once a week, whilst the rest of the school week will consist of interviewing one or two local young people who have gone through certain experiences. Hence, this show will take the models of Uses & Gratifications, and the Two-Step Flow Theory, as the audience can take some of the lessons in this show, via people who can relate to them the most.

Survey:

We have asked 16 people between the ages of 16 and 21 to fill in a survey on a new Channel4 topical show called 4Urban, which is targeted towards 16-21-year-olds in London. We are currently working on the premise of the show, which is about societal issues in London like knife crime and drugs, among others. The feedback we got from them is as follows:

Fifteen out of sixteen people believe that knife crime is a big issue. This would give us an idea on knife crime being a prevalent issue in our society, so that it is not entirely pointless to have a show about societal issues.

Thirteen out of sixteen people watch TV, and thirteen out of sixteen people can speak another language. Since most of this demographic no longer watches traditional TV (Trad-TV), we now know that people I this demographic still watch Trad-TV a little. This is why we are planning to launch a YouTube channel of the same name, with the purpose of syndicating episodes online, Behind The Scenes, and any extra content like trailers & spoilers of certain episodes. The language barrier can be a tough problem to fix, and thanks to the question on speaking another language, it is sorted via subtitles and audio description, which is also ideal for people who are deaf or blind.

40-50% of people who answered the survey would highly recommend 4Urban to their friends, families, colleagues, and acquaintances. We now know that when the show does go on air, that we will most likely have a huge audience out of the recommendations.

12-13% of people who answered the survey rated the probability of watching 4Urban as 10/10, which shows us that not a lot of those people would watch our show from a likelihood perspective. This result is a sheer contrast to the previous graph. When you compare the two graphs together, people from our target age demographic would rather recommend our show to their peers, than watch it. Now bear in mind that this is not a survey carried out anywhere, but rather in our class, so the results we got were not from a completely serious standpoint, but it still counts as a somewhat official survey as this is from our demographic, so we can accept that.

Strengths of 4Urban are:

It educates and informs our target age demographic (16-21-year-olds) on societal issues that affects this age group, specifically in London. This includes knife crime, drug use, bullying, etc.

As a TV show with a YouTube channel, the age group can go online to YouTube if TV does not suit them.

A 7-8pm time slot on weekdays may be well-suited to this age group, as many of them will be home from school by then.

Weaknesses of 4Urban are:

English may not be the first language of certain members of the age group, making it harder for them to understand most of the content, and therefore rendering the message of the show almost non-existent to them.

A lot of young people in this age group do not watch TV often, rendering 4Urban slightly less appealing as a TV show.

The 7-8pm time slots on weekdays may not be the suitable time for some members of this age group to turn on their TV. The time slot is not entirely unsuitable for our target audience though, as only most of them can make it.

Opportunities:

Raises awareness on these issues and gives certain communities a voice to influence everybody to tackle them.

Encourages drug addicts, knife-holders, and gang members to quit consuming drugs, dropping down knifes, leave their gang(s), etc., by showing them that they can change their old ways and become better people.

Advises 16-21-year-olds on adulthood and helps them deal with it better.

Threats:

There are certain members of this age demographic with a very unstable mental health or severe mental illnesses, and certain parts of the show, if not handled carefully and properly, may provoke them to commit theft, damage to property, murder, etc.

Some of the contents may offend certain people in the audience.

Younger audiences may also stumble upon this, and there is a 50% chance they may stress on these issues. The target audience may not handle these issues maturely or responsibly, and may cause trouble in the neighborhood.

The show may get discontinued or cancelled for reasons such as contributing to dangers like bodily harm of one person or persons. One example of this is the Jeremy Kyle Show, which was axed a couple of months ago, as it contributed to the suicide of one of the guests.