Research

  Research

Analysis of three posters                                     

Sherlock from BBC

In this tv series it is deemed as a mystery crime drama with thriller aspects to it. It is also set in Britain. The colour scheme of this poster is cool, dark, gloomy, ominous and mysterious just as it is specified to be in the genre. The fonts used for this is quite simple even though it had been withered into at the edges and cracks have seeped through making it even more intriguing for the target audience. The layout is quite simple as it is two men standing together seriously or somewhat with intimidation at a gloomy place. The target audience for this tv show can span from people who have read the books to people of many ages from teenagers to adults.

Life on Mars from the BBC 

 This is another TV show that does come form the BBC but has the elements of science fiction, cop drama, thriller and crime. It shows that it is science fiction by showing the 1970s aspects of the show with the outfits and the car the two men are standing near. The font that the poster uses is quite big and quite eye-catching. The colours used create a gradient around the tree main aspects of the poster as it goes from a dark brown to a lighter one to white then to a yellow brown again at the bottom. The target audience for life on mars would be around the estimated ages of 25-45 mainly being targeted at men due to the many elements of science fiction and that it involves a lot of fighting.         

SAS Rogue Heroes from BBC

Although being quite bright and standing out from the rest of the thriller tv shows there is the fact that this show has elements of thriller scenes due to it being revolved around a war time period. The colour scheme is quite contrasting as well as the beiges and the yellows are shown much more through a greenish turquoise background. The font that is used is like ones they use in war movies/ tv series to put on uniforms or crates and that it is also quite large it draws in the viewer.  The layout of the pictures shows soldiers at the foreground of the poster but in the background are planes flying in all directions through this greenish turquoise cloud. The target audience for this type of tv show would be people who are interested in war tv series or thrillers and mostly targeted for men.

Popularity of the three TV posters

BBC’s Sherlock Holmes was voted as the most popular character on television by international audiences as the main protagonist was played by Benedict Cumberbatch, sherlock had been voted popular by a third of the TV viewers that were surveyed. In the UK audiences grew up to over 10 million when watching the show.

SAS Rogue Heroes was the sixth most watched UK drama series of 2022 and became fourth most popular of the year. The first series achieved many reviews with positive reactions with the average of 6.8 million viewers as across the six-part run.

Life on Mars reached an average audience figure of 6.8 million viewers for its first series as it is a comedic drama tv show with a late time slot due to adult humor.

History of TV Thrillers

It has overlapping subgenres, they also characterized by the moods they elicit and the suspense they give their audience. Thrillers like to keep their audiences on the edge as a plot builds up and loads of plot twists, unreliable narrators and cliffhangers are used extensively. A thriller is often a villain driven plot with obstacles that the protagonist or hero must overcome. TV show thrillers came to the UK in the 1970’s.

Types of TV Thrillers

·         Supernatural/paranormal

-          Ghosts/spirits, haunted house, possession, devil, demon, hell, witches, occult and supernatural power

·         Crime

·         Psychological

-          Phobia, madness, paranoia, home invasion and survival.

·         Action

·         Monster

-          Zombies which can either be undead or a virus outbreak.

-          Vampire, werewolf, neo monsters, animals, nature, small creatures, sci fi, aliens, giant monsters, classic and mythological.

·         Killer

-          Slasher, crime, redneck and survival.

Audience figures

The most viewed tv thrillers are:

1.      The Day of the Jackal – 3 million in its first week

2.      Dexter – 8.2 million in total

3.      Breaking Bad- 2008 = 1.4 million then in 2013= 10.3 million

4.      True Detective – average – 11.9 million

5.      Reacher- 1.84 billion

6.      Law & Order: Special Victims’ Unit- 4.9 million

7.      Only Murders In The Building

8.      NCIS- 9.7 million weekly

9.      Criminal Minds- 6.7 million

10. Prison Break – first season was 10.24 million